By: Robert Harris
CONSUMER PROTECTION EXTENDED:
This past week the Oregon Senate passed law that would extend the time consumers would have to sue for injuries caused by defective products from eight to ten years from the date of manufacture. (SB 284) The bill must first pass the House before it goes to the Governors desk for his signature.
The Oregon Trial Lawyers Association had unsuccessfully asked the Democrat led Senate for an extension to 25 years.
The legislation was in response to a lawsuit by some teachers whose eyes were damaged in 2004 by ultraviolet radiation leaking from a broken protective cover on a metal halide light bulb in a school gymnasium.
TORT CAP LIMITS RAISED:
Many people may not even know this, but the State can, and always has, capped the damages that it can be sued for. That cap was, by statue, $200,000. However, in 2007 the Oregon Supreme Court, in a case of a 3 month old child who suffered irreversible brain damage at OHSU, ruled held that the statutory cap was constitutionally inadequate. (In that case a jury had returned a verdict for $17 Million in actual damages)
In response to the Supreme Courts ruling, the legislature increased the liability cap $100,000 a year to a maximum of $1.5 million by 2015 for individual claims against state government. The plan would increase the cap to $3 million for all claims from a single incident. The bill also would eliminate the distinction between economic and non-economic damages.
Lower caps would be allowed for cities, counties, school boards and special districts. The reform was supported by Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association.
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