S.B. 292 Autonomous Systems Amendments: transcript

Okay. Admittedly, can I present from here? Yes. Admittedly, this, this bill still needs a little, little bit of work. We're moving to, we're moving into unchartered territory with, uh, autonomous vehicles coming online much more now. Current tort frameworks were built around human drivers, but level four and five autonomous vehicles don't neatly fit into negligence law. So this bill is an attempt to find some structural, structural clarity around that. Um, the bill as is currently constituted, I've been meeting with stakeholders, it's gonna adjust quite a bit. And so we're looking to regulate four level four and five autonomous vehicles. Create a framework where there, there could be an easier path to recovery, uh, you know, but cap the recovery for that easier path. And if you want to go more, uh, normal tort that the, I've worked, been working with trial attorneys, we're looking to, to say no punitive damages. Um, and then create what the standard might be to go for, uh, normal negligence on those types of claims. And then defining what product liability might be for these types of, uh, vehicles and, and creating a state-of-the-art defense as a way to encourage this. But, but making to encourage autonomous vehicles hitting the road, I think there's a lot of public benefit for doing so. It helps a disabled community. Um, I've heard from, uh, organizations for blind people and elderly people that are really looking forward to this, but we need to create an environment where there's some, some structure around it. And so I'm working with both autonomous vehicles manufacturers, as well as the trial attorneys to, to navigate that. And so we haven't landed, but that's what the bill is aiming to do at this point.

Thank you Senator. Uh, Mr. Chairman, members of Kitty Frank Pinelli with the automotive, all the Alliance of Automotive Innovation. We represent all the domestic and international manufacturers of automobiles in the country. Uh, we really appreciate working with Senator Cullimore. We've got a couple questions for you and some, uh, proposals we'll be getting to you. But as always, the Senator Vickers good to work with is very knowledgeable and we appreciate him and this committee.

Um, we're, we're right in the middle of those two things. Um, as you guys know, I serve as the legislative chair for the Utah Association for Justice. And I wanna start off by thanking Senator Cullimore. He has,

Uh, Jake Lee and I live in Riverton. Okay,

Uh, we want to thank Senator Cullimore for working with us about our concerns on this. We understand this Bill's intended to invite innovation and emerging technology and we support that goal. Um, autonomous systems may ultimately make our roads safer, and if they do, we think we should welcome them. But innovation must be balanced with meaningful protections for Utahans who may be seriously, IM permanently harmed. So, um, we'll, we'll continue working on that with him. We wanted to bring that to your attention and I'll save the rest of my stuff for later if it becomes necessary. 'cause I know we're short on time, so thank you.

Thank you with the commitment that we will continue to work on this. I'll favor, uh, motion favorably recommend this senate bill. We Have a motion favorably recommend Senate Bill 2 9 2 to the floor of the Senate with the, um, sponsor's, uh, commitment to continue to work with stakeholders.

Okay, thank you. Chair and committee. Um, I might ask, there's a sub online if, if you want to adopt it before or after, but I can speak to that.

So what the bill does, um, it creates a new simplified driver driverless liability framework. So we can expect autonomous vehicles, the technology's already here, we can expect them to start coming into our state more and more. And what we're trying to do is establish what that liability framework looks like. So what, what we've done here is created three potential causes of action, uh, to encourage the implementation of driverless vehicles, but still give, uh, uh, victims a potential path of recovery. Because if it's truly autonomous, the thought is like you don't have a driver, and negligence might be difficult to prove. And so you might have to go product liability route, which requires a, a pretty steep curve burden of proof, uh, a lot of discovery and, uh, expert, expert witnesses and evidence of, of what, what, what actually mal malfunction and why you need recovery. And so where we've lived in a world where run of the mill motor vehicle accidents are, have a more sure path to recovery, this helps, this helps establish that while still giving protections to this new technology so that we can, we can pave a way for, uh, adoption here in the state of Utah. So one path, uh, creates a statutory cause of action for incidents involving, uh, a driverless vehicle op if it's operating in driverless mode. And a plaintiff only needs to prove that the vehicle was in driverless operation and that the driverless vehicle was approximate cause of the injury. Injury, meaning they don't necessarily have to prove that there was a breach of duty and that would, but that cause of action, because it's a lower burden, the damages would be capped at a hundred thousand dollars, which, which encapsulates most motor vehicle accidents, right? So second, you can still go the typical negligence route and, and just sue as you would in any other, but what we did there is we capped non-economic damages at $1 million. And then the third is, uh, we clarified manufacturer and developer liability, um, and said that, uh, where is this? If you bring a, if you bring a claim of product defect against, uh, an a DA, uh, autonomous driverless vehicle operation, they must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that a reasonable alternative design existed and that the vehicle caused more injuries in the aggregate than human drivers. So, and then it creates a rebuttable presumption of non defect for systems that meet these federal standards, which are Vernal fairly high federal standards. And you have to meet that to be deemed one of these, to have this rebuttable presumption. And so it, it creates a state-of-the-art defense as it's called. And this is used in other technologies and used in other states. So those are your three, um, recourses for these types of vehicles, but also gives, uh, confidence and surety to the businesses that are, that are implementing or, or putting out these types of vehicles to know that the liability space that they're entering into, um, has, has some guardrails. We did put a Sunset on this for July 1st, 2030 so that we can study this. Um, it's, it's a little bit out because we don't really have any, uh, it's called a DS four or five, truly autonomous driverless vehicles deployed yet. And so we need some time to actually get them deployed and then actually start doing the studies. And so this gives us time to, uh, potentially have these deployed, do some studies, and then come back and determine whether these policy decisions were right or whether we need to adjust it. And with that, I'm open to any questions.

