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Insurers Losing Info Due to Amendment S; SD Version Broader Than CA, IL Laws

In his detailed take on the complications caused by the enactment of Amendment S, Seth Tupper brings to our attention the trouble Henry T. Nicholas’s crime victims bill of rights may cause for the insurance industry:

Jim Davidson, president of the South Dakota Insurance Alliance, said his members are concerned about the availability of crash reports.

“If there is an auto accident, typically what adjusters are relying on is the information they get in those reports, the opinion in there about who’s at fault, the descriptions and the circumstances of the accident,” Davidson said. “If the Highway Patrol and various police departments aren’t willing to release those because of privacy, it’s potentially problematic” [Seth Tupper, “Backlash Greets Marsy’s Law as It Sparks Spending, Secrecy and Slow Prosecutions,” Rapid City Journal, 2016.12.04].

Amendment S sponsor Jason Glodt repeats his assertion that South Dakota officials just aren’t interpreting Amendment S the way he thinks they should. But Tupper notes that Glodt himself doesn’t appear to be reading his own amendment closely enough:

Another factor that could account for the varied responses to Marsy’s Law is that no state’s version of Marsy’s Law is exactly identical to any other’s. When asked why, Glodt said each law is based on the same model language and differences from state to state are not significant.

Others disagree, citing examples such as the clause in the California law that allows victims to prevent the disclosure of “confidential information.” The word “confidential” was dropped from before the word “information” in the corresponding section of the South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana laws, leading to a potentially broader right to prevent the release of all victim information rather than just confidential information, according to some critics of the law.

The Illinois law, meanwhile, does not grant victims a right to prevent the disclosure of information. Instead, it grants victims the related but narrower-sounding right “to notice and to a hearing” before any court issues a ruling on the release of victim information that is “privileged or confidential by law” [Tupper, 2016.12.04].

If Glodt doesn’t like how South Dakota officials and courts are interpreting his and Nicholas’s amendment, maybe he and Nicholas should have taken the time to write an amendment that wouldn’t rely so much on generous interpretations. Let that be a lesson for all ballot measure writers: laws and the constitution need to say exactly what they mean and not depend on guessing how the sponsors imagined they would work.

8 Comments

  1. Roger Elgersma 2016-12-05 14:17

    I thought that this law a was for sex crime victims. A car crash is not usually a sex crime. Unless you just passed your rapist and took revenge. Some times people in law get so arrogant about their power and just try to cause problems when the people stop them. Remember when Rounds was not supposed to buy more airplanes and then the next year we went from nine planes to thirteen.

  2. Joe Nelson 2016-12-05 15:13

    These problems are a big reason why I voted against IM 23, it was so broadly written that it would be inevitable that problems would crop up.

    How soon before we can get rid of this law?

  3. scott 2016-12-05 17:52

    Several legislators are quick to challenge IM#22. Where is the concern over IM#23?

  4. Joe Nelson 2016-12-05 18:26

    Well, IM 23 died, so it is no longer of concern. My concern at the time though, was that it was very broadly written.

    Section 1. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, an organization, corporate or nonprofit, has the right to charge a fee for any service provided by the organization.
    Section 2. The effective date of this Act is July 1,201

    In the words of CAH “laws and the constitution need to say exactly what they mean and not depend on guessing how the sponsors imagined they would work.”

    For a measure which is supposed to stop freeloaders from taking advantage of unions, there is no mention of unions or freeloaders.

  5. Porter Lansing 2016-12-05 18:35

    What happened South Dakota? Has your Republican majority lost all ability to problem solve? To tweak a situation? C’mon, man!!

  6. Douglas Wiken 2016-12-05 19:36

    There was a massive failure of state officials to properly attack this idiotic constitutional amendment. If it was not idiotic, it was intentionally ignored in the interests of restricting transparency of government actions. Either case is not good news.

    Marcey’s law turns the state into an agency of feudal revenge of the kind what warps Islamic countries and mirrors middle age and pre middle age revenge killings, duels, etc.

  7. jerry 2016-12-05 20:23

    Can you imagine having this barrister defend you in court? He must have gotten a real real good check for selling this stinkin carp. Taxpayers are gonna love him dearly for the bill they get.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-12-06 10:39

    Joe, since S is an Amendment, we can’t get rid of it unless the Legislature or an initiative petition puts it to a public vote. That vote can’t happen until November 2018, unless the Legislature decides repeal is so imperative that it warrants a special election. Given A.G. Jackley’s new official opinion, I don’t think anyone in Pierre views S’s harms with any such sense of urgency.

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