By DAN MARGOLIES

A Kansas law that caps jury awards for noneconomic damages — things like pain and suffering — violates the right to a trial by jury, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

“This is huge,” said attorney Thomas M. Warner Jr., who represented Diana K. Hilburn, the plaintiff in the case. “We’ve had these caps on the books since 1986 in Kansas. Basically, the politicians decided that they would be in a better position to determine the amount of damages for noneconomic damages than juries. And so this decision allows juries to make that decision again.”

Kansas is one of many states that have limited noneconomic damages, particularly in medical malpractice cases, out of concern that runaway jury awards cause skyrocketing insurance premiums and hurts the economy.

The cap has been revised upward over the years and now stands at $325,000. It was scheduled to increase to $350,000 in 2022.

Hilburn was injured in 2010 when the car she was riding in was rear-ended by a semi-trailer truck. Hilburn sued the truck’s owner, Enerpipe Ltd., for negligence. A jury awarded her $335,000, including $301,509.14 for noneconomic losses.

Because Kansas at the time capped noneconomic damages at $250,000, the total award was reduced to $283,490.86. Hilburn appealed and the Kansas Court of Appeals rejected her argument that the cap was unconstitutional.

In reversing that decision, the Kansas Supreme Court held that the cap violates the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which states that the “right of trial by jury shall be inviolate.”

The court rejected its own reasoning in a 2012 medical malpractice case that the right to a jury trial could be modified if certain conditions were met.

The Kansas Court of Appeals found those conditions were met in Hilburn’s case, but the Supreme Court said it should never have applied that test to a fundamental constitutional right.

“ … we simply cannot square a right specially designated by the people as ‘inviolate’ with the practical effect of the damages cap: substituting juries’ factual determinations of actual damages with an across-the-board legislative determination of the maximum conceivable amount of actual damages,” Justice Carol Beier wrote for the court.

Justice Marla Luckert dissented, saying she would have followed the 2012 malpractice case and upheld the cap.

The case drew widespread interest. The Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Kansas Association of Defense Counsel filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the court to uphold the damage cap. The Kansas Trial Lawyers Association filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging it to find the cap unconstitutional.

“This is a game-changer,” said David Morantz, who wrote the trial lawyers’ brief. “It’s a very big ruling.”

“This has been an issue that has troubled and really hurt personal injury victims for years,” he said. “It’s been an issue of the Legislature trying to substitute its judgment for that of Kansas juries and preventing Kansas juries from deciding the full measure of personal injury victims’ damages.”

Judges will still retain the ability to rein in runaway jury verdicts, under a legal doctrine known as remittitur.

“But today’s opinion does a good job of putting these issues and questions back in juries’ hands and keeping the legislature out of it,” Morantz said.

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.

RENO COUNTY — One person was injured in an accident just after 10:30p.m. Saturday in Reno County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2018 Toyota Rav4 driven by Wade A. Phillips, 46, Lewis,  was  eastbound in the right lane of U.S. 50 just east of Whiteside Road.

The Toyota struck a pedestrian identified as Christopher Marshall, 25, Hutchinson, who ran across the highway.

EMS transported Marshall to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center. Phillips was properly restrained at the time of the accident and not injured, according to the KHP.

HOLTON, Kan. (AP) — A Nebraska woman has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for a November 2017 head-on crash in northeastern Kansas that killed four members of a Sabetha family who were returning home from a state championship football game.

49-year-old Maria Perez Marquez, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced Friday to four years and one month in prison. She pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and three misdemeanor counts of vehicular homicide for the crash that killed 42-year-old Carmen Ukele, her 11-year-old daughter, Marlee Ukele, and her brother-in-law, 62-year-old Stephen Ukele. Carmen Ukele’s husband, 60-year-old Lee Ukele, initially survived the crash but died last month of his injuries.

Investigators say the family was returning home from watching the Sabetha High School football team win the state championship when Perez Marquez crashed into their minivan while trying to pass another vehicle. At the time, two of Lee Ukele’s sons played on the team.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The percentage of Kansas high school graduates who attend state universities has fallen in recent years, and the schools are considering how to stop that decline and make up lost revenue.

In 2010, 55% of Kansas high school graduates enrolled at a state higher education institution, but by 2017 — the most recent year for which data is available — that figure had dropped to 50.3%, according to a May report by the Kansas Board of Regents.

“It’s certainly a concern,” Dennis Mullin, chair of the Regents, told The Lawrence Journal-World . “We better figure out ways to bring people into higher education.”

A healthy economy could be behind the fall. Economic growth leads to more jobs available for people with only a high school diploma, according to Elaine Frisbie, the Regents’ vice president for finance and administration.

Mullin suggested the cost of attending university also acts as a deterrent.

“The stronger economy has really taken away people who were in higher education,” he said. “They say, ‘Hey, I spend $25,000 on education or I can get a job for $45,000 a year.’ And they couldn’t do that a couple years ago.”

