The Missouri Senate has advanced legislation that may displease the court.
The issue is capping punitive damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.
The bill being considered not only limits a legal system fundamental - trial by jury - it would replace a previous law deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
Some history is helpful.
Commonly known as "tort reform," the legislation would change some of the procedures for civil lawsuits involving wrongful acts or infringements of a right (torts) - including a cap on non-economic damages, such as for pain and suffering, awarded to plaintiffs by juries in medical malpractice cases.
The issue is hardly new.
Lawmakers in 1986 imposed a cap of $350,000 and included an inflation factor. A subsequent law, in 2005, reset the cap at an equivalent amount, but with no inflation factor.
The Missouri Supreme Court in 2012 found the law unconstitutional. Judges ruled 4-3 that the cap conflicted with "a common law right" to a trial by jury.
Proponents of tort reform contend the absence of caps on non-economic damages is driving medical professionals from Missouri to other states where they can practice with less fear of frivolous lawsuits or unpredictable, outlandish jury awards.
Opponents, and jurists, argue the caps undermine the fundamental right to a trial by jury that dates to the early 1800s.
The bill's sponsor - state Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla - said the language of this year's proposal removes the English common law backdrop "as it relates to claims arising out of the rendering of or failure to render health care services by the health care provider."
The case also had been made that the caps do not conflict with the right to a jury trial, because a jury would still decide the facts in the case, if not the amounts. The Washington Legal Foundation reported last fall: "Virtually every other state court (except Missouri's) that has considered the constitutionality of punitive damages caps had held that such laws to do not violate the jury trial right because the jury's fact-finding function is preserved."
During Senate debate on this year's bill, the singular cap was separated into multiple limits, depending on the type of medical issue. The caps range from $400,000 t0 $700,000.
If tort reform becomes law, the courts will need to determine if this is an either/0r question, or one of degree.
Juries have been known to award damages that might be considered excessive and unsupported by the evidence.
A question the courts may face is whether limiting non-economic damages is a reasonable solution? Or, is a jury trial - a fundamental of the U.S. Constitution - inviolable?
Winston Churchill, the late prime minister of the nation that gave us English common law, is credited with the quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Similarly, our legal system may be the worst form of justice except for all the others that have been tried.