Glossary · Statute
MICRA
California's Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975, the country's most influential statute capping noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.
Also known as: Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, MICRA Act, California MICRA
What it is
The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) is a California statute enacted in 1975 in response to a malpractice insurance crisis. Its centerpiece is a hard cap on noneconomic damages (pain and suffering, loss of consortium, emotional distress) recoverable in any medical malpractice action. The original cap was $250,000 and remained unchanged for nearly five decades.
Why it matters
MICRA reshaped malpractice litigation in California and became the model statute for damage-cap reform in dozens of other states. Because economic damages (medical bills, lost wages) remain uncapped, the law disproportionately limits recovery in cases involving children, retirees, and homemakers, where most of the harm shows up in the noneconomic column. MICRA is the single largest reason California's median malpractice payout is roughly one-seventh of Pennsylvania's for comparable cases.
What changed in 2022
AB 35 amended MICRA effective January 1, 2023. The cap is now tiered: $350,000 for non-death cases and $500,000 for wrongful-death cases at the start, with annual increases of $40,000 (non-death) and $50,000 (death) until they reach $750,000 and $1 million respectively, then indexed for inflation thereafter.
In settlement strategy
For any case venued in California, the noneconomic component must be modeled against the current MICRA tier and projected indexation. Plaintiff valuations that ignore the cap inflate demands; defense reserves that ignore the AB 35 escalator understate exposure. MedMalPredict factors the active MICRA tier into payout-range predictions for every California case.
See Also
- AB 35 — California Assembly Bill 35, signed in May 2022, which amended MICRA to raise the state's noneconomic damages cap and create a tiered, annually escalating cap structure for medical malpractice cases.
- Noneconomic Damages — Compensation awarded for non-monetary harm such as pain and suffering, loss of consortium, emotional distress, and diminished enjoyment of life, distinct from economic damages like medical bills and lost wages.
- Damages Cap — A statutory ceiling on the amount a plaintiff can recover for certain categories of damages, most commonly noneconomic damages, in medical malpractice cases.
- Wrongful Death — A statutory civil claim brought by the survivors of a patient who died as a result of medical negligence, governed by state-specific wrongful-death acts that define eligible plaintiffs and recoverable damages.