No. SB 660
Filed under Healthcare.
Community-based Care Lead Agency and Subcontractor Liability; Defining the term “culpably negligent manner”; providing circumstances under which a community-based care lead agency is not liable in tort for the acts or omissions of its officers or employees; providing that a community-based care lead agency may be held liable in tort for such acts or omissions under certain circumstances; providing that a subcontractor of a community-based care lead agency may be held liable in tort for such acts or omissions under certain circumstances; deleting a provision applying a limitation on certain liability to contracts entered into or renewed after a certain date, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDLead agencies and their subcontractors currently have blanket immunity from lawsuits over their own officers' and employees' conduct. That immunity becomes conditional -- it now depends on the agency actually running background checks, registry checks, and required training.
A claimant can now sue a lead agency or subcontractor over a specific act if it skipped one of those required steps, that lapse matches the type of harm the step was meant to prevent, and the lapse contributed to what happened.
A lead agency still cannot be sued over the conduct of its subcontractors or the subcontractors' own staff -- that blanket shield stays in place even as the agency's shield for its own staff narrows.
A separate rule that automatically raised the $2 million, $400,000, and $200,000 damage caps by 5 percent every year is repealed, so those dollar limits on what an injured claimant can recover stop climbing.
AIA lead agency keeps its immunity from suits over its own officers' and employees' conduct only if it ensured timely criminal background checks, periodic registry checks, misconduct reporting, and recurring abuse-prevention and reporting training for that staff.
AIA claimant can hold a lead agency liable by showing it was not in substantial compliance with one of the four requirements at the time of the incident, that the requirement targeted that type of harm, and that the gap contributed to it.
AIA subcontractor gets the identical conditional shield for its own officers, agents, and employees, contingent on the same background-check, registry-check, misconduct-reporting, and training requirements imposed on lead agencies.
AICurrent law confines a subcontractor's immunity from the lead agency's or department's conduct to contracts entered into or renewed after July 1, 2025. That date restriction is deleted, so the immunity is no longer tied to when the contract was signed.
AIA separate subsection that raised the statutory damage caps by 5 percent every year since 2014 is eliminated entirely, so the dollar limits on economic and noneconomic damages stop rising with time.
AIRegardless of its own compliance record, a lead agency remains completely shielded from tort suits over the acts or omissions of its subcontractors or the subcontractors' own officers, agents, or employees.
AIBoth lead agencies and subcontractors must put their officers and employees through periodic child sexual abuse prevention training and child abuse and neglect reporting training to keep their liability shield.
AIBefore hiring and at least once every five years afterward, the agency or subcontractor must confirm its officers and employees are not listed in a disqualifying state registry or database.