Civil Law

Civil Actions

The General Assembly considered two bills pertaining to civil actions. One bill would have expanded civil actions and the other would have limited civil actions. House Bill 99-1226 governed wrongful death suits and would have extended inheritance rights to the brothers and sisters of a deceased person when the deceased is an unmarried minor or unmarried adult without children or surviving parents. The surviving siblings would have been allowed to seek civil damages for wrongful deaths which were caused by the negligence of officers and agents of corporations that carry either freight or passengers for hire. In civil actions involving fraud, malice, or willful and wanton conduct that resulted in a wrongful death, surviving relatives would have been allowed to seek exemplary damages in addition to actual damages.
The General Assembly also considered House Bill 99-1290 concerning fiduciary obligations. This legislation would have limited civil actions to only include violations of a duty related to a financial or property interest that had been entrusted to the person being sued. Persons would be held individually liable for physical or sexual misconduct against a person whom had placed trust in him or her. A religious organization that employed an individual being sued for a breach of fiduciary duty would have been exempt from liability unless the religious organization had also accepted a property or financial interest from the person who was violated.


Domestic and Family Relations

Domestic violence. The General Assembly extended voluntary income tax contributions to fund the Colorado Domestic Violence Program through January 1, 2007 by enacting House Bill 99-1115. The contribution was set to expire in the year 2000. The Act also creates the Family Violence Justice Fund to be funded annually by general fund moneys. The State Court Administrator is authorized to grant funds to qualifying organizations that provide full civil legal services to indigent victims of family violence. Family violence services may include, but are not limited to, representation of clients to obtain a restraining order, divorce, legal separation, and to establish paternity, child custody, child support and enforcement services, and any other type of representation necessary to protect the interests of a victim of domestic violence. In addition, victims of domestic violence or abuse, and victims of child abuse are no longer required to publish a name change in a local newspaper.
Dissolution of marriage. Parties involved in a dissolution of marriage or a legal separation action that is filed on or after July 1, 1999, will be temporarily restrained from canceling, changing, or allowing to lapse, any life, health, homeowner's, renter's, or automobile insurance coverage policy where the parties or their children are named or listed as beneficiaries under House Bill 99-1234. Parties will be required to sign and acknowledge receipt of an automatic temporary injunction that prohibits them from changing the terms of a policy without a 14-day advance notice and written consent from the other party, or an order from the court authorizing a change.
Child Abuse. After four years of considering similar bills, the General Assembly adopted Senate Bill 99-96, which prohibits female genital mutilation and makes it a crime of child abuse regardless of custom, ritual, standard practice, or consent. The Department of Public Health and Environment must conduct education, prevention, and outreach activities and the district attorney must report the crime to the Immigration and Naturalization Service if the person charged with female genital mutilation is not a U.S. citizen.
The General Assembly again rejected House Bill 99-1221, which would have required audio or videotaped interviews of a child after reports of child abuse and child sexual abuse have been filed.
House Bill 99-1230 also failed after similar legislation had been debated for several years. The bill would have required courts to report to the local district attorney's office, parties who file a false report of abuse or neglect to a county department of social services or local law enforcement agency. The bill would have also made the reporting party liable for the accused party's attorney fees, evaluation costs, costs of supervised visitation, therapy, and any other costs reasonably related to the bad faith allegation. The crime would have been punishable as a class 3 misdemeanor. Individuals would not be granted immunity from civil or criminal liability or termination from employment under the good faith reporting provisions for knowingly filing a false child abuse report or presenting false information in an investigation or judicial proceeding.


Judicial

Juries. The General Assembly considered legislation that increased the amount of travel reimbursement for jurors and two pieces of legislation concerning grand juries, one of which was not adopted.
Under Senate Bill 99-147, jurors will be reimbursed at the same mileage rate paid to state officers and employees. Beginning July 1, 1999, the mileage rate paid to jurors will increase from 15 cents to 20 cents per mile for standard vehicles, 24 cents per mile for four-wheel-drive vehicles, and 40 cents per mile traveled in privately owned aircraft. Jurors will also be reimbursed for round-trip, rather that one-way mileage.
Grand jury service is limited to18 months and additional measures are taken to preserve the confidentiality of a grand juror under House Bill 99-1162. The court may conduct closed hearings during the grand jury selection process and the court or the district attorney may request an order to preserve any information that could be used to identify a grand juror. Absent an order, the Jury Commissioner may only release a list of grand juror's names and juror numbers to the public. The State Court Administrator is authorized to release grand jurors' names and juror numbers for state and judicial district grand juries.
Grand jurors age 70 years and older would have been excused, upon the juror's request, from jury duty prior to impaneling the jury under House Bill 99-1069, which failed.