Representative Cutler. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Cole Moore, for your work on autonomous vehicles. I think this is, uh, I, I am believe autonomous vehicles are, will improve our safety and, uh, be a real benefit for us. But I wanted to understand how this works. If, uh, especially the economic damages, I understand the non-economic damage limit makes sense and the, uh, a hundred thousand dollars per replacement of vehicle or whatever. Let's, let's use a bad hypothetical that, uh, Dave is, is flying his, uh, his, uh, uh, what do we call those things? Paraglider, his paraglider and, uh, uh, the autonomous and, uh, hasn't, has some kind of a problem, tries to land on the road. The, the autonomous vehicle doesn't recognize Dave's paraglider and takes, takes him out, and he is not able to work for five years. Uh, and he has a, has a reasonable claim for economic damages. How, how would that work?

So, so what what can be kind of confusing here is really, there's three paths to the recovery. On the first path, you're capped at a hundred thousand dollars, but that's, if you decide to go that path and, and, and, and it's easier, it's, it's still judicial, but it's more administrative in nature. It was the intent. The second path is just your usual typical tort type claim. And so we're not capping special damages at all. So if you have exorbitant medical damages, if you've, uh, you know, job loss and all that, those are special damages that would not be encumbered by a cap. And so the non-economic damages is just where you'd have the $1 million cap. And, And, and I should also note that all of these, if wrongful death is exempted from all of this, so if it's wrongful death than you, you go a different route altogether.

Thanks. That's really helpful. Yeah.

Next. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, I appreciate the Sunset. 'cause I think this is to some extent, uncharted territory. It's interesting, I was in a couple cities over the summer that had these vehicles in 'em, and it's quite odd to see a whole line of 'em at a traffic light with no drivers when you're not used to that. Anyway, I, I think it's coming. It's generally a good idea. I wonder at a couple things, there's the rebuttable presumption that if it meets federal, applicable federal standards, that it's a safe vehicle. I worry a little bit about that presumption shifting. I mean, I don't know any, I I, yeah, I guess I, and then maybe just speak to all these things. I, the sunset's a good idea to revisit. I appreciate that. If you could speak to that. And then changing the idea that in, in motor vehicles, we haven't had a limitation on, as far as I know, on, uh, on non-economic damages. I mean, why wouldn't we want the same rule applicable? Why, why do we cap that for the autonomous vehicle? Maybe speak to those things if you would.

Yeah, so, so to the state of the art defense, you know, when, when new emerging technology comes out, uh, it's, it's not uncommon that we offer this rebuttable presumption because the idea is in the aggregate. Hopefully these things become more safe, or, or we want to see the adoption and the exposure for new technology can be, can be huge because, you know, people are unsure what it is. And if you get injured by it, a lot of these companies are really big business. And so sometimes juries and others might say, Hey, they, they can afford this. And so a state of the art defense, um, it is, like I said, just usual and emerging technologies. And so the thought is we'll do that here so that we can help with the deployment and help the businesses have some surety around if they're meeting these standards. And I don't, I can't speak to the standards specifically, but as I understand to meet these federal standards, it has to be, you have to demonstrate pretty high, um, uh, I don't technical capabilities and stuff like that. And, and so the, the thought was this, this would preclude just some run in the mail companies deploying, uh, cars and using AI or something like that to deploy these cars. And then, you know, they, they haven't gone through all the rigorous steps that it would be required. I see.

