Court Opinion

ID: 9560871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:57:54.978666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:17.002327
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice ROVIRA
specially concurs:
Except as to Part IV, in which I concur in the result only, I concur in the majority opinion. I write separately to emphasize my belief that the legislature is empowered to place recovery limitations on the statutorily created claim against public entity tort-feasors without violating the claimants’ constitutional guarantee of due process.
After the Colorado Attorney General attempted to deposit the $400,000 maximum amount recoverable under section 24-10-114(l)(b), 10A C.R.S. (1988), with the registry of the district court, the claimants sought summary judgment alleging that section 24-10-114(l)(b), which limits the aggregate amount payable for any single occurrence involving two or more persons to $400,000,1 is unconstitutional because it violates their constitutional guarantees of equal protection, due process, and access to courts. I limit my analysis to claimants’ allegations that this statute violates their substantive due process rights.
I
The majority found, inter alia, that the General Assembly can limit the state’s liability for damages. See maj. op. at 786. I believe that this holding correctly acknowledges the constitutionality of section 24-10-114(l)(b) both facially and as applied to the claimants in this case.
*794A
In order to defeat a facial substantive due process challenge to a statute, the state need only show that a regulation is rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. Bloomer v. Board of County Comm’rs of Boulder County, 799 P.2d 942, 948 (Colo.1990); Colorado Soc’y of Community & Institutional Psychologists, Inc. v. Lamm, 741 P.2d 707, 710-11 (Colo.1987). As the majority and Justice Quinn’s dissent point out, section 24-10-114(1)(b) bears a rational relationship to the legitimate government interests of fiscal solvency and fiscal integrity, and this provision is, thus, facially constitutional. See maj. op. at 786 and Quinn, J., dissenting at 798. Consequently, I turn to examine the effect of application of this statute on the claimants’ due process rights.
B
While I recognize that a statute not objectionable on its face may nonetheless be found unconstitutional because of its effect in operation, People v. Albrecht, 145 Colo. 202, 208, 358 P.2d 4, 8 (1960), I do not believe that application of section 24-10-114(1)(b) results in deprivation of the claimants’ due process rights. Nor do I find it conceivable that, having adjudged this statute facially valid, it is rendered invalid by its operation which effectuates the very purpose for which the statute was enacted — setting a ceiling on aggregate recovery from a single tortious occurrence.
In this case, there were thirty-four claimants seeking recovery for injuries caused by a single occurrence. The aggregate damages figure was more than the $400,-000 recoverable under section 24-10-114(l)(b). Yet, unless there exists a deprivation of a property interest, there can be no denial of substantive due process. See Faber v. State, 143 Colo. 240, 241, 353 P.2d 609, 610 (1960) (due process operates to prohibit deprivation of rights where such rights exist under substantive law).
Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article II, Section 25, of the Colorado Constitution, individuals are protected from loss of liberty without due process of law. Often, it is difficult to characterize an affected interest as a “liberty” or “property” interest. See Morgan v. Mansfield, 569 F.Supp. 710, 713 (D.Colo.1983). The Supreme Court has held that the term “liberty” should be granted broad meaning and that it “denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized ... as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 572, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2706-07, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) (citation omitted).
In Espinoza v. O’Dell, 633 P.2d 455, 462-64 (Colo.), cert. granted, 454 U.S. 1122, 102 S.Ct. 969, 71 L.Ed.2d 109 (1981), cert. dismissed, 456 U.S. 430, 102 S.Ct. 1865, 72 L.Ed.2d 237 (1982), we recognized that children of an individual killed as a result of an allegedly willful and wanton tort perpetrated by the state had suffered deprivation of a liberty interest based on loss of continued relationship and association with the deceased parent.2 With these concepts in *795mind, I recognize that the individuals harmed or killed as a result of the accident that occurred on Berthoud Pass road have suffered a deprivation of their liberty interests. These claimants have regrettably been deprived of their freedom to remain free from bodily harm. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 341, 106 S.Ct. 677, 679, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986).
This liberty interest, however, is not the interest affected by section 24-10-114(l)(b). This provision in no way causes, condones, or affects acts which may result in deprivation of the interest in remaining free from bodily harm. Section 24-10-114(l)(b) instead affects the amount recoverable once such harm has occurred. It was the tor-tious act and not the statute placing a ceiling on aggregate recovery that caused these losses of liberty interest. Consequently, the effect of the statute is not on one’s substantive guarantee of liberty but on one’s property interest, if any, in a remedy arising from a tortious act that may deprive an individual directly or indirectly of a liberty interest.
While recognizing that “[a] legal right to damage for an injury is property,” Rosane v. Senger, 112 Colo. 363, 370, 149 P.2d 372, 375 (1944), the majority states that this provision is remedial and that there is no right to a remedy. Consequently, the majority finds that the claimants "failed to articulate a cognizable property interest in support of their due process claim.” See maj. op. at 792. I believe, however, that a statutorily granted right to damages, validly limited, is property, but only to the extent to which it is statutorily defined. Property interests “are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.” Cleveland Bd. of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 538, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 1491, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985) (citation omitted) (emphasis added). The statutory scheme of the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (Immunity Act), adopted in 1971, provides immunity from liability for public entities against all actions which lie in tort or could lie in tort except as provided for in the Immunity Act. § 24-10-105, 10A C.R.S. (1988). There is no constitutional right for persons to sue and recover a judgment against the state for the state’s tortious conduct. Consequently, claimants’ right to pursue an action against the state is derived solely from the statutory exceptions listed in the Immunity Act. Since the legislature is empowered to completely eliminate any recovery against public entities for claims asserted in tort, then the legislature certainly has the authority to limit recovery amounts where it has provided a remedy. See Bloomer v. Board of County Comm’rs of Boulder County, 799 P.2d 942, 948 (Colo.1990) (“[T]he right to maintain an action against a governmental (state) entity is derived from statutes, and reasonable conditions ... imposed as a condition precedent to the right are mandatory.”) (citation omitted). This right to damages is, therefore, a property interest subject to constitutional protection only within its defined dimension of $400,000 maximum.
In Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 106, 110 S.Ct. 444, 448, 107 L.Ed.2d 420 (1989), the Supreme Court laid out a test for determining the existence of a federal right for the purpose of stating a claim under § 1983. In determining whether a statute creates an interest subject to the protection of § 1983, the Court considered “whether the provision in question creates obligations binding on the governmental unit,” whether the asserted interest was sufficiently concrete so as to be enforceable by the judiciary, and whether the putative plaintiff is within the class of persons intended to be benefitted by the provision. Section 24-10-114(1)(b) does obligate the government to provide certain damages when it is found liable in tort. That obligation, however, is specifically limited to an amount no greater than $400,-*796000. Thus, while the interest of the injured claimants here is sufficiently concrete and such injured claimants are within the class of persons which section 24-10-114(l)(b) is intended to protect, the legally protected interest created by this statute is the right to recover for damages only to the extent of a $400,000 aggregate maximum.
Since the $400,000 limitation was in effect at the time of this tortious occurrence, and since the state met this legislatively imposed obligation of $400,000, I do not find that the claimants were deprived of any protectable property interest triggering the due process clause.
I am authorized to state that LOHR, J., joins in this special concurrence.

