PORTLAND — Individual doctors and nurses at Oregon Health & Science University can be sued despite a liability cap for state agencies that protects OHSU, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Sari Clarke had sued OHSU after her son, Jordaan Clarke, now 8, suffered permanent brain damage at 3 months when a breathing tube became dislodged in the recovery room following successful open heart surgery in May 1998.

The university admitted negligence that left Jordaan with profound brain damage requiring round-the-clock care for life at an estimated cost of $11 million.

But OHSU asked the trial court to name it the sole defendant in the case to protect doctors and nurses under the Oregon Tort Claims Act, which caps claims against OHSU at $200,000.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Henry Kantor agreed, and awarded Sari Clarke $200,000 — the maximum allowed under the cap.

But the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the trial court must reinstate Clarke’s claims against individual doctors and nurses, citing the Oregon Constitution.

In an 18-page opinion by Presiding Judge Walt Edmonds, the court said that “if plaintiff is limited to a $200,000 recovery against OHSU and has no remedy against the individual defendants ... then he has been denied a substantial substitute remedy in violation of Article I, section 10” of the Oregon Constitution.

The section cited says that “every man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation.”

Calls to the Portland attorney for Clarke, William Gaylord, were not immediately returned.

Jordaan’s grandmother, Eva Diseth, told KATU-TV in Portland that the case “just means each person is accountable for what they’ve done.’’

OHSU officials issued a statement saying the university was pleased the appeals court confirmed that OHSU — which became an independent public corporation in 1995 — was protected under the Oregon Tort Claims Act.

But they said they would appeal the ruling because it could open the door to lawsuits against individual employees of other state agencies, including school districts and ports.

“The potential financial impact of the ruling to OHSU and to every single public body in Oregon cannot be calculated at this point, but we expect that for public bodies as a whole the total impact will be in the range of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars,’’ the OHSU statement said.