I see. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful to get that perspective. And then the, the caps, I would, I would say this in, in that really, when we're looking at liability here, it, it's hard to say that there's negligence. 'cause you're talking about a product liability, you're talking about a computer driving around. And so you don't have a person where you can say they were negligently in this lane, or they, they ran a red light or something like that. And so you would have to go to product liability. And so it, it's, in my mind, it's a little bit of a compromise saying, we'll allow you to still pursue a traditional tort negligence claim, but because it's not really, because you're not pointing at a person who did something negligent, rather you're reporting at a product, we're gonna cap that. So it's, it, I would say it's not exactly, the injury could be the same 'cause it's still a car accident, but it's not the same because you don't have a driver over here that did something negligent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you senator for your good work on this. I, I think this is the way of the future. Um, even today I use full self-drive, partly because I think it drives safer than me. Um, but I do have a couple of questions here for you. Um, just on the a hundred thousand dollars cap, can you walk through how that was determined? And does that, is that adequate for serious or catastrophic injury?

Yeah, so that, that was determined and, and frankly it was, it was a number, a little bit pulled outta the air. Okay. But, and, and it was negotiated some, it started smaller, but the thought was, um, and, and actually it came from talking to some trial attorneys that there are other types of claims, and I I don't recall them right now, but where it's, if you just demonstrate this, you have a path to recovery. And that's what the thought was on this many car accident. And this is bo bodily injury stuff, not necessarily vehicle replacement. So if you have a path, I mean, if you were injured by an autonomous vehicle, most car accidents that you see settle somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to a hundred thousand dollars. And so the thought was let's create an easier path for that type of recovery. But, and, and if you recover under that path, that's gonna be your sole way to recover. But if it's, but if you're looking at more than a hundred thousand dollars of damages, we're not, we're not saying that's your, that's your only path. You can go back and do the second path and just sue as you would for normal tort, which you might not otherwise be able to do without this law because you're talking about, uh, a machine rather than a going back to that driver. And so you can still sue and, and recover damages in excess of a hundred thousand dollars if you go the second route. This route was just saying, let's create like an easier path to recovery and, and limit it. So then, and by limiting it, we, we decrease the burden of proof over there. So it, it's an option. It's not the only option.

Okay. And then my other question, I know you've spoke at length about this already, and I just wanna make sure I understand. We've eliminated negligence and strict liability. Is there a reason why we did that instead of reforming existing product liability law?

Um, we were, so, so product liability is usually, per se, uh, per se negligence if you meet the certain standards, right? And so you can still go product liability. So we didn't eliminate it, but we just added that state of the art defense because it is, it is a new and new and emerging technology. And so it is, it is a little bit different standard than your strict product liability cases. But that's, that's in consideration of the new technology. That's that, that this represents.

Thank you Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Mackay Johnson. I'm with the local lobbying firm, Foxley and Pagan. Um, we represent the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which is the Trade Association of Domestic and International car Manufacturers. We, uh, wanted to thank the senator for his collaboration on this bill. Um, he's made it very workable for the industry and we, uh, we support this. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name's Jake Lee and I serve as chair of the legislative committee for the Utah Association for Justice. Um, we understand this Bill's intended to invite innovation and emerging technology into Utah, and we support that goal. Autonomous systems may ultimately make our roads safer, and if they do, Utah should welcome. But innovation needs to be balanced with meaningful protections for Utahns who may be seriously and permanently harmed. Um, as written sub two eliminates punitive damages and grants, many protections to largely untested technology. And we just don't have sufficient safety data to know whether this framework strikes the right balance. Um, we appreciate Senator Comore a lot, uh, the Sunset approach so that this can be looked at and reviewed to determine whether further protections for Utah families are gonna be needed. And we also appreciate the secondary avenue of recovery for catastrophic injuries. Having said that, with regard to the manufacturers, uh, we believe that this approach should include, include specifically at line 73 through 75. We'd like to see those removed. Um, while a product might be helpful overall, that doesn't change, that it still injured someone and the manufacturer should not get a pass on the people they do injure because they're injuring fewer people than their competitors. And for that same reasoning, we would, we would also like to see, uh, the Sunset provision apply to all of section oh eight, not just part of it. Um, as I was saying, if autonomous systems truly outperform human drivers claims will be rare and the system will validate itself. But if we're wrong, we just don't think Utah family should bear the full cost of that experiment. And so, wait, thank you to the senator for working with us on this. We look forward to continuing that dialogue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we adopt sub two of SB 2 92.

