The Ohio Supreme Court's decision to uphold a law limiting the money damages that can be awarded in pain-and-suffering lawsuits could discourage people from pursuing those lawsuits and eliminate a deterrent for companies to fix defective products, trial lawyers said.

It means that no matter how much a jury may choose to award a person who has claimed injury from a defective product or service, the judge will be required to reduce the amount to the cap imposed by the newly upheld Ohio law, said Mark Kitrick, president of the Ohio Association for Justice, formerly the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers.

"We've now created a two-tiered system where corporations have full rights and injured citizens don't," Kitrick said.

Business interests said, however, that it makes Ohio a business-friendly state that can more easily attract new investment from corporations which need not worry about whopping damage awards from juries deciding personal-injury lawsuits.

"You're bringing some stability to the marketplace and into our legal climate," said Ty Pine, legislative director for the Ohio chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses.

Businesses looking to expand into other states consider the legal environment and whether businesses have been punished with high damages awards, as well as the tax structure, work force, cost of living and other factors, Pine said.

At least 19 states have some type of limits on lawsuit damages similar to Ohio's, Kitrick said.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled 5-2 last week that a 2005 Ohio law enacted to limit damages that people can collect through personal-injury lawsuits is allowable under the Ohio Constitution. The court's majority said the law would not infringe a citizen's right to trial by jury, to a legal remedy for injuries, or to due process and equal protection of law.

The issues were raised by Melisa Arbino, a suburban Cincinnati woman who sued Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Co. in Toledo federal court claiming she suffered brain and lung blood clots from using a hormonal birth control product known as the Ortho Evra birth control patch. The lawsuit, which Johnson & Johnson is fighting, could go to trial in June 2008. The federal court asked the Ohio Supreme Court to rule on Arbino's claims because they involved the Ohio Constitution.

The Ohio ruling could discourage similar lawsuits because it is costly and time-consuming to prepare such cases, including hiring experts to testify in court, and plaintiffs might be concerned that they couldn't afford to pursue the claims, said Janet Abaray, Arbino's lawyer.

Abaray said she is considering whether to ask the Ohio Supreme Court to rehear the case, or present similar arguments in federal court by raising U.S. constitutional issues.

What the

It limits the amount of "noneconomic" damages — for intangible injuries such as pain and suffering, disfigurement and mental anguish — that may be awarded to a plaintiff in a personal-injury lawsuit to $250,000, or three times the amount of "economic" damages — medical expenses and lost wages — up to a maximum of $350,000.

The law makes an exception to those limits for people who suffer permanent disability or loss of a limb or body organ.

The law also forbids Ohio courts from awarding punitive damages that exceed double the amount of compensatory damages from the same defendant.