Attorney urges lifting limit on lawsuits targeting government

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 11:53 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The law limiting an injured citizen to an award of only $50,000 due to the negligence of the state or a local government should be abolished, a Las Vegas attorney says.

But government lawyers say the taxpayers would pay increased judgments against the state and the political subdivisions.

A legislative study committee opened the debate this week on whether to increase the $50,000 limit in effect since 1979 or to abolish it altogether. The committee will hold three more meetings before making its recommendations to the 2001 Legislature.

James Crockett Jr., a Las Vegas attorney representing the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association, says there's been injustices because of this law. "We have to be totally responsible for what we do, yet the government hides behind a 500-year concept that, 'The king can do no wrong.'

"Government is nothing but people working for government who have the capacity to cause tremendous catastrophic losses."

But Solicitor General Mark Ghan of the Nevada attorney general's office, estimated that it would cost state taxpayers an additional $2 million a year if the cap was eliminated. The real problem, Ghan said, was in rural Nevada and whether these counties can afford to pay out a sum greater than $50,000 if found liable for a wrongdoing.

Eliminating or raising the cap, Ghan said, has "far-ranging impacts." For instance, a rural county may decide not to have a park out of fear that somebody may fall on the playground and sue the local government. The 1999 Legislature ordered the study, saying, "Persons injured in this state may not be adequately compensated for injuries caused to them" by the state or local governments. The Legislature directed that the study consider the fiscal impact.

In 1998 the state paid out $3.5 million in tort claims, Ghan said. The state is presently self-insured. If the damage amount was increased or eliminated, Ghan said, the state would have to buy insurance.

Ghan noted a person can collect more than $50,000 for several causes of action. For instance, a mentally retarded man was sexually abused nine times over a period of months at a state center in Reno. His relatives received $50,000 for each instance, plus another $50,000 for a total of $500,000.

Crockett said that case shows the unfairness of the law. If the mentally retarded man had been raped nine times in one night at the state center, he would have received only $50,000.

The limit on award of damages do not apply in civil rights cases such as sexual harassment or discrimination. Crockett told of a case in which a black man was choked to death in Las Vegas by Metro Police and his survivors received $900,000 for violation of civil rights.

But if the survivors had filed a tort claim against the local government, the award would have been limited to $50,000.

Crockett referred to another case where a young boy in Las Vegas was electrocuted in a rainstorm because of an improperly installed street light. After years of litigation, the father and mother each received $50,000.