I'll leave. Okay. Um, okay.

I'll waive. Okay. The motion

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we pass out SB 2 92, substitute two favorably to the full house.

Mr. Chair. And I appreciate the motion. 'cause I, I like most of this bill, I are you, is the million dollar cap on, uh, non-economic, do you, do you feel like that's an integral part of the bill and you, you wouldn't like a motion to amend that at this point? I guess, yeah. I, I would resist that motion. It, it is been debated. Some, we have a cap on non-economic damages in the state of Utah for medical malpractice, and that's at four 50. And the bill started out aligned with that at four 50. And so we negotiated some and moved it up to a million. And so I appreciate that. And I'll hold my piece on that. I, I do worry that if a person is run over by a driver vehicle, a vehicle with a driver, traditional, they, they're entitled to one amount. And if they're run over by a vehicle like this, uh, and have the same injuries, they'd be entitled to a different amount. I have, I got heartburn about that. And so, although I really appreciate the work and the, and the effort and the thinking and the negotiation, um, I, I got enough heartburn about that. I'm gonna not support this. Thank you.

Yeah, I, I just would like to thank Ian, the senator for this, for this work on this. I know this is, uh, new technology and it's never easy passing legislation around it. I, I think Utah has let out in many ways around technology. And I think welcoming in these companies, allowing them to innovate is the right step. I think there's some good discussion around caps and, and maybe it can be a further discussion, but, uh, for now I think it should be moved to the full house.

and replace it with first substitute Senate bill 2 92. And to that motion, this simplifies things. This, this is dealing with autonomous vehicles. The substitute limits it to Class four and class five vehicles, which are fully autonomous and driverless. Um, it creates a new liability framework, which I'll discuss with the bill and, uh, yeah, creates, creates new liability structure for autonomous for level four and five autonomous vehicles. So that's to this motion to substitute.

Thank you president. So, autonomous vehicles are, are no longer theoretical. They're actually operating today in many states and, uh, potentially could be coming to Utah. And these are not just autonomous, these are autonomous and driverless. So the question before us is, will we define the rules thoughtfully now or wait until they're here and potentially cause accidents? So the substitute bill does three important things. First, it recognizes reality when a level four, a level five autonomous system is engaged, and that means it's fully autonomous with no driver in there. The bill makes clear that the automated driving system is the operator for the purposes of traffic compliance. Second, it creates a balance simplified path for recovery when an accident occurs during true driverless operation. So anything that is still, if it's autonomous, but a driver's still in their current, current rules apply. But when it's driverless, instead of forcing injured parties into a complex and expensive product liability litigation, the bill creates a clear statutory cause of action. A plaintiff must simply prove the vehicle is operating in a driverless mode and that the operation caused the injury and they don't have to prove negligence or product, product defect. Uh, at that same time, we place reasonable limits on the exposure for these companies or the owners of these autonomous vehicles in these routine operational cases. The bill then also perverse preserves traditional product liability for true design defect claims, but with clear guardrails and presumptions tied to federal safety standards. Uh, we also put a Sunset in here for 2030, and that will allow the legislature to revisit this policy as the technology evolves. And we can see, you know, the number of accidents, the number of injuries, what what causes, and so we'll have the data out there. So it protects injured utahns with a clear path to recovery, but it provides predictability to companies investing in safer technology with, with, uh, uh, defining what, what the exposure would, what these companies exposure would be or the owners of these vehicles exposure would be. And it positions Utah as a forward-looking state willing to modernize its laws responsibly. And with that, I'm open to questions.

Thank you, Mr. President. Um, when I'm looking at line 3 78 and it says affirmative defense and it's protecting against a defective design, if we had a, um, design that was intact and then spent the day going through its business and started to incur defects to it, that wouldn't be a defective design, but it would actually be a defect in the operations of the autonomous vehicle. Would the affirmative defense still be in play during the whole entire life of that autonomous vehicle if it was not designed defectively, but then became defective Senator Kalimore?

