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August 3, 2020

Lopez v. Ledesma (2020) 46 Cal.App.5th 980, review granted July 29, 2020, S262487

The Supreme Court has granted review to determine if a physician's assistant who treated a patient without direct physician supervision is entitled to invoke the limitation of Civil Code section 3333.2 on noneconomic damages. The 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) limits non-economic damages resulting from professional negligence by a healthcare provider. However, Section 3333.2 excludes from the limitation damages caused by acts that are not “within the scope of services for which the provider is licensed and which are not within any restriction imposed by the licensing agency.”

Maria Lopez sued two physician assistants for wrongful death, alleging they had failed to diagnose her infant daughter’s illness. The trial court found that physician assistants were treating patients without supervision in violation of physician supervision regulations, and negligently failed to diagnose her daughter’s condition. An award of $4.25 million in noneconomic damages was reduced to $250,000 under the MICRA cap. Lopez appealed, contending the MICRA cap was inapplicable to the physician assistants because they were acting outside the scope their license restrictions. 

A Court of Appeal majority affirmed the application of MICRA, holding the physician assistants acted within the scope of their licenses. A dissenting justice concluded that the physician assistants failed to practice within their license restrictions because they knowingly practice autonomously without any meaningful physician supervision.

The Supreme Court will now review the judgment of the Court of Appeal.