Judges. The General Assembly adopted legislation to authorize annual appropriations from the general fund to continue judicial performance commissions. The General Assembly also authorized additional judges for some district and county courts. State and local judicial performance commissions will continue to operate until June 30, 2009, pursuant to Senate Bill 99-017. These commissions are authorized to conduct and distribute surveys to the public and produce narrative profiles on Colorado's judges and magistrates.
The number of district court judges was increased from 9 to 10 in Jefferson and Gilpin counties (Senate Bill 99-116). The number of county court judges was increased from 4 to 5 in Boulder County and from 3 to 4 in Larimer County (House Bill 99-1211).
The General Assembly considered a resolution which would have asked voters to approve changes concerning state court justices, judges, and magistrates but Senate Concurrent Resolution 99-004 failed. The ballot question would have asked voters to approve the following:
Bail bonds. The General Assembly enacted several pieces of legislation affecting bail bonds and bail bonding agents and sureties. House Bill 99-1162 prohibits courts from granting bail, pending a sentence or an appeal, for persons convicted of the following offenses:
In addition, bail may not be set unless the court finds that a person is unlikely to flee and does not pose a danger to a person or the community, and that the appeal is not frivolous or pursued for purposes of delaying a sentence or conviction.
House Bill 99-1329 allows cash bonding agents to be licensed as bail bonding agents upon posting a qualification bond of at least $50,000 with the Division of Insurance. The bill prescribes education requirements for cash bond agents seeking licensure. The Division has a priority claim to collect a forfeited qualification bond and may deny, suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a cash bonding agent's license for failure to post bond with the Division. In addition, a cash bonding agent's license can be denied, suspended, or revoked for furnishing bail that is more than twice the amount of the bond posted with the Division.
The General Assembly also adopted legislation to make bail bond forfeiture procedures uniform. House Bill 99-1075 sets up a "board system" in each Colorado court of record to record and distribute the names of bail agents and bail insurance companies who have a bail forfeiture judgment against them. The bill also prohibits courts from accepting appearance bonds from bonding agents if a forfeiture judgment of a bail was issued against the bonding agent due to an unpaid or non-discharged bail. Courts are permitted to declare that a bond be forfeited and must enter a judgment for the state if a defendant fails to appear. A notice of the bond forfeiture must be sent to the bonding agent and surety company within 10 days after the failure to appear. The compensated surety has 15 days after receiving the notice to request a hearing to show why the bond should not be forfeited. The court must order a remission of the bond if the compensated surety apprehends the defendant within 1 year after payment of the judgment.

Court procedures. The General Assembly adopted House Bill 99-1204 which authorizes municipal, county, and district courts to issue uniform temporary or permanent civil restraining orders to: prevent assaults or threatened bodily harm; prevent domestic abuse; prevent emotional abuse of the elderly; and to prevent stalking. Municipal, county, and district courts are granted original concurrent jurisdiction in issuing civil restraining orders. Municipal and county courts are granted original concurrent jurisdiction with a district court to issue additional orders to protect persons. Protection orders may include, but are not limited to:

Declarations of deceased persons. The General Assembly did not repeal the "dead man's statute," as proposed in House Bill 99-1236. Declarations of a deceased person will continue to be inadmissable evidence when the declarations are offered in support of claims brought by others against the dead person's estate.


Social Issues

The General Assembly considered legislation concerning "committed partnerships," same-sex marriages, "covenant marriages," discrimination against homosexual persons, and hate crimes as they relate to homosexual persons, none of which were adopted.
Committed partnerships. Senate Bill 99-78 would have amended the Colorado Probate Code to authorize committed partners to inherit from their deceased partner in the same manner that a surviving spouse would inherit from a deceased spouse who had died without a will. Committed partners would have been allowed to file an affidavit of committed partnership with the county clerk and recorder's office in which one of the partners lived. The legislation also contained provisions regarding the termination of a committed partnership.
Marriages. For several years, the General Assembly has rejected legislation that would ban same-sex marriages in Colorado. Senate Bill 99-159 would have prohibited the state from recognizing same sex marriages as valid, even if the marriage occurred in a state that validated a same-sex marriage.
The General Assembly rejected the "Covenant Marriage Act" in House Bill 99-1199. Parties would have been permitted to commit to a lifelong marriage by declaring their intent to do so on their marriage license application. The legislation would have also required that couples seeking to enter into a covenant marriage get pre-marital counseling. The grounds upon which the parties could seek a divorce or a legal separation would be limited to:

The offer to enter into a covenant marriage agreement would have been extended to couples that are presently married.

Civil rights. House Bill 99-1245 would have extended civil rights protections to persons who are discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. The legislation, which failed, would have applied to laws governing, but not limited to:
Hate crimes. Two identical bills (House Bill 99-1074 and Senate Bill 99-49) were introduced to make it a crime for a person to intimidate or harass an individual due to a physical or mental disability, age, or the sexual orientation of the victim. These terms would have been added to the existing ethnic intimidation statute which prohibits intimidation or harassment based on one's race, color, religion, ancestry, and national origin. The legislation would have changed the name of the crime from "ethnic intimidation" to "hate crime." This is the third year this legislation has failed.

Comments to: LCS.GA@state.co.us

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