Fiscal Impact Summary	FY 1999/2000	FY 2000/2001
State Revenues General Fund
State Expenditures General Fund	Potential Increase	Potential Increase
FTE Position Change	0.0 FTE	0.0 FTE
Other State Impact: None
Effective Date: Upon signature of the Governor.
Appropriation Summary for FY 1999-2000: None. Please refer to the State Appropriations section on page 3 of this fiscal note.
Local Government Impact: Allows a governmental entity to file civil suit to recover damages.

This bill (as amended by the Senate Judiciary Committee, February 15, 1999) creates the "Drug Dealer Liability Act" in the statutory provisions regarding court procedure to allow a person to bring an action for civil damages caused by use of an illegal drug within the state. Persons eligible to bring civil suit for damages may include, among others, a parent, an employer, a medical facility, an insurer, or a governmental entity. The bill entitles a person to seek damages from a person who sold, administered, or furnished an illegal drug, or a person who participated in marketing the illegal drug during the drug user's period of use. The bill allows the injured person to recover certain economic and noneconomic damages, plus exemplary damages, attorney fees, and costs of the suit.

Other provisions of the bill regard certain exceptions to the liability; comparative negligence; contribution among and recovery from multiple defendants; effects of criminal drug conviction; prejudgement attachment and execution on attachments; statute of limitations for a defendant; and stay of action.

This bill may require the Judicial Branch to incur additional trial costs starting in FY 1999-2000 for civil suits filed by persons to seek damages from any person who sold, administered, or furnished an illegal drug, or any person who participated in marketing the illegal drug during the drug user's period of use.

This fiscal note assumes that some number of such civil suits may be filed starting in FY 1999-2000; however, the Judicial Branch is unable to forecast the number of those suits and estimate any associated court costs.

Judicial records show that during FY 1997-98, 9,465 drug cases were filed in Colorado for drug use, which indicates the number of persons to file such civil suits may be significant. Additionally, the amount of damages to be recovered by those persons can be significant. Because of the lack of historical data for these types of cases, the Judicial Branch is unable to forecast the number of cases that may actually occur starting in FY 1999-2000. This fiscal note cannot assess whether the costs associated with those additional cases can be absorbed within the Judicial Branch's existing resources. Therefore, if additional resources are required during FY 1999-2000, the Judicial Branch will identify them at that time.

This bill allows a governmental entity to file civil suit to recover damages. A governmental entity may incur additional litigation costs and may recover damages. The amounts of those costs and recovered damages have not been estimated.

This fiscal note would imply that no new state appropriations are required for FY 1999-2000.

In the event the Judicial Branch is not able to absorb additional court costs within existing resources, additional General Fund appropriations may be required.