SB 22-115

Senate Bill 22-115, which has been signed into law, clarifies how landowners can be held responsible for accidents or crimes that happen on their property. It specifically says that courts should not consider whether the goods or services a landowner offers are controversial when deciding if the landowner could have predicted criminal behavior. The bill also states that a landowner cannot be blamed as the main cause of harm just because someone else's criminal act was involved, unless that criminal act wasn't the primary reason for the harm. This affects how lawsuits against property owners might proceed in Colorado. Since it has been signed, the law is now active and impacts legal cases involving landowner liability.

Official Summary

The bill clarifies the meaning of terms related to landowner liability and declares that the Colorado court of appeals and supreme court decisions in Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, Inc. v. Wagner should not be relied upon to the extent that those decisions determined: The foreseeability of third-party criminal conduct based upon whether the goods or services offered by a landowner are controversial; and That a landowner could be held liable as a substantial factor in causing harm without considering whether a third-party criminal act was the predominant cause of that harm.(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)

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