It has been revealed that a widow was awarded over £5million in a life insurance sum was set by a jury two years ago after her husband died due to medical negligence.

The female, was ordered to be granted the compensation by the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Her husband, was rushed to his local hospital in April 2003, after suffering a heart attack.

However, he didn’t receive the proper medication within a reasonable period of time which caused serious damage to his heart.

His wife’s injury lawyers said, “His heart died that day.” According to the eight page ruling by the 4th District Court of Appeal, the widow should receive the compensation for the pain and suffering inflicted on her and her daughter when her husband died because he didn’t receive the correct medical treatment.

But the court didn’t go as far as throwing out a law passed in 2003 that limits how much a jury can award in medical malpractice cases.

Injury lawyer Stephen Malove, who represented the widow said: “We won the war. We didn’t win all the little battles. But we won the war.” Commenting on his client, who now resides with her teenage daughter, said: “She’s ecstatic.”

Reduced claim

However, the compensation was not that easy to access at first.

County Circuit Judge Jonathan Gerber, reduced the jury's award because the widow filed the suit after the caps were imposed.

That meant, that after paying her husband's medical bills, plus attorney fees and the high costs of experts used to win the case, she would get nothing.

However, the lawyer argued, because the husband’s injury occurred five months before the caps went into effect, they shouldn't apply.

The appeals court agreed, ruling that the caps can't be imposed retroactively: “Throughout history, courts and legal commentators have generally looked with disapproval and extreme caution at the retroactive application of laws,” Judge Spencer Levine wrote in a decision joined by two other judges.

Quoting previous court decisions, he wrote that certain laws did not help justice, but hinder it: “It is therefore well settled that retrospective laws are generally unjust.”

That means that the caps that limited damages for pain and suffering regarding the life insurance amount, for the widow and her daughter don't apply, Levine wrote.

As a result, they are entitled to the over £5million as the jury awarded them for pain and suffering, so-called non-economic damages, plus the actual damages.

Because there is a four-year statute of limitations on filing such lawsuits, Malove said few others would be affected by the ruling. But, he said, it's an important decision for the future.

“I think the appeals court made the right decision that you cannot take someone's vested rights and legislate them away.”