Damages in Washington: no cap on a birth injury case

Families who search online about birth-injury lawsuits often read about damage caps, like California’s MICRA law. Washington State is different. There is no cap on what a jury can award in a medical malpractice case, whether for the cost of a child’s care or for pain and suffering.

That does not mean every case is worth a large amount: the family still has to prove what happened and what it will cost. This page explains why Washington has no cap, what the law counts as damages, what parents can recover in their own right, and the rules that apply when money is paid for a child.

Why Washington has no cap

In 1986 the Legislature passed a limit on non-economic damages, RCW 4.56.250, which set the maximum by a formula based on the state’s average annual wage and the injured person’s life expectancy. In Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp. (1989), the Washington Supreme Court held that the limit violated article I, section 21 of the Washington Constitution, which says “the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.” Deciding the amount of damages is the jury’s job, and a statute that changes the jury’s finding by formula takes that job away.

The statute stayed on the books, unenforceable, until 2023, when the Legislature repealed it in Substitute Senate Bill 5087, a bill that cleared out laws the Supreme Court had held unconstitutional. Chapter 7.70 RCW, which governs medical negligence cases, contains no damages cap. The result: neither economic nor non-economic damages are capped in a Washington birth-injury case.

What counts as damages

Washington’s insurance code, which requires insurers to report malpractice claims, uses plain definitions. Economic damages are “objectively verifiable monetary losses”, such as medical expenses and loss of earnings. Non-economic damages are “subjective, nonmonetary losses”, such as pain, suffering, mental anguish, disability or disfigurement, emotional distress, loss of society and companionship, and destruction of the parent-child relationship (RCW 48.140.010).

In a birth-injury case, non-economic damages reflect a child’s loss of the ability to walk, speak or play, and the daily reality of living with a disability. Economic damages are usually built from a life care plan prepared by medical and economic experts, because a child with a permanent disability may need care for sixty or seventy years. They can include:

• Past and future medical care: hospital stays, surgeries, medications, specialists.
• Therapies: physical, occupational, speech and behavioral therapy, often for life.
• Equipment and technology: wheelchairs, braces, communication devices, feeding supplies.
• Home and vehicle modifications, and the cost of attendant or nursing care at home.
• Special education and vocational support.
• Lost earning capacity: the income the child would have earned as an adult.

What parents can recover

Washington gives parents a claim of their own. Under RCW 4.24.010, a parent or legal guardian who has regularly contributed to the support of a minor child may bring an action for the injury or death of the child. Damages can include the child’s health care expenses, the loss of the child’s services and financial support and other economic losses, plus the loss of the child’s love and companionship, the loss of emotional support, and injury to or destruction of the parent-child relationship, in amounts the jury finds just.

Each parent may recover for his or her own loss, regardless of marital status, even though the statute creates a single cause of action. If only one parent sues, the statute requires notice to the other parent, who must join within twenty days or lose the right to share in the recovery.

If a baby does not survive, RCW 4.24.010 also covers the death of a child, and the wrongful death statute, RCW 4.20.010, lets the personal representative recover economic and non-economic damages for the family members listed in RCW 4.20.020, which include the parents when there is no spouse or child. Whether a claim exists after a stillbirth depends on the facts and should be reviewed by an attorney.

Insurance payments and payment over time

Two statutes shape how damages are presented and paid. Under RCW 7.70.080, a party in a medical negligence case may show the jury that the plaintiff has already been compensated for the injury from other sources, such as insurance, but not from the assets of the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s immediate family. The family can answer with evidence that the money must be repaid and of what was paid to obtain the coverage.

Under RCW 4.56.260, when a verdict or award includes at least $100,000 in future economic damages, the court must, at a party’s request, enter a judgment that pays some or all of those future damages over time. The court chooses the payment plan that best provides for the injured person’s future needs, security must be posted, and if payments stop, the court can order the remaining balance paid in a lump sum.

How a court protects a child’s recovery

Money recovered for a child is protected by court rule. Under SPR 98.16W, every settlement of a claim involving an unemancipated minor, whether or not a lawsuit was filed, must be reviewed by a court, which approves or rejects it. The court normally appoints a Settlement Guardian ad Litem, an attorney with at least five years of relevant experience and no conflicting interest, who investigates and reports on whether the settlement is adequate.

Attorney fees, costs, medical liens and other deductions are reviewed at the hearing, and the attorney must file a declaration supporting the fees with the written fee agreement attached. What remains for the child goes into a blocked account, to a guardian or into a court-approved trust, and withdrawals are allowed only as the court or the trust permits. Separately, RCW 7.70.070 directs the court to determine the reasonableness of each party’s attorney fees in any medical negligence action.

How Beverly Law helps

Beverly Law is a Los Angeles personal injury firm. In Washington State, we take birth-injury cases through licensed local counsel, in English and Spanish. From the first free consultation, we explain which damages may apply to your family and how they are proven, working with medical experts and life care planners to document every future need.

We also handle the procedural side: claim forms for public hospitals, the deadlines in RCW 4.16.350, mediation under RCW 7.70.100 and court approval of a child’s settlement. There is no fee unless we win. Call 1 (877) 427-2752 to talk with us.

Questions parents ask

Related pages

Cerebral Palsy · Erb’s Palsy / Brachial Plexus Injury · HIE / Oxygen Deprivation at Birth · Statute of Limitations · Washington birth injury lawyers

Important: This page is general information about birth injuries and Washington law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Beverly Law. Every case is different — talk to a lawyer about your own situation. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. No fee unless we win. Last reviewed: 2026-09-30.