Fairness for Patients Act - CA Ballot Proposition

LAWSUIT FILED ON BEHALF OF 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHOSE LIFE WAS UPENDED BY MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

 

For Immediate Release: January 26, 2022

Contact: Max Szabo, max@szaboandassociates.com

Voters Will Decide if Mia Moreno’s Life is Worth Just $250k in November

SANTA ANA – A lawsuit has been filed in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of 7-year-old Mia Moreno by Nicholas Rowley of Trial Lawyers for Justice.  Mia’s mother Bree, and her father Nelson, are the signatories to the Fairness for Injured Patients Act, on the November ballot in California, which would finally change a harmful cap set in 1975 on justice for patients.

 

“While Mia and my family will suffer for decades to come, MICRA allows malpractice cases to go unpunished and enables insurance companies to get richer at a steady and unmatched pace,” said Nelson Moreno, Mia’s father. “Her mother had to quit her job to provide Mia with full time care.  The assistance we need to manage this tragedy has been limited to $250,000, an amount that insults our family’s everlasting pain and suffering.”

 

“Negligence by doctors and the hospital turned their lives upside down, but it’s MICRA that robbed them of their livelihood,” said plaintiff’s attorney, Nick Rowley. “Mia turns 8 next month, but the trajectory of her life will has been forever altered by medical negligence.  As a result, Mia lives with cerebral palsy, so she has little control over her body’s movements and will require lifelong care.”

 

According to court records, the Moreno’s allege professional negligence (medical malpractice) in connection with Mia’s heart stopping after surgery when she was just a month-and-a-half old. Mia had been negligently over-sedated and left without monitoring. Because of MICRA’s limit on noneconomic damages imposed by the California Legislature in 1975, Mia’s pain and suffering for her entire life is valued at no more than $250,000.

 

The Fairness for Injured Patients Act (FIPA), will finally adjust for inflation the $250,000 cap set in 1975, bringing it up to $1.2 million. It gives the power back to judges and jurors who will be able to decide if compensation above the cap is fair in cases of catastrophic injury or death. Juries will finally be informed about the existence of a cap.

 

“We’re fighting for justice for Mia and her family, but the only way we’ll ever truly be able to do that is if we change a nearly 50-year-old law put in place by the insurance industry that strangles patients and their families when they are harmed by medical negligence,” added Rowley.

 

The insurance industry is funding a nearly $50 million dollar campaign to oppose changing the 50-year-old law that harms patients.

 

The defendants are Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Pediatric Subspecialty Faculty, Inc. The case number is 30-2022-01241908-CU-MM-CJC.

 

For more information about the Fairness for Injured Patients Act go to https://fairnessact.com/.

 

 

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