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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-01-27

This Seems Like A Bad Bill

The Rocky opined today about Colorado Senate Bill 25, which would raise the cap on general non-economic damages (“pain and suffering”) by $84,000 dollars next year, and them raise it by the rate of inflation every year after that.

In such an environment over time, many businesses already too familiar with the mess of our product-liability system would surely suffer. More defendants would settle out of court to avoid the costs of going to trial. Businesses looking to relocate here would stay away. It is consumers, however, that would ultimately finance all of this via higher prices for goods and services.

Even stranger, to me, is that one of the co-sponsors of the bill is House Minority Leader Joe Stengel. I would like to know what he’s thinking about this bill. No, seriously, I want to know—that’s not a rhetorical point.

My quick take, knowing very little about this, is that, since Colorado already has a few ways around the cap to begin with (judges’ discretion to double the award, multiple defendant’s full liability, and no limits on economic damages), this hardly seems like a necessary addition to our laws. It seems more like lawyers’ pay-raises’ insurance.

I hope somebody out there can explain why this would be a good thing.
Posted by: Michael / 1/27/2005 06:50:00 PM

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