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Jenks v. Sheriff Patrick Sullivan3/10/1992
CHIEF JUSTICE ROVIRA delivered the Opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to review the court of appeals decision in Jenks v. Sullivan, 813 P.2d 800 (Colo. App. 1991), affirming the trial court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the respondents, the Arapahoe County Sheriff and the County Commissioners for the County of Arapahoe. The trial court concluded that Colorado's sovereign immunity statute bars recovery by the petitioner, Robert W. Jenks, who was injured by the acts of a third party while he was in the Arapahoe County courthouse. We affirm.
I
On January 20, 1988, a domestic relations hearing was scheduled to take place before a district court Judge in the Arapahoe County courthouse at 1:30 p.m. Prior to the hearing, the Judge requested the sheriff's department to screen with a metal detector all persons coming into her courtroom and to have a uniformed deputy sheriff present.
At approximately 1:00 p.m., Jenks arrived at the courthouse, accompanying the wife of Chanh Van Duong, one of the parties in the hearing. The other party, Chanh Van Duong, was already at the courthouse. Following a brief conversation between Duong and his wife, Duong shot and killed her and shot Jenks in the hand. The shooting occurred in the corridor outside the courtroom where no security precautions had been requested and before the deputy sheriff had arrived.
Jenks sued the respondents claiming that they were negligent in failing to exercise reasonable care for his safety and in failing to maintain courtroom facilities in a manner that would protect people who were in the courthouse from unreasonable harm or danger. The respondents moved for summary judgment on the ground that, as a matter of law, the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (Act), section 24-10-101 to -120, 10A C.R.S. (1988), barred Jenks' claims. The trial court granted the motion, holding that the Act applied and Jenks' claims did not come within any of the exceptions provided for in the Act. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that the facts alleged did not fall within the dangerous condition exception to the Act, section 24-10-106(1)(c), 10A C.R.S. (1988), which it construed to relate to a physical condition of the building, not to activities conducted therein.
II
Jenks contends that the respondents did not use reasonable care in protecting him from a dangerous condition which existed in the courthouse and therefore the dangerous condition exception to the Act contained in section 24-10-106(1)(c) should be construed to include the absence of security in the courthouse at the time of the shooting. Accordingly, the question we must resolve is whether the dangerous condition exception to governmental immunity is applicable to Jenks' claim.
In Evans v. Board of County Commissioners, 174 Colo. 97, 482 P.2d 968 (1971), we abolished the doctrine of sovereign immunity, but found that the General Assembly had the authority to restore sovereign immunity, if it so chose. Id. at 105, 482 P.2d at 972. Subsequently, the General Assembly enacted the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act. In the Act's declaration of policy, the General Assembly recognized that the doctrine of sovereign immunity is in some instances an inequitable doctrine, but stated "that unlimited liability could disrupt or make prohibitively expensive the provision of . . . essential public services and functions." ยง 24-10-102, 10A C.R.S. (1988). The General Assembly also recognized that:
The taxpayers would ult
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