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174 Colo. 113

Proffitt v. State

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided March 22, 1971

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1971-03-22

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“effective only as to causes of action arising after June 30, 1972.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including sh Foundation, Katherine Tudor, and Donald Herbert Goede, III v. City of Colorado Springs

Relies on Evans v. Board of County Commissioners · Flournoy v. School District Number One

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1971-03-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently December 2020 · most notably Evans v. Board of County Commissioners (1971), Bertrand v. Board of County Commissioners of Park County (1994)

2 district · 57 state decisions

180197119801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Mr. Justice Groves

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶2The plaintiff in error (plaintiff) brought an action against the State of Colorado and a number of officers and employees of the State to recover for the alleged wrongful death of her son, who was stabbed while an inmate in the State Reformatory. The State moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground of sovereign immunity. The court sustained the motion.

¶3We make no expression concerning the merits of this action and confine ourselves solely to the matter of sovereign immunity of the State of Colorado. For the reasons expressed in Evans v. County Commissioners, 174 Colo. 97, 482 P.2d 968, announced contemporaneously with this opinion, we hold that the court-made doctrine of sovereign immunity of the State of Colorado is overruled. As to the parties to this proceeding and the two contemporaneous proceedings (Evans, supra, and Flournoy v. School District Number One, 174 Colo. 110, 482 P.2d 966), this decision is effective immediately. As to all other causes of action the ruling shall be prospective only and shall be effective only as to causes of action arising after June 30, 1972.

¶4The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with instructions to deny the motion to dismiss and reinstate the complaint as against the State of Colorado.

¶5Mr. Justice Day and Mr. Justice Kelley dissent for the reasons expressed in their dissents filed in Evans v. County Commissioners, supra.

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