Western Steamship Lines, Inc. v. San Pedro Peninsula Hospital

—The question presented is whether Civil Code section 3333.2, limiting recovery of noneconomic damages by an injured party against a health care provider, applies in an action for partial equitable indemnification by a concurrent tortfeasor. After careful consideration of the public policy underlying the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), of which section 3333.2 is an integral part, we conclude that such limitation is necessary to effectuate the statutory scheme and that it is consistent with common law principles of implied indemnity requiring joint liability as a predicate to recovery. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal, which declined to extend the coverage of section 3333.2 to the facts of this case.

I. Facts and Procedure

On October 28, 1983, Ann Lennon, an assistant purser for plaintiff, Western Steamship Lines, Inc. (Western), became seriously ill while working aboard one of its cruise ships. Lennon, who suffered from diabetes, was attended to for several days at sea by the ship’s medical staff. When the vessel docked, she was rushed unconscious to defendant San Pedro *105 Peninsula Hospital (the hospital) where she was…

—I dissent.

The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA) limits the size of any award of noneconomic damages in an action for injury against a health care provider based on professional negligence. (Civ. Code, § 3333.2.) The Court of Appeal here held that the claim for indemnification sought only economic damages; therefore, the claim did not come within MICRA’s express terms. The Court of Appeal also concluded that a “dispassionate reading” of MICRA showed that if the Legislature intended to apply the statute’s limitations to actions for equitable indemnity it failed to do so either by word or context. Nonetheless, the majority gratuitously apply this limitation to the claim on the basis of a vague “broader examination” of whether the recovery was “appropriate under all relevant circumstances.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 107.)

A decade ago we reviewed a challenge to another section of this statute. I pointed out then that the section “benefit[ed] the wrongdoer at the expense of his victim . . . .” (American Bank & Trust Co. v. Community Hospital (1984) 36 Cal.3d 359, 387 [ 146 Cal.Rptr. 182 , 578 P.2d 899 ] (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).) In addition, I observed that the…