Petersen & Petersen Secures Landmark Appellate Victory: Ohio’s Medical Malpractice Damages Cap Overturned for the Catastrophically Injured
- January 31, 2025
- PetersenLegal
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On January 30, 2025, in a decision that reshapes the legal landscape for the most seriously injured patients in Ohio, the 8th District Court of Appeals ruled in Paganini v. Cataract Eye Center of Cleveland, 2025-Ohio-275, that Ohio’s statutory cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases is unconstitutional as applied to individuals who have suffered catastrophic, permanent injuries.
The case involved Mr. Paganini, a 90-year-old man who lost his eye after a post-surgical infection was misdiagnosed and left untreated. After a Cuyahoga County jury awarded him $1,487,500, the defense moved to reduce the non-economic portion of that award to $500,000 under R.C. 2323.43(A)(3). That statute imposes a hard cap on damages for “permanent and substantial physical deformity” or “loss of a bodily organ system”—precisely the kind of harm the jury concluded Mr. Paganini endured.
But the trial court refused to apply the cap, holding that doing so would violate Mr. Paganini’s constitutional rights. On appeal, the 8th District affirmed that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to him, finding that the damages cap failed to meet even the most deferential standard of judicial review. In a meticulously reasoned opinion, the appellate court applied the rational basis test and concluded that the cap bore no real and substantial relationship to its stated purpose: lowering healthcare costs. The court emphasized that limiting damages for a small group of severely and permanently injured patients—like Mr. Paganini—does not significantly affect malpractice insurance rates or healthcare costs.
The court further found that the statute was arbitrary and unreasonable when applied to victims of catastrophic malpractice, quoting the Ohio Supreme Court’s powerful analogy from Arbino v. Johnson & Johnson:
“If a man’s leg were cut off by a doctor in surgery and he sought non-economic damages for the catastrophic injury, the damages would be limited to $500,000 under R.C. 2323.43(A)(3). Yet, if the same man were to be run over and lose his leg by the same doctor on the way home from the hospital after a successful surgery, that man could recover all non-economic damages… This is not reasonable or logical.”
The court found this statutory framework illogical and unjust—penalizing victims of medical negligence while offering no measurable benefit to the public.
This victory was made possible by the exceptional appellate advocacy of partner Todd Petersen, whose brief writing and oral argument shaped the court’s understanding of the constitutional issues and the stakes for victims like Mr. Paganini. His work ensured that the court did not just see the legal flaw in the statute—but the human cost of letting it stand. The decision is now binding precedent in Cuyahoga County and sets the stage for future challenges to the cap in cases involving life-altering, permanent injuries.
At Petersen & Petersen, we are proud to lead in moments like this—where the law meets principle, and where real people need real advocacy. It is our hope that this decision may be the beginning of a long-needed course correction in how we value the lives and suffering of those most harmed. The decision is included below:
2025-Ohio-275