North Dakota: Court refuses to apply damages cap in med mal case, declares it unconstitutional -- UPDATED

In 1995, North Dakota passed a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.  I assume has been invoked and applied since.  Until now.  The TortsProf blog is reporting today that a state judge recently refused to apply the cap and ruled the statute violates equal protection guaranteed by the state constitution by arbitrarily reducing damages for people who suffer the most severe injuries.

Go here for more (although not much) on the story.  As you know, I am against caps, but an interesting element of this story is that at $500,000, the North Dakota cap is one of the more generous out there.

UPDATE (1/12/18):  The PopTort has more information, excerpts from the decision and a nice comment on the case here.