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House passes DOT liability clarification after debate; parental-responsibility education bill rejected
Summary
The Utah House on March 6 amended and passed SB 50 to restate the traditional duty of care for the Department of Transportation, while a bill to direct the State Board of Education to provide sex-education materials to parents (SB 39) failed after extended debate over need and scope. Several consent-calendar bills were also approved.
The Utah House of Representatives on March 6 passed an amended Department of Transportation liability bill and rejected a parental-responsibility measure after extended floor debate.
Representative Brown, sponsor of the amended Senate Bill 50, said the change was a technical correction meant to preserve the long-standing common-law standard that ‘‘the department needs to exercise reasonable care in designing, constructing, and maintaining a state highway in a reasonably safe condition for travel.’’ He and other backers said the amendment prevents recent judicial expansions of liability from imposing a larger duty on UDOT without legislative review.
Opponents pressed the bill’s sponsor on whether it properly accounts for existing governmental tort-immunity statutes and worried about whether narrowing judicial interpretation…
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