Santorum pushed to limit malpractice awards but sought larger payout for wife

At the four-day trial, the Santorums both testified to the non-economic losses she and their family suffered. Santorum told the Fairfax County Circuit Court jury that his wife wasn’t able to do some of the tasks she enjoyed as a mother. He said the pain made her unable to exercise and stay fit, and now she “does not have the confidence” to help him with public events on his campaigns.

“We have to go out and do a lot of public things,” Rick Santorum said. “She wants to look nice, so it’s really difficult.”

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As the case was pending, Rick Santorum told reporters that he thought the $250,000 cap on malpractice awards in his 1994 legislative proposal might be too low, given the injury his wife had suffered.

Karen Santorum’s attorney, Heather Heidelbaugh, stressed to the jury that her client suffered “severe and permanent neurologic damage” and this trial was “their only opportunity for justice.” The jury wouldn’t be around, she said, “10 years from now, when she is 49 years old and can’t get out of bed . . . can’t play with her sons.”

After the jury’s award, Santorum said that he was not a party to the suit and that the proceedings were “a personal family matter.” He added that he was “fully supportive” of his wife.

The next month, the presiding trial judge, Arthur B. Vieregg, cut the award in half to $175,000. He called the verdict “excessive” and the product of “undue sympathy,” noting that her medical costs from the injury totaled just over $18,000.

“The subjective testimony of Mrs. Santorum and her husband is belied to some degree by the fact that Mrs. Santorum sought virtually no medical treatment following the operation,” the judge said, according to a court transcript. He noted that her surgeon testified she “reported immediate relief” after the surgery. Santorum, whose wife has been at his side often as he has campaigned for president over the past year, said in the fall that he was generally in favor of a cap on awarding money for pain and suffering, fearing that juries could be swayed by sympathy and award excess amounts for intangible, non-economic damages.

This fall, in telling reporters that his wife had not sued for pain and suffering, he added that “the areas that she sued for were out-of-pocket costs, medical costs, as well as for lost income going forward and things like that.”

In 2003, he proposed capping pain and suffering awards at $250,000 and allowing larger awards when more than one doctor or medical facility is involved in a malpractice case.

Research editors Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.