A jury of peers awarded a woman $4.5 million for pain and suffering earlier this year in a malpractice case involving a gynecologist who left a 40 x 40 centimeter gauze sponge in her stomach after surgery. The woman then reported chronic pain to her doctor for months, but he failed to respond to her complaints. Another judge last month reduced the award to $1.3 million, citing a Maryland state cap on non-monetary losses such as pain and suffering is limited to $650,000. Attorneys for the woman are troubled by the unconstitutionality of the decision. The woman’s attorney Robert J. Goldman said, “For various reasons, it kind of takes the decisions out of the jury’s hands.” Goldman maintained that juries should be relied upon to decide appropriate awards for damages, not state-imposed caps. “This cap the legislature has put on has unfairly affected people who have been injured through medical malpractice,” Goldman said. The constitutionality of statutory caps for non-economic damages has not been addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court.