State’s liability in lawsuits concerns officials

PROVIDENCE — The attorney general is pushing a bill that would protect Rhode Island taxpayers from paying out “multiple multimillion-dollar claims” in civil suits filed against the state.

The bill (H 6261) would ensure the state pays only up to $100,000 in damages in civil cases, undercutting a recent Supreme Court decision that lifted the cap under certain circumstances.

The court’s April 2017 decision in the case of Victoria Roach, a contract nurse who was injured while working at the state’s Veterans Home, “constitutes an ‘Open Sesame’ for enormous damage awards,” wrote Chief Justice William P. Robinson in his dissent.

The background: While working an evening shift in 2008, Roach slipped on spilled cleaning fluid and fell on the bathroom floor. She “recalled hydroplaning on the liquid and landing in a split position.” She felt “excruciating pain, and her knee cracked on the way down.” She tore her anterior cruciate ligament — or ACL — and a meniscus, according to court documents.

The accident left her out of work for three-and-a-half years while she underwent surgery and physical therapy. When Roach returned to work in 2012, she was forced to drop her hours from 40 to 16, which resulted in an $800 reduction in pay per week before taxes, according to court documents.

She successfully sued the state in 2014 and was awarded $631,373 in damages following a trial, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the supposed cap.

Here is where it gets complicated. The Supreme Court’s decision hangs on a key phrase in the state’s current law: “proprietary function.”

The law states: “In any tort action against the state of Rhode Island or any political subdivision thereof, any damages recovered therein shall not exceed the sum of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000); provided, however, that in all instances in which the state was engaged in a proprietary function in the commission of the tort, or in any situation whereby the state has agreed to indemnify the federal government or any agency thereof for any tort liability, the limitation on damages set forth in this section shall not apply.”

A “proprietary function” is defined by the state court as “one which is not so intertwined with governing that the government is obligated to perform it only by its own agents.” Since the Veterans Affairs Home could, in theory, operate in the private sector, the court found that Roach’s case, and others like it, are exempt from the cap.

This ruling opens the floodgates for large awards against cities, towns and the state as a whole, advocates argued in front of the House Committee on Finance on June

14. Rebecca Partington, the chief of the civil division in the attorney general’s office, offered examples of cases that have landed on her desk.

She highlighted the case of Simcha Berman, a Brooklyn man, who was walking on Newport’s Cliff Walk in 2000, when the ground gave way beneath his feet. He fell 29 feet, fracturing his spinal chord. He sued the state for $30 million. The state won this case, but imagine if it hadn’t, Partington said.

This, along with another similar case filed at the same time, could’ve cost the state “$100 million in the space of the month,” she said. And, if the state didn’t pay within 30 days — it could have been held in contempt of court.

“We believe that this bill is necessary this year in this session to ensure stability and predictability,” Partington said.

Lawmakers hope the bill will plug the hole. Rep. Robert E. Craven, a North Kingstown

Democrat, introduced the legislation at Attorney

General Peter F. Kilmartin’s urging. Kilmartin wrote in support of the bill: “The policy recognized a balancing of state fiscal resources by protecting the taxpayers from having to be responsible for paying very large awards of damages while managing the state’s other fiscal and budgetary considerations.”

The House Committee on Finance held the bill for further study after last week’s hearing.

—jtempera@ providence-journal.com

(401) 277-7121

On Twitter: @jacktemp