The California Court of Appeal’s Second District this week handed down a published opinion that makes it tougher for skilled-nursing operators to use MICRA to cap pain-and-suffering awards when the harm stems from custodial neglect. At the center of the ruling is a key distinction: injuries tied to everyday care failures such as supervision, hygiene, nutrition and hydration, versus injuries that arise from the negligent rendering of professional medical services.
In a press release via PR Newswire, Lanzone Morgan LLP said the published opinion in Aud v. RRT Enterprises, LP reversed a trial court order that had cut a jury’s noneconomic award down to $250,000 and held that MICRA’s noneconomic cap does not apply when the injuries flow from custodial neglect rather than from professional medical treatment.
The underlying jury verdict and its size were detailed by PRWeb, which described a roughly $2.3 million verdict in Los Angeles after allegations of repeated failures at Country Villa Wilshire Convalescent Center. Court filings available through Trellis show the complaint alleged lapses in supervision, assistance and other custodial duties that the plaintiff’s lawyers argued produced the bulk of the harm.
What the Ruling Changes
The court’s opinion focuses on the “nature of the conduct” rather than the simple fact that a defendant is a licensed health care provider, which means custodial failures are treated differently from malpractice when courts apply MICRA. The panel tied that analysis to the California Supreme Court’s reasoning in Holland v. Silverscreen Healthcare, Inc., which drew a line between professional medical services and the basic custodial care that nursing homes provide.
Legal Implications
MICRA’s limits on noneconomic damages are codified at Civil Code section 3333.2, and those statutory ceilings apply to professional-negligence claims but not, the appellate panel said, to harms traceable to custodial neglect. That distinction could affect how trial judges handle post-verdict reductions and how defendants and insurers approach settlement talks in elder-abuse cases involving skilled-nursing facilities. The MICRA framework is set out in Civil Code §3333.2.
Anthony Lanzone, principal at Lanzone Morgan LLP, called the decision “an important recognition that nursing homes do far more than provide medical treatment,” and credited the firm’s appellate attorneys for securing a published opinion, according to the firm’s release. The ruling is expected to influence pending and future elder-abuse appeals across California as lawyers and lower courts apply the custodial-versus-medical line the Second District described.
