By Andrew Wheeler, SACRAMENTO BEE – CAPITOL ALERT
December 16, 2019
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article238351588.html
A surgery gone wrong ended boxer “Sugar” Shane Mosley’s career. Now he’s fighting to change a California law that caps certain medical negligence lawsuit payouts .
Mosley is headlining a Monday lunch and panel discussion for medical negligence survivors and advocates. He is intended to be the face of the campaign to pass the Fairness for Injured Patients Act at the ballot box next year.
A 1975 California law limits medical negligence quality of life and survivor damages to $250,000. The act proposes to adjust that amount for inflation and, in cases involving death or catastrophic injury, to allow judges and juries to ignore the cap.
The act is championed by the group Consumer Watchdog, whose president, Jamie Court, believes 2020 is the year to get it passed.
“[2020] is the year to beat big money because there’s a blue wave, and we’re surfing the blue wave. If there’s any time in history when we’re going to be able to take on hundreds of millions of dollars from the medical industry and win, it’s [2020],” Court said.
While it would be unusual for an industry to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat a ballot measure, it would not be without precedent. Dialysis companies spent $111 million to defeat Proposition 8 in 2018, and pharmaceutical companies spent $109 million to defeat a measure limiting prescription drug costs in 2016.
Joining Mosley and Court on Monday are retired Sen. Barbara Boxer, author Christine Pelosi, and several medical negligence survivors.
Frank Fat’s Restaurant is hosting the event. Doors open at 11:30 a.m., the panel begins at 11:45 a.m. Afterward, Mosely and others will walk to the Governor’s Office for a 1:30 p.m. meeting about the act.