No. No. And in fact, this is just an affirmative defense. It's not, it doesn't get you out completely, it's just if your design actually meets these high standards and there's federal standards to hit a DS autonomous driverless safety four and five, then it could be, it can be something that you can use as a defense, but it's, it's still, it, it just means it's a presumption that you met your duty. But if there's a defect still, then it, it doesn't necessarily, it, it doesn't automatically mean you met your, your duty of care.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Um, I think this is under the category. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So if we're not going to be protecting the people in the community, and we're gonna be protecting the big industries that are actually producing these, that leaves us up for liability that I think the, the general public should, um, assuming. Thank you.

So we, we cap stuff like that all the time in, in statute. I mean, one example is in med mal, another others in government immunity. I mean, um, so this, this is in line with other policies that, that we have out there. There's still the ability to recover and there are exceptions here like wrongful death and stuff like that. And again, it doesn't cap your actual medi medical damages or anything like that, just the non-economic. And it's, and it's, and it's a fairly, it's reasonably high cap. It's higher than most of the other caps that we have in the statute right now.

Yeah, so I, I did want to just talk briefly about the open courts clause, uh, of our constitution. Um, now there are numerous, uh, areas where we cap damages or where we create funds for damages. And, and probably the most, uh, well known one is our workers' compensation fund. And so we require employers to pay into the workers' compensation fund. And what that does is it streamlines the process of receiving compensation, but it does put a cap so that workplaces can invest in Utah and then by having a cap, they can limit the amount of liability they would have with at the workplace. And, and that allows for certainty in how they operate here in the state. Uh, but the, the issue with this on these autonomous vehicles is it, it would kind of, as I understand it, and I, and I do really like the bill, it would operate in the same way. It would create a cap so that we can have this technology come and operate within the state and it would provide a, a faster opportunity for compensation in the event of an accident. And so without getting to every deep system and, and everything out there, it's more what's the, what's the injury? Let's compensate the injury without, and you don't want to get into, okay, well what was your algorithm? And now is this a national problem? Is this a class action problem? It, it should streamline the investment into a technology that will very much change the way that we operate faster than any technology, uh, any physical technology on the, you know, that that is coming our way. And so by having this autonomous systems, what we're talking about really is not just the, uh, front runner running up and down, but now you have autonomous vehicles running out of each of the stops delivering people to the last mile. These autonomous vehicle systems create the op opportunity for us to have last mile delivery, which is the hardest problem to solve for UTA. So with that, I fully support the bill and I appreciate the sponsor bringing it.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm wondering if a child is put into a driverless vehicle and it is a small child, so let's say a toddler or preschooler, and that toddler or preschooler gets out of their car seat, which happens and they, uh, get out of the car and hurts themselves, who's liable? Senator Cullimore?

That that's a, yeah, that's an interesting fact pattern that I'm not sure is contemplated specifically in this bill because I, I guess the question is, did they get hurt because of an accident or did they get hurt because they got out of the car? I'm, I'm not, I'm not sure. I, I don't know that I can answer based on the limited facts.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, perhaps we'll see another bill next year then. Okay.

Uh, to some, to some of the comments. I would just note that product liability is just one avenue of recovery. You could still, you could still, if you're injured, you could still go the the negligence route. Um, and then there all, there's also, as a good senator up here mentioned a, a more expedited path to, to recovery. So we're trying to create three different potential paths to recovery, recognizing that this is a new technology and that some certainty in the legal landscape would encourage and incentivize, uh, investment into our community with this, which can be super life-changing for a lot of people I've heard from the blind community, the elderly community, uh, kids that, that will, that will have access to transportation with the, you know, with the introduction of autonomous vehicles throughout Utah. And so with that, I would, I'll make the motion that we read for a third time. First substitute Senate Bill 2 92.

