Maryland's Cap on Pain-and-Suffering Damages: The 2015 Numbers and the Policy Fight
A Maryland jury can sit through two weeks of testimony, deliberate carefully, and decide that a catastrophically injured person's pain, disfigurement, and lost quality of life are worth $3 million. And then, after the jurors go home, the judge is required by statute to cut that number down — without the jury ever knowing it. That is Maryland's cap on noneconomic damages, and if you have an injury claim in this state, it shapes your case whether anyone mentions it or not.
What the cap covers — and what it doesn't
Maryland Code, Courts & Judicial Proceedings § 11-108 limits "noneconomic damages": pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of consortium, and similar non-monetary harms. The cap does not limit economic damages — medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, and future care costs are recoverable in full, whatever they are.
The cap started at $350,000 in 1986, was reset to $500,000 for causes of action arising on or after October 1, 1994, and has increased by $15,000 every October 1 since 1995. The number that matters is the cap in effect when your cause of action arises (generally, when you are injured), not when you file suit or go to trial.
The current numbers
| Cause of action arising | General cap (single claim) | Wrongful death, 2+ beneficiaries (150%) |
|---|---|---|
| 10/1/2012 – 9/30/2013 | $770,000 | $1,155,000 |
| 10/1/2013 – 9/30/2014 | $785,000 | $1,177,500 |
| 10/1/2014 – 9/30/2015 (current) | $800,000 | $1,200,000 |
| 10/1/2015 – 9/30/2016 (scheduled) | $815,000 | $1,222,500 |
Two important wrinkles:
- Medical malpractice has its own, lower cap. Under CJP § 3-2A-09, health-care malpractice claims are subject to a separate schedule: for claims arising in 2015, the malpractice cap is $755,000, with a combined 125% limit when a wrongful death claim and a survival claim are brought together. The two cap systems do not mix — which cap applies can itself be a litigated question in cases on the border between ordinary negligence and medical injury.
- The jury never hears about it. The statute directs that the jury may not be informed of the cap. Jurors award what they believe is just; the court reduces any noneconomic award above the cap afterward.
The policy fight
Maryland's cap has been controversial for three decades. The Court of Appeals of Maryland upheld it against constitutional attack in Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342 (1992), and reaffirmed its validity in DRD Pool Service, Inc. v. Freed, 416 Md. 46 (2010). Meanwhile, bills to repeal or raise the cap appear in the General Assembly session after session, backed by patient and consumer advocates who make a straightforward argument: the cap takes from the most badly hurt people — the burn victims, the paralyzed, the parents of children who died — and gives nothing back to anyone else. Insurers and providers respond that the cap keeps liability insurance affordable and predictable.
Wherever you come down on the policy, the practical reality for claimants is asymmetrical: the cap only ever operates against the people with the gravest injuries. A fender-bender case never touches it. A quadriplegia case slams into it.
Consider what that means concretely. Two Marylanders are hurt by the same negligent driver. One suffers a broken wrist that heals; a jury values her pain and suffering at $75,000, and she recovers every dollar. The other is left with lifelong paralysis; a jury values his noneconomic loss at $5 million, and the statute reduces it to $800,000 — sixteen cents on the dollar of what his own community's jurors decided was just. The cap does not touch the first case at all, and takes millions from the second. That is the design, and it is why the annual Annapolis fight never truly ends.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
First, do not let the cap discourage you from pursuing a serious case. Economic damages are uncapped, and in catastrophic cases the medical and wage numbers are usually the largest part of the claim. Building those damages — with life-care planners, economists, and treating physicians — is where thorough lawyering earns its keep.
Second, the "date the cause of action arises" rule matters. Because the cap steps up each October 1, the applicable figure is fixed by when the injury happened, and in some cases (long-developing harms, wrongful death) identifying the correct cap year takes real analysis.
Third, in wrongful death cases, the number of beneficiaries can change the available cap by hundreds of thousands of dollars. These are not details to leave to guesswork.
We try serious injury and wrongful death cases across Maryland and structure every case with the cap in mind from day one.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.
Update: The cap keeps rising $15,000 every October 1 — for later figures, see our coverage of the 2019 numbers and Maryland’s damages caps heading into 2022.