Children under age 18 injured by their doctors could receive a maximum of $550,000 in jury awards for pain and suffering under a bill an Assembly committee approved Wednesday.

The measure would limit noneconomic damages for adults to $450,000. Neither amount would increase each year for inflation under the bill approved by the Assembly Insurance Committee on a 9-6 vote.

The old limits, which increased annually for inflation, had capped damages at $445,000 for adults and children this year. The court said the limits were unfair because they treated all patients the same regardless of their life expectancies and were arrived at arbitrarily by lawmakers.

"It provides perspective on age, it provides certainty for physicians and insurance carriers, and we built into selecting those amounts a rationale as to how we got there," Rep. Curt Gielow, R-Mequon, who led a committee appointed to draft the legislation in response to the court ruling.

The full Assembly is scheduled to debate the bill next week. To become law, it needs approval from both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's signature.

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