California caps non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. Since AB 35 took effect in 2023 that cap is not a fixed number — it rises every January 1 through 2033, and separate figures apply depending on whether the patient survived. Most pages quoting a MICRA number are quoting a year that has already passed.
Non-economic cap — patient survived
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Applies to pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment in a medical malpractice claim where the patient did not die. Economic losses are not capped.
Non-economic cap — wrongful death
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Applies where the malpractice caused the patient's death. A separate, higher schedule runs on the same annual increase.
| Year | Injury cap | Wrongful death cap | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $350,000 | $500,000 | |
| 2024 | $390,000 | $550,000 | |
| 2025 | $430,000 | $600,000 | |
| 2026 | $470,000 | $650,000 | |
| 2027 | $510,000 | $700,000 | |
| 2028 | $550,000 | $750,000 | |
| 2029 | $590,000 | $800,000 | |
| 2030 | $630,000 | $850,000 | |
| 2031 | $670,000 | $900,000 | |
| 2032 | $710,000 | $950,000 | |
| 2033 | $750,000 | $1,000,000 |
The MICRA cap applies only to non-economic damages in a medical malpractice claim — pain, suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life. It does not touch economic damages. Medical bills, future care costs, lost income and lost earning capacity are uncapped, and in a catastrophic injury case they are frequently the larger number by a wide margin.
This is the most common misunderstanding about MICRA. People read a cap figure and conclude that is the ceiling on the whole case. It is not. A malpractice claim involving lifelong care needs can support economic damages far exceeding any cap, and those damages have never been limited by section 3333.2.
AB 35 split the cap. Cases where the patient survived run on one schedule; cases where the malpractice caused death run on a higher one. Before 2023 there was a single figure of $250,000 that had been unchanged since 1975 — the source of decades of criticism, because inflation had reduced its real value by roughly ninety percent over that period.
The 2022 legislation set annual step increases through 2033, after which the caps adjust for inflation at two percent per year. The date that matters is the date the claim is filed or the case is resolved, not the date of the injury — a detail worth confirming for any claim sitting near a year boundary.
MICRA is more than a damages cap. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. section 340.5 sets the filing deadline at one year from discovery and three years from the injury, whichever comes first. Section 364 requires 90 days' written notice to the provider before a malpractice suit is filed. Separate MICRA provisions govern attorney fee limits and how collateral source payments are treated.
The deadline is the provision that ends the most claims. One year from discovery is substantially shorter than the two-year general injury deadline, and in malpractice the injury is frequently discovered long after it occurred — which is exactly the scenario the three-year outer limit was written to cut off.
A cap is a ceiling on one category of damages, not a prediction of outcome. Whether it binds at all depends on the shape of the case. In a claim involving a missed diagnosis that caused months of avoidable pain but no lasting impairment, the non-economic component is the case, and the cap is the operative number. In a claim involving a birth injury requiring lifetime attendant care, projected economic damages can run into eight figures and the capped component is a rounding error beside them.
This is why the cap alone tells you very little about whether a malpractice claim is worth pursuing. The questions that decide that are whether the standard of care was breached, whether the breach caused the harm rather than the underlying illness, and what the documented future cost of that harm is. Causation is where most malpractice claims fail, because a bad outcome and a negligent one look identical to a patient and are separated only by expert review of the records.
California malpractice claims effectively require a qualified medical expert to review the records and state that the care fell below the professional standard. That review costs money before a claim is filed and before anyone knows whether it will proceed. It is the practical reason many valid claims never get brought, and the reason contingency representation matters more in malpractice than in almost any other injury category — the cost of finding out whether you have a case is carried by the firm, not the patient.
Two further MICRA provisions shape what a patient actually receives. Evidence of payments from collateral sources — health insurance, disability benefits — is admissible in a malpractice case, which is not the rule in ordinary California injury claims. And MICRA limits attorney contingency fees on a sliding scale that decreases as the recovery grows, one of the few places in California law where a fee percentage is set by statute rather than by agreement.
Because the number changes every January and most published sources do not. A page quoting $250,000 is quoting the pre-2023 statute. A page quoting the 2023 or 2024 figure is quoting a year that has passed. If you are reading a MICRA figure anywhere, check what year it was written and check it against the statute.
The MICRA non-economic damages cap in Cal. Civ. Code § 3333.2 applies only to non-economic damages in a claim against a health care provider for professional negligence. That distinction carries most of the practical weight and is misunderstood constantly.
Not capped: economic damages. Past and future medical expenses, past and future lost earnings, diminished earning capacity, the cost of life care, home modification, and household services are recoverable in full with no statutory ceiling. In catastrophic injury cases the economic component is frequently the larger figure by a wide margin, and it is unaffected by the cap entirely.
Capped: pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement and other non-economic loss. Separate caps apply to wrongful death and non-death cases, and both step up on a fixed annual schedule running through 2033 under the AB 35 amendments.
Outside MICRA entirely: claims that are not professional negligence by a health care provider. An ordinary premises liability claim against a hospital — a slip on a wet lobby floor — is not professional negligence. Elder abuse claims brought under Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 15657 are a separate statutory scheme with their own remedies. Product liability claims against a device or drug manufacturer are not MICRA claims. Whether a given claim falls inside or outside MICRA is a legal question that materially changes the analysis, and it is decided by the nature of the conduct rather than by where the injury happened.
The stepped schedule means the applicable cap is fixed by the date of injury, not the date of filing or settlement. That makes the injury date worth confirming precisely before any figure is relied on, and it is why every number on this page carries the year it applies to.
The cap also does not eliminate punitive damages where they are otherwise available. Cal. Civ. Code § 3294 permits punitive damages on a showing of oppression, fraud or malice, a standard well above ordinary negligence and rarely met in a professional negligence claim. Where it is met, punitive damages are separate from the non-economic figure the cap limits, and note that Cal. Ins. Code § 533 makes punitive damages uninsurable in California, which affects what is realistically collectible.
Two other timing rules interact with the cap and are worth confirming alongside it. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 340.5 sets the medical malpractice filing deadline at one year from discovery with a three-year outer limit, and Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 364 requires ninety days written notice of intent before a professional negligence action is filed. A correctly calculated cap on a claim filed after the deadline is worth nothing.
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