McClatchy reports Supreme Court justices seem “genuinely split over when and how states can take a share of medical malpractice payments awarded Medicaid beneficiaries.” The case involves a 13-year-old North Carolina girl who has been “profoundly disabled since an allegedly botched caesarian-section delivery,” resulting in “diagnosis of cerebral palsy.” The court’s answer, “expected in June, will shape how North Carolina and other states reclaim at least some of the Medicaid funds spent on a patient’s care. North Carolina’s current law allows the state to claim one-third of a medical malpractice settlement or judgment awarded a Medicaid patient.” Attorneys for the girl’s family, as well as the Obama Administration, believe that the state’s “automatic one-third may be excessive.” Sonia Sotomayor, the “most persistent critic of North Carolina’s position,” asked, “How can you predict, particularly with a statute that wasn’t based on any empirical data, that 30 percent is normally the right amount?”
From the American Association for Justice news release.
