Lopez

Opinion of the Court by Liu, J.

Under a provision of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), damages for noneconomic losses shall not exceed $250,000 in “any action for injury against a health care provider based on professional negligence.” (Civ. Code, § 3333.2, subds. (a), (b); all undesignated statutory references are to the Civil Code.) An action is based on “professional negligence” and thereby subject to section 3333.2’s cap on noneconomic damages only if a health care provider’s services are “within the scope of services for which the provider is licensed” and “are not within any restriction imposed by the licensing agency or licensed hospital.” (§ 3333.2, subd. (c)(2).) We granted review to determine whether section 3333.2 applies to actions against physician assistants who are nominally supervised by a doctor but receive minimal or no actual supervision when performing medical services. Construing the statute in light of its purposes and our precedent, we hold that section 3333.2 applies to a physician assistant who has a legally enforceable agency relationship with a supervising physician and provides services within the scope of that agency relationship,…