Senator Vickers Baldry Lewin Bramer Bus Aye. Comore Aye. Escamia Fillmore Aye. Grover Harper Aye. Hankins Aye. Ipson Aye. Johnson Quan McKay A. Mikel Milner Musman Aye. Owens Aye. Pitcher Aye. Plum Rebi Sandal Aye. Stevenson Stevenson Stratton Bickers Aye. Weiler Aye. Wilson Aye. Winterton President Adams Aye. First substitute

we're moving into an age where autonomous vehicles are gonna be on our roads. They provide a lot of potential benefits. Uh, I've heard from associations that deal with, uh, uh, blind people, elderly people who are looking for this. But to introduce this type of new technology, we need to look at some of the liability frameworks. So this, this, uh, does a few things. It creates a new simplified driverless liability framework. It substitutes, uh, it creates three different causes of action. There's an exclusive statutory cause of action for incidents involving these driverless dedicated vehicles and a plaintiff. It, it lowers the requirement that a plaintiff has to prove to get recovery, but it caps that recovery, uh, thereby creating a more expedited, easy wave to recovery. It changes the usual statutory or it makes statutory remedy. Um, it creates, it still allows you to go after negligence as you typically would, but PR creates some protections to allow for this new technology to come out. And then three, it clarifies manufacturer and developer liability. Four, level four and five systems, which are truly the driverless autonomous vehicles. Uh, it retains the strong product liability guardrails. And, uh, and then we put i, we put in a Sunset review of July, July 1st, 2030 so that we can, uh, consider data and consider whether these policies are proper based on the introduction of this new technology. So, Thank you sir. That concludes the presentation.

I'll move that we pass First substitute Senate bill 2 92.

Thank you Mr. Uh, president, uh, motion nun circle, Senate bill 2 81, senior Nutrition Private donation. Motion is to circle second substitute Senate bill 2 81, senior Nutrition, private Donation incentives.

Thank you. I have a substitute online. I'd like to move.

Thank, thank you madam. Um, chair or madam, uh, speaker Pro tem, uh, really excited to talk about this, uh, this bill, as many of you have seen as you've visited other, um, cities where you have autonomous vehicles, those that are completely driving themselves around, and the the new types of technologies that are coming to our state. Um, as we've looked at our current laws to allow for this growth into the state of Utah, we found that, uh, many of our current liability framework was built around human drivers and traditional negligence principles that don't necessarily work when you don't have any sort of driver within the car. And so we've spent a, a fair amount of time, um, over the last few months trying to build the right statutory framework to ensure, um, that we have protection for, for victims and, and liability protections for any of those that, that may be injured with this new technology, but at the same time, um, not put kind of archaic or outdated principles that don't necessarily apply to these autonomous vehicles. And that may stifle, um, the motivation for some of these companies to move into our great state. So what Senate Bill 2 92 does is it establishes a new, um, structured framework with three different potential causes of actions in order to encourage the implementation of driverless vehicles. The first thing that it does is it creates a new statutory cause of action, um, for accidents that involve these driverless vehicles. Um, again, if they're operated in the driverless mode, and this is a, a really simple sort of strict liability claim. Uh, in this case, a plaintiff would only need to prove that the vehicle was in a driverless operation and that the driverless vehicle was the proximate cause of injury. So they don't have to prove, um, that there was any negligence, that there was any breach of duty, that there was a product defect at all. However, for this lower burden, if, if a, uh, plaintiff decided to, to move forward with this cause of action, their damages would be capped at a hundred thousand dollars. Now, this allows for most of our fender bender type, uh, accidents when there isn't any injuries, there isn't any totals of the vehicles generally, uh, which account for most of the, the vehicle and insurance claims that we have with, with accidents, essentially giving a really easy way for plaintiffs to come in and get relief in those types of accidents. The second type of, uh, cause of action that it creates is it allows for our current Utah Product Liability Act for someone to bring cause of action underneath that act, but it caps the non-economic damages at a million dollars. And we've worked really closely to try to figure out what the right cap on this is. When we talk about those, um, non-economic damages, you're thinking, um, pain and suffering or, um, um, tho those kind of similar damages that you might find, any of the actual damages would still be allowed underneath the Utah Product Liability Act. And then the last type of cause of action that you have is a new manufacturer and developer liability. And this is a high standard, but, uh, is specific to these types of vehicles. Um, it essentially, uh, requires that if you bring a claim of a product defect against the driverless vehicle operation, you have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that one, a reasonable alternative de design existed. And two, that the vehicle caused more injuries in the aggregate than a human driver. Um, the bill also creates a rebuttable presumption, um, under the state of state of the art defense that essentially allows for, um, a flip of the presumption, uh, in the effect in the event that these systems meet the high federal standards for these autonomous vehicles, that then you'd have to come back and prove, uh, that the manufacturers did something beyond, uh, what they would need to otherwise that, that in causing the d the damages because they met the federal standards. Um, one thing that we're cognizant in the bill is that we wanted to make sure that as these driverless vehicles come into our state, the technology continues to, to develop, and we're seeing what other states are doing, that we come back and examine these causes of actions and make sure that they're the right fit. And so it sets a Sunset review date of July 1st, 2030, uh, to evaluate this policy. Uh, it doesn't, um, uh, well and, and allows for us to come back and make sure that we have the right policies in place. A couple other things that I think are important to note, um, this, these, uh, these three cause of actions do not involve any cases involving wrongful death claims. So again, in any wrongful death claims, you would have your simple negligence claim that you could bring and, and prove that. And it doesn't eliminate any liability or creating any sort of blanket liability. So if we boil the, the bill down to really what it does in four simple points, this bill encourages autonomous vehicles to more readily come to Utah, which really has a ton of benefits for all of us, but also some, some marginalized communities like the disabled community, the blinds community, the the elderly residents, um, other or other Utah utahns that are looking for expanding transportation possibilities. The second thing that it does is it provides predictable liability exposure. Third, it reduces litigation risk for developers. And lastly, it still allows for victims to recover any damages. With that. Uh, madam um, speaker Pro tem, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Madam Speaker Pro tem with the sponsor yield to a few questions.