. This section also limits the per person recovery to $150,000.

. In Espinoza, we found that the Colorado wrongful death statute created an entitlement for damages in those indirectly injured by the tortfeasor’s actions and that the statute also limited damages for such plaintiffs to net pecuniary loss. Espinoza v. O’Dell, 633 P.2d at 463. We determined that the statutory limitation on damages recoverable by these aggrieved plaintiffs did not sufficiently vindicate the claimed deprivation of liberty interest. Id. at 465. We analyzed the statutory damages limitation as applied to the deprivation of liberty interest suffered by these children by weighing the state’s reasons for enacting the limitations against the liberty interest asserted. We determined that the children would remain uncompensated for the loss of important nonpecuniary aspects of the family relationship if the damages limitation were applied and declined to limit the plaintiffs’ § 1983 damages claim to net pecuniary losses only. Unlike this case, however, the issue in Espinoza focused on the failure of the wrongful death statute to provide any compensation for deprivation of certain “aspects of the liberty interest” such as “losses flowing from a *795variety of associational interests, such as paternal love and care, instruction, counseling, emotional support, and the family’s mutual enjoyment of life together.” Id. at 464. It did not address the constitutionality of the damages limitation on recovery for deprivation of the aspects of the liberty interest for which the wrongful death statute provides compensation.