Report from Colorado
December 13, 2008
During a recent trip to Colorado, I spoke with a group of business leaders and state lawmakers at the invitation of the Colorado Civil Justice League – an event covered by the online news service “Face the State.”
Over the last 30 years, bipartisan majorities in the Colorado legislature passed 36 separate legal reform bills, each of which was signed by either a Democrat or Republican governor. This bipartisan consensus helped create one of the fairest and most predictable legal climates in the country – an environment that helped propel business investment and job growth in Colorado.
But a reinvigorated Colorado trial bar and sympathetic majorities in both houses of the Colorado legislature are working to derail that progress. Trial lawyer Terrance Carroll is set to become the next House Speaker and the legislature has shown an interest in weakening state laws that protect doctors, hospitals and health care workers from frivolous lawsuits. While Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has always been a strong rule-of-law advocate, there are other warning signs that the state’s liability climate might be taking a turn for the worse.
According to Steve Hantler’s latest ranking of state legal climates for Directorship, Colorado fell sharply last year from having the 10th best legal climate to the middle of the pack – 22nd. Mr. Hantler reports that anti-tort reform Governor Bill Ritter has already signed several pieces of legislation that tilt the courts toward the plaintiffs’ bar. Gov. Ritter’s judicial appointments have created a state Supreme Court that has demonstrated a willingness to expand liability for Colorado businesses.
As I told the group assembled by the Colorado Civil Justice League, legal reform is only as secure as the next Supreme Court ruling, so it’s critical to have judges who respect the will of elected representatives, rather than imposing their personal ideological preferences through their rulings. Progress on the legal reform front is never permanent – especially when a 30-year, bipartisan consensus in favor of a fair, stable and predictable legal climate appears to be breaking down. Colorado businesses and citizens will have to work to defend the gains that have been made, or see the state’s legal climate shift toward the agenda of the trial bar.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Colorado, Tort Reform, Trial Lawyers
One Response to “Report from Colorado”
The following you already know I just thought you might need to be reminded. 1. Perjury is not enforced in our civil courts. 2. There is no law that prevents a Judge from being prejudice in a trial.