A contentious issue in the Iowa Legislature is surfacing again as lawmakers wrangle over restoring the Grow Iowa Values Fund and whether to include caps on noneconomic damages awarded by juries. The issue comes up again because Gov. Tom Vilsack vetoed a bill that would have placed a $250,000 cap on punitive damages, and last year struck it from the Values Fund legislation, which the Iowa Supreme Court said in June was improper.

Vilsack’s political opponents are quick to point out that he’s an attorney who once headed the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association, as if that alone were the reason for his veto. It’s more complicated than cronyism.

Proponents of tort reform argue capping punitive damage awards will improve the business climate in Iowa and result in an overall reduction of the malpractice insurance premiums doctors pay, yet fail to cite empirical evidence that such savings have been achieved in states that have imposed limits on quality-of-life damages.

Emotional arguments for tort reform are deflated alongside a U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and Campaign for Litigation Fairness survey of corporate America that ranked Iowa as one of the top five states for a fair and reasonable litigation environment. Further, defendants have prevailed in 90 percent of the medical malpractice and professional liability cases that have gone to trial in the past several years, both nationally and in Iowa. Consider, too, that there are actually very few civil jury trials in Iowa in which plaintiffs seek monetary damages.

Noneconomic damage limits are particularly punitive to women, minorities, the elderly and the poor, who generally have less earning power than white males and, therefore, suffer lower economic losses.

Iowans by nature are conservative and, as jurors, they haven’t given excessively high damage awards. The clamor for tort reform in Iowa is industry-driven, based more on temporary spikes in malpractice insurance premiums than actual need. Malpractice insurance cost increases can be directly linked to lower investment income by insurers, a lack of competition for malpractice insurance and other industry factors, not to runaway juries. It’s a political smoke screen. Iowa doesn’t need tort reform, and if lawmakers ever get around to restoring the Iowa Values Fund, damage caps shouldn’t be on their agenda.