State's Potential Liability In JeffCo Fire Is $600K Max

Bear, I rarely disagree with you, but even though I'm for very limited govt, I think in these situations they should be immune, unless there has been blatant negligence. We need the govt to do prescribed burns, and occasionally an accident will occur. We have insurance for such accidents. If the govt (us) could be held liable for accidents, taxes would go so high it would be unimaginable. Can you imagine the $$ involved in any such accident? The only true winners would be the attorneys!!

Bear, the problem is that governments typically have the capacity to injure many more people than we individuals do.

For instance, if a government misinterprets a threat of terrorism (for instance), thousands may die.

Who has the $$ to pay for that?! as citizens, we have to decide which is more important:

1) Pay claims or insurance premiums
2) Keep the lights on.

I'm not saying it's an easy choice or that citizens have made the right one by enacting governmental immunities through legislation. I'm just saying, the rationale behind immunity laws is, citizens ain't got nearly enough dough to pay for damages caused by stupid government officials.

I understand the argument for immunity- but it literally gives them license to be wreckless and frivolous. A limited government might not have the budget for all these intrusions.

Can you imagine all the new rules, regulations and restrictions that will result from this one mistake? And it's all government self generated- but it's all of us who will have to live with the new bureaucracy coming our way

I'm not in favor of eliminating taxpayer immunity as much as I'm in favor of holding those government officials to account - they should be held liable for their failure's here. If I screw up as an engineer- do you think I'll be held responsible? You better believe it.

I also think we have bought into the government's policy that our forest needs to be managed. It only needs to be managed because a bunch of city slickers moved in up here. The forest can manage itself. It's just arrogant to think otherwise.

So we spend millions on this so-called management and the whole place winds up burning to the ground- a direct result of the "management". Good job.

I always get a kick of the whackos who portray the "government" as some faceless boogey man. The government is exactly what the citizens of this country decide it is, nothing more, nothing less.

I knew I read this somewhere - finally found it. Portion of article from yesterday. How come Denver Water Board gets services from Colorado State Forest Service? Doesn't Denver Water Board have any liability for any of this?

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/03/27/l ... destroyed/

CONIFER, Colo. (AP/CBS4) – State forest officials had conducted a prescribed burn last week in the same area where a wind-driven wildfire has destroyed at least 23 homes and left two people dead, authorities said Tuesday.

Ryan Lockwood, a spokesman for the Colorado State Forest Service, said his agency conducted the prescribed burn on Thursday on land belonging to the Denver Water Board as part of an ongoing attempt to reduce fire danger. Such burns are usually done to thin out vegetation to reduce the chances of a major wildfire.

“This has been going on for the past year,” said Lockwood, who referred questions about the decision to other agency officials.

Some good points made here about Gov't and taxpayer immunity. But its not really immunity, its a cap of $600K on liability. I like the idea of limited caps, but $600K is probably too low. (How long ago was that number set, and was it ever adjusted for inflation? ) I have close to that on my car insurance as an individual. Surely the state can afford more to compensate multiple innocent victims, especially when they allow suits on doctors and tobacco companies for billions and spend the money on pet projects.

We are the state. I like the cap because I personally cannot control what govt does. We all have insurance for fire. We will be covered. Allowing people to sue the state will turn into millions and millions of dollars of awards, a big chunk of that going to lawyers, not those of us affected. The forest service screwed up. Those responsible should be fired. They should review the policies about prescribed burns. But ultimately it was an accident, and that is precisely why we have insurance. To insure against losses from accidents.

The state doesn't have any money. They are broke. The only way they will have money to compensate people (and my guess is, if this were allowed to go to court, you are talking over 100 million in awards for everything from property damage, to loss of value of homes, inconvenience, etc) is to put a special tax on all of us to do so.

The state doesn't have any money. They are broke. The only way they will have money to compensate people (and my guess is, if this were allowed to go to court, you are talking over 100 million in awards for everything from property damage, to loss of value of homes, inconvenience, etc) is to put a special tax on all of us to do so.

True- unless they (the state) have insurance. Perhaps they should get some.

I would not be in favor of another "special tax".

It is always possible to get a $100,000 liability policy, if you pay a $100,000 premium. An underwriter may not accept the risk any other way. For this reason, many, if not most, state entities are "self uninsured." They put dollars into a pot instead of paying premiums, and pay claims out of that pot.

Even if Denver Mountain Land's regulatory body was liable, it would be subject to the same damage cap. The Forest Service may recover some of the monies it pays out, from that body, under a doctrine called subrogation.

The state did once consider whether the (then) $300,000 cap was sufficient: when CDOT workers (negligently, not intentionally) pushed boulders off Mt Evans directly into the path of a tour bus containing dozens of innocent souls, some visiting from Europe. The medical expenses alone topped the cap in the first few seconds of that incident and caused both the judiciary and legislature (and the populace) to re-examine the state's immunity position. Result: state still has immunity from most causes of action, and a (higher) damage cap on the rest.

Actually, the "push" on these caps comes from the HO insurance policy carriers. It's their dime in the end, ditto the health insurance carriers of those required to incur med expenses as a result of these sorts of incidents. Where the "rubber meets the road" is where State Farm has to pay out X for a destroyed home, while only being able to recover 1% of X from the party who destroyed it.

Another point to consider- follow the money. Say you have good fire insurance on your house. You expect the insurance company to pay. But the insurance company goes after the state for the money to pay back itself. Assuming they can prove fault or negligence. Lots to consider here. Definitely need some kind of caps and protection for the taxpayers.

In fact, you could make the same economic argument for reasonable caps on malpractice lawsuits and health insurance, unlimited claims with no caps are just not economically practical. You can't plug a number like infinity into an insurance underwriting risk model.