(Download) "Trujillo v. City of Albuquerque" by New Mexico Supreme Court * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Trujillo v. City of Albuquerque
- Author : New Mexico Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 08, 1998
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 73 KB
Description
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF BERNALILLO COUNTY Frank H. Allen, Jr., District Judge OPINION {1} These consolidated appeals involve separate tort claims brought against the City of Albuquerque (City) pursuant to the New Mexico Tort Claims Act (TCA), NMSA 1978, § 41-4-1 to 4-27 (1976, as amended through 1996). Plaintiffs from both cases challenged the constitutionality of the damages limitation in Section 41-4-19(A) of the TCA, arguing that the cap violates their rights of equal protection under the New Mexico and United States Constitutions. {2} In considering the constitutionality of the cap, it first is necessary to determine the applicable analysis for this type of equal protection challenge. In a previous appeal of this case before this Court, we adopted an intermediate scrutiny equal protection analysis. See Trujillo v. City of Albuquerque, 110 N.M. 621, 623, 798 P.2d 571, 573 (1990) [hereinafter Trujillo I]. After lengthy reexamination of the parties' arguments and consideration of law-of-the-case and stare decisis principles, this Court now reverses that decision. We hold that the damages cap in this case is subject to rational basis scrutiny, and rational basis will be the constitutional test applied to cap challenges of this nature from this point forward.