Georgia court throws out legislature-imposed ceiling on court-awarded damages

Word that the Supreme Court for the state of Georgia had thrown out as unconstitutional a state law limiting the amount of damages that could be awarded to victims of medical malpractice raises the possibility of the return of respect for civil rights for all U.S. residents. Monday's ruling found the law, which capped damages for pain and suffering at $350,000, violated the constitutional right to trial by jury because it limited the right of juries to determine the outcome of lawsuits. “The very existence of the caps, in any amount, is violative of the right to trial by jury,” Chief Justice Carol Hunstein wrote in the unanimous decision, according to the New York Times. The ruling upheld a lower court's decision that found the statute unconstitutional because it prevented Betty Nestlehutt, a Marietta, Ga., real estate agent disfigured by unsuccessful facelift surgery, from receiving the full $1.26 million in damages awarded by an Atlanta jury after she sued her doctor. The verdict included $900,000 in compensation for pain and suffering. “The bedrock of our democracy — our ability to self-govern at the ballot box and in the jury box — remains intact,” said Adam Malone, the lawyer who represented Nestlehutt. Of course not everyone agreed with the decision. Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, the physicians group that performed the surgery, could not be reached for comment, the Times said. But a leading Georgia Republican, Nathan Deal, who resigned from his long-held seat in the U.S. Congress last week to run for governor, criticized the ruling as "a setback" for Republican-led tort reform efforts in the state, according to WGCL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta. "This ruling is a setback for the effort to reduce health care costs for Georgians," Deal said. "This is important to all Georgians. Tort reform helps reduce the cost of health care to individuals and stops doctors from leaving our state, as they did prior to its passage." Thirty states and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have imposed caps on jury awards in malpractice cases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Times said. Such caps have been struck down by courts in New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois since the 1980s.

Top commander wants U.S. to figure out what it wants to do in Afghanistan

Well, it certainly is nice to hear some common sense now and again. We're speaking, of course, of Sunday's broadcast of an interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who has urged U.S. President Barack Obama to commit tens of thousands more soldiers to battle to stabilize the country and defeat the Taliban, according to Cable News Network (CNN). McChrystal said the key to winning in Afghanistan is gaining the support of ordinary Aghanis, many of whom have turned against the United States and its allies over what they see as indiscriminate bombings and high civilian casualties. "The greatest risk is . . . to lose the support of the people here," McChrystal said on the CBS show "60 Minutes," CNN said. "If the people are against us, we cannot be successful," McChrystal said. "If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can't be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically." The United States has supplied 60 percent of the combined force of nearly 100,000 soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. U.S. and allied forces were dispatched to Afghanistan after determining that the radical Islamic group al-Qaida was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Al-Qaida was under the protection of another radical Islamic group, the Taliban, which was then in control of Afghanistan. The troops drove the Taliban from power but were unable to locate al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden despite years of searching. Obama has called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" and has authorized 21,000 additional soldiers to be sent there to battle a resurgent Taliban, but he has started a process of re-evaluating the U.S. engagement. McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 70,000 more troops when he makes recommendations to the president in the coming weeks. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates told CNN on Sunday that Obama could turn down his generals' requests for more troops, as urged by some Democratic Party leaders in Congress. "The reality is, do we need additional forces. How many forces? And to do what?" Gates told CNN. "It's the 'to do what' that I think we need to make sure we have confidence, we understand, before making recommendations to the president." What's that? The administration is still figuring out the "to do what" in Afghanistan? Yes, it certainly would be nice to know what the troops are fighting and dying for in Afghanistan before risking any more lives -- ours and theirs.