The End of Tort Reform?: the Constitutional Battle Looms over Mississippi

Thirty years ago, rising health care costs sparked a panic in state legislatures. 1 As a result, states began looking for ways to tame increasing health care costs. 2 Many, including insurance companies and health care providers, attributed the rising costs to increased litigation, excessive jury verdicts, and rising insurance premiums. 3 As a result, legislatures turned to statutory caps on noneconomic damage as the preferred method to control these costs. 4 The basic reasoning behind these caps was that increasingly large jury verdicts for pain and suffering and other noneconomic damages ultimately caused insurers to greatly increase the cost of insurance, or alternatively, stop offering coverage altogether due to high costs. 5