Will the sponsor yield? Yes. Yes.

Uh, Madam Speaker, if, if an individual is hit by one of these autonomous vehicles and has over a hundred thousand dollars in medical damages, would that still be the cap of a hundred thousand?

No. Um, uh, thank you for the question. Uh, like I said, there is this, this sort of strict liability and if they decide to pursue that cause of action, which is, is really simple, again, you just have to prove that the the car was in driverless operation and they caused the injury, that's where you have the cap. But if you have damages that exceed that, you wouldn't go after that claim. You would go after either the, the Utah Product Liability Act claim, or this new manufacturer and developer liability claim in either of those claims. There is no cap whatsoever on actual damages. So all of your medical bills, anything else that would happen. And certainly if there was any wrongful death claims, there wouldn't be any cap on that at all. The only cap that this extends in the, for the Utah Product Liability Act, is for those non-economic damages.

Thank you, Madam Speaker ProAm, uh, that answer was actually covered all of my questions, so kudos to the representative from Daybreak. Thank you.

Thank you. Mad Madam. Speaker Pro te uh, would the sponsor yield to a couple of questions? Will the sponsor yield to a series of questions?

Absolutely, Yes.

So I'm looking at lines 3 73 to 3 75. Madam Speaker, I, I'm not an attorney, so I'm, I'm not sure I understand this, but as I look at these lines, the, uh, it seems to me that the bar set, if, if, if someone needs to, if someone needs to claim damages or sue the bar is set, probably, it's probably an impossible bar to ever reach. So I'm wondering if the, if the sponsor could respond to that, help me understand this.

Thank you for the question. Um, so again, what you see there in, in 3 73 to 3 75 is under this new cause of action that doesn't exist today. So this is actually setting up a new ability for someone to sue, uh, underneath, uh, or, or bring a claim against these autonomous vehicles, um, for a manufacturer and develop developer liability. Now, it is a high bar, again, the, the bar there has to, you'd have to prove beyond a preponderance of the evidence that a reasonable alternative design existed and that the vehicle caused more injuries in the accurate then other human drivers. Now if, if you can prove that, then that would be the claim that you'd go after and you'd have a really unlimited, uh, ability to, to create damages. It doesn't have that cap on non-economic damages. But in most cases, what you're gonna see are people bring damages under the first two claims. So one that strict liability claim that I talked about that's capped at a hundred thousand dollars in damages or just a standard Utah Product Liability Act, um, that's capped at, at a million, uh, dollars, uh, for non-economic damages, but again, unlimited for any actual damages.

And, and so that, that, uh, I guess item B, would that would've to be a class action suit, uh, is my assumption?

No. Um, um, madam, uh, speaker pro tem, this, this could be done on a single claim. This does not actually contemplate a class action suit. You certainly could bring a class action lawsuit, but this is, this is set up for an individual to bring a claim underneath this, this, um, type of a suit. So I really, what this is targeting is, let's say you had a, a brand new sort of startup company that is trying to use their product and they don't meet those high standards of, of what the federal standards are, and then they cause damage. This is likely where you'd bring your claim against them. But if you have a, uh, you know, one of the, the recognized companies that have come in, they put in the money, they put in the research, they meet the high, um, standards for, um, safety and design standards that the federal government has set. Then for the most part we're, we're saying we believe that these are safe vehicles and you'd have to come and now prove yourself, overcome that presumption, um, that they have done something outside of the norm of what the, the safety principles are.

