Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

By Bob Groves, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jan. 29–Justin Mattes set his walker aside and was helped up the steps of the banquet room stage to stand, wavering, at the podium.

Mattes, 24, has cerebral palsy because of a mistake a doctor made during his birth, his attorney said. Everything’s a struggle for Mattes — walking, talking, shaving, eating, getting dressed. He can’t drive. Getting a job is nearly impossible. Though he is quite bright, strangers think he is mentally retarded.

But on Tuesday, Mattes spoke forcefully, if often unintelligibly, on behalf of lawyers who are fighting the attempts of doctors in New Jersey to limit jury awards in malpractice lawsuits to $250,000.

“For somebody like me, for what I’ve endured, a cap of $250,000 will not begin to compensate me for the pain and suffering I will always experience in my life,” the Woodcliff Lake resident said at a news conference Tuesday at a Secaucus hotel.

Just days before a threatened strike by doctors complaining about soaring medical malpractice premiums,…More Here