Shifting demographics could also play a part. The Hispanic population has grown significantly in southwestern Kansas, but Mullin said higher education is not always popular in that community due to cost, a need to support the family, and the desire to maintain a traditional family unit in one place.

The University of Kansas has taken steps to balance the loss of revenue from homegrown students by targeting out-of-state enrollment. Those students pay higher tuition and their numbers help keep the university enrollment level steady.

“KU took the strategic tack to make the university known nationally, recruit academically successful students and help them succeed to graduation once they are here,” university spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said.

Regents took it a step further, suggesting the higher tuition paid by out-of-state students could allow schools to decrease costs for students from Kansas pursuing higher education in their home state, thus boosting homegrown enrollment.

“We have to reach out beyond our borders,” Mullin said. “We’re going to have to draw people into the state in hopes that they are going to stay. … They are helping subsidize Kansas students.”

DAVIESS COUNTY,  Mo. —The Daviess County prosecuting attorney has charged 38-year-old James Aaron Griffin in Friday’s shooting of a NW Missouri police officer with Assault First Degree; Armed Criminal Action and Unlawful Use Of A Weapon, according to Daviess County Emergency Management and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

As of 3 p.m. Saturday, Daviess County Emergency Management reported the Trenton Police Officer was still in critical but stable condition.

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By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

A female Trenton police officer has been shot and gravely wounded while transporting a prisoner to St. Joseph for a mental evaluation.

The prisoner was also wounded.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol is declining to identify the officer, but reports she is in critical condition after being shot in the stomach.

The patrol says the Trenton officer was taking 38-year-old Jamey Griffin to St. Joseph Friday afternoon on U.S. Highway 69 for a mental evaluation at Mosaic Life Care. A struggle occurred in route inside the vehicle. The officer suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Griffin was shot in the hand. He was restrained.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration is facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, meager food and other hardships at border holding centers, with some people at an encampment in El Paso being forced to sleep on the bare ground during dust storms.

The Border Network for Human Rights issued a report Friday based on dozens of testimonials of immigrants over the past month and a half, providing a snapshot of cramped conditions and prolonged stays in detention amid a record surge of migrant families coming into the U.S. from Central America.

The report comes a day after an advocate described finding a teenage mother cradling a premature baby inside a Border Patrol processing center in Texas. The advocate said the baby should have been in a hospital, not a facility where adults are kept in large fenced-in sections that critics describe as cages.

“The state of human rights in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is grave and is only getting worse,” the immigrant rights group said in its report. “People are dying because of what is happening.”

Five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by the Border Patrol, including a flu-stricken teenager who was found dead in a facility migrants refer to as the “icebox” because of the temperatures inside.

Customs and Border Protection responded to the complaints by saying: “Allegations are not facts. If there is an issue it is best to contact CBP directly. In many cases the matter can be resolved immediately.”

The agency also cited its response to a critical inspector general’s report last month, in which it said the government is devoted to treating migrants in its custody “with the utmost dignity and respect.”

The Trump administration has blamed the worsening crisis on inaction by Congress.

Many of the complaints center on El Paso, where the inspector general found severe overcrowding inside a processing center. A cell designed for a dozen people was crammed with 76, and migrants had to stand on the toilets.

With indoor facilities overcrowded, the Border Patrol has kept some immigrants outside and in tents near a bridge in El Paso with nothing but a Mylar foil blanket. Others have been kept in an empty parking lot, where migrants huddled underneath tarps and foil blankets repurposed as shade covers against the sweltering heat.

A professor who visited two weeks ago said it resembled a “human dog pound.” The Border Patrol responded by adding additional shade structures, but migrants are still kept outside in temperatures approaching 100 degrees.

Migrants in El Paso and elsewhere also complained of inadequate food such as a single burrito and a cup of water per day. Women said they were denied feminine hygiene products.

Another complaint is that migrants are kept in detention beyond the 72-hour limit set by Customs and Border Protection. Some reported being held for 30 days or more, and one told The Associated Press she had been in detention for around 45 days.

The teenage mother with the premature baby, for example, spent nine days in Border Patrol custody after crossing the Rio Grande with her newborn, according to a legal advocate who visited the girl in a McAllen, Texas, processing center.

An exodus of people fleeing poverty, drought and violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has led to a record number of migrant families being apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months. Agents made 132,887 apprehensions in May, including a record 84,542 adults and children traveling together. Those apprehended also included 11,507 children traveling alone.

President Donald Trump’s $4.5 billion border request for things such as an expansion of detention, medical care, food and shelter has languished on Capitol Hill since he sent it over six weeks ago, with House Democrats at odds with the White House. Congress is set to go on a break in two weeks.

Lawmakers are becoming increasingly agitated.

“In the first five months of this year, the number of apprehensions at the border has already exceeded the population of Atlanta, Georgia,” said Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.

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