The week ending June 11, 2026 produced the most consequential medical malpractice cap decision in New Mexico in years, the largest reported personal injury verdict in North Carolina history, and a Michigan Court of Appeals opinion that defense counsel will be reading for guidance on objection discipline. The week also crossed the six-month mark for California's SB 371 rollback of rideshare uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and the post-Berk v. Choy adjustments in federal pleading practice continued to surface in motion practice across several jurisdictions.
New Mexico Supreme Court Caps Vicarious Liability for Nurse Conduct
On June 8, 2026, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in Ferlic v. Lovelace Health System, LLC that the state's Medical Malpractice Act cap applies to vicarious liability claims against a qualified healthcare provider even when the agent whose conduct triggered the claim could not personally qualify under the Act. The case grew out of the April 18, 2021 death of Pamela A. Smith following a March 29, 2021 surgery at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque. Her estate sued Lovelace on two theories: direct negligence by the hospital, and vicarious liability for the conduct of employed registered nurses.
The substantive question was whether the $500,000 per-occurrence aggregate cap under the Medical Malpractice Act extends to a hospital's vicarious liability for nurse conduct given that registered nurses are not, and cannot be, qualified healthcare providers under the Act. The Court answered yes. The Court reasoned that the Act's definition of "malpractice" is broad enough to encompass vicarious liability claims where the agent's underlying conduct falls within the statutory scope, and that allowing the cap to apply to direct claims but not derivative ones would defeat the legislative purpose of bounded hospital liability.
For plaintiff firms with active New Mexico medical malpractice inventories, the ruling closes off a previously available pathway to uncapped recovery against qualified hospitals when the negligent actor was a nurse rather than a physician. Punitive damages and medical care and related benefits sit outside the cap. Plaintiff strategy now centers on documenting direct hospital-level negligence such as understaffing, inadequate policies, training failures, and credentialing breakdowns to support recovery beyond the vicarious-derivative theory.
The decision will influence settlement valuation immediately. Cases in the negotiation phase that were anchored to vicarious-only theories should be revalued under the cap. Cases with viable direct-negligence components should be re-noticed for additional discovery on policy adoption, staffing ratios, incident-report production, and credentialing files. More extensive coverage of post-decision case-building strategy appears in our case law and settlements reporting this week.
$101 Million North Carolina Wall-Collapse Verdict
A Henderson County, North Carolina jury returned a $101 million verdict on May 12, 2026 in the wall-collapse case arising from a January 13, 2021 incident at the Hajoca Corporation plumbing supply facility on Spartanburg Highway in Hendersonville. A 12-foot concrete retaining wall failed without warning, killing 37-year-old Marcelino Godofredo Rendon Hernandez and injuring four other workers.
The verdict went to two injured workers, who each received $45 million, and to the spouse of one of those workers, who received $11 million for loss of consortium. Two of the originally injured plaintiffs settled before trial. Defendants included Hajoca Corporation, Andrew Weymouth, W.D. Building Rentals, and Robert Crawford Masonry. The trial lasted nearly six weeks.
Press accounts describe the verdict as the largest reported personal injury award in North Carolina history. The size of the award, combined with the construction-site fact pattern, makes this a useful comparable for plaintiff valuation in retaining-wall and structural-failure cases nationally. Plaintiff firms working similar matters should pull the trial materials and verdict form for the apportionment between economic and non-economic damages, which has not been broadly reported. The defense bar should expect referenced citation in opposing pre-trial motion practice for the next several quarters.
Michigan Court of Appeals Affirms $20.6 Million Despite Improper Closing
The Michigan Court of Appeals on May 22, 2026 affirmed a $20.6 million plaintiff verdict in a case arising from a van striking a man clearing snow from his driveway. The defense argued on appeal that plaintiff counsel's closing argument was improperly inflammatory and that the verdict should be reversed for new trial. The panel ruled that the defense had failed to object contemporaneously at trial and could not raise the issue for the first time on appeal.
The ruling is a clean reminder that objection discipline at trial is load-bearing for preserving error. Defense counsel reading the opinion will revisit their internal trial-conduct memos. Plaintiff firms should treat the opinion as confirmation that aggressive but properly-framed closing arguments will survive appellate review if opposing counsel does not preserve. The opinion is a useful citation in motion-in-limine practice where defense counsel attempts to constrain plaintiff closing scope before trial.
California SB 371 at Six Months
January 1, 2026 marked the effective date of California Senate Bill 371, which reduced the mandatory uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage for Uber and Lyft drivers from $1 million per incident to $300,000 per incident, with a per-person sublimit of $60,000. Six months in, plaintiff firms working rideshare cases have settled into adapted practice patterns that emphasize stacking personal UM/UIM coverage above the now-reduced platform coverage.
The practical effect at the case-selection stage is that cases involving an uninsured at-fault third party now require closer attention to the rideshare client's personal auto policy, household policies, and any employer-provided coverage. The pre-SB 371 default approach of relying on platform UM/UIM as the recovery vehicle no longer produces full compensation in catastrophic cases. Our auto accidents coverage this week walks through the stacking analysis in detail and addresses the period-one coverage gap that continues to produce disputed claims.
Other Items Worth a Note
The federal-court pleading shift following the U.S. Supreme Court's January 20, 2026 decision in Berk v. Choy continued to surface in plaintiff filings across jurisdictions with strict state affidavit-of-merit or certificate-of-merit pre-suit requirements. Plaintiff firms in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and other restrictive states increasingly file medical malpractice actions in federal court under diversity jurisdiction to avoid state pleading thresholds that the unanimous Court treated as procedural rather than substantive. Our medical malpractice coverage examines the case-selection implications and the threshold considerations for venue choice.
The Department of Justice Civil Division's most recent Camp Lejeune Elective Option docket filing reported continued growth in approved offers and disbursed payments. Digital military-record production from the Navy completes at the end of June 2026. Firms with Camp Lejeune inventories should reconcile claimant identification numbers against the production schedule before the close-out window narrows.
A New York Court of Appeals decision under the post-FY27 amended Article 51 is now expected in late summer based on the briefing schedule of the first-impression appeals from spring trial-court orders. Practitioners watching the threshold and fault-first sequencing rules should expect appellate guidance before the end of the third quarter.
What to Watch Next Week
Briefing schedules in several state Pattern Jury Instruction committees on the medical malpractice standard-of-care revisions following the American Law Institute's Restatement are moving toward summer adoption windows. Several appellate panels in Ninth Circuit jurisdictions have argument calendars for late June that include cases relevant to PI insurance coverage. Trial-court orders applying Ferlic v. Lovelace will begin to surface in New Mexico medical malpractice dockets and should be tracked for read-through guidance on case selection, discovery posture, and settlement valuation under the now-clarified cap framework.