Thank you. Uh, I will sponsor yield to a series of questions. Will the Sponsor yield to a series of questions? Yes, Yes. Okay. So

I'm wondering about the a hundred thousand dollars cap, um, as a, you know, legislature and as conservatives, I think we value people and relationships and, um, you know, that type of thing. But we don't cap the economic damages. We only cap non-economic damages. So the, the, the damage cap is on injury to people. But for example, if somebody's car is damaged and that car costs more than a hundred thousand, we'd say we need to protect that because we highly value that. But if somebody's caused to be quadriplegic or they lose an arm or, you know, whatever it is that the most anybody should ever be compensated is a hundred thousand. And I'm wondering, where does that a hundred thousand dollars figure come from, and what is it that morally says people are never worth more than a hundred thousand dollars?

Yeah, th thank you for the question. Um, so again, this a hundred thousand dollars cap is, is a new cause of action that does not exist today, and it's a much lower burden than you would have in your standard negligence claim. So as, as you know, the, the good maker of the, the question here, um, knows when you bring these negligence claims, you have to establish typically, or you, you, you have to establish the, the duty of care and the breach of that duty of care. This takes away that, that requirement at all. All you have to prove here is that you were u that the car was in driverless mode and that it caused the damages. You don't have to prove any sort of breach of, of duty, or that a duty exists. Now in a normal automobile accident where you have humans that are doing that, bringing a negligence claim makes a lot of sense. 'cause you could look at things like they were speeding, they ran a red light, they were distracted, or whatever. Establishing that duty of care is, is a lot easier when you're talking about these products that are being driven by computers. Establishing that duty of care is a much more difficult standard. And so all this is doing is saying for, for these simple sort of fender bender type accidents to make it easier for people to get relief right, to get those people, to get their claims taken care of, and not have to go into huge sort of litigation where you have discovery and establishing that duty of care and the breach of the duty of care. We're gonna allow this new type of claim that is capped at a hundred thousand dollars. But if you want to bring a claim underneath a product liability claim, we allow for a hundred percent of actual damages. And, and like, uh, the good maker of the question said, uh, uh, we only will cap the non-economic damages and that's at the million dollars.

Thank you. I just am concerned of the message that we send to the world when we adopt disparities like this, for example, saying, well, we value money, we value vehicles, we value whatever it is. Maybe a store front's been damaged and it costs $200,000 to fix that. We value that, but we don't value humans. And as a conservative, I do value humans. I think that goes to whether the person is born or not. We value them what, you know, whoever they are. And I worry about the message that we send when we make these kind of distinctions in these laws.

Thank you Madam Speaker ProAm. Will the sponsor yield to a potential series of questions? Will the sponsor yield to a series of questions?

Potentially, yes.

Um, I've got a question under the, the new liability piece. Um, it's currently, it looks like that it's defined only under level four and level five a DS equip, uh, vehicles, even though the a DS, uh, definitions, um, include level three, four, and five. And I'm just curious if you can help me understand the, um, the reasoning behind that, uh, decision.

Yeah, thank you for the question. So in a level four and a level five, that's where you don't have any human interaction. And so that's what this is narrowing it to. It doesn't make any changes for levels one, two, and three. And, um, again, going back to what I had said earlier about in these cases where there is no human involved in the decision, it really is a product now. And establishing that that duty of care and the negligence is, is a much different thing than, than a human, that, that makes human mistakes. And so it makes more sense for it to fall underneath a product liability claim for four and five.

Thank you. Mad Madam Speaker Pro Tam. Um, as my follow up then, um, since several of the level three equipped vehicles have an option to go into a driverless sort of, uh, mode, um, though they still retain the driver interaction features, um, would there be, um, a specific, uh, I guess, um, concern that a vehicle that's operating in a driverless mode but is currently considered a level three vehicle should qualify under this, um, this, uh, new liability threshold standard? Um, thank you.

Um, madam, uh, speaker em, it, it's a good question. Again, with a level three, you still have to have a driver. Um, they still have to be actively watching what's going on. And, um, in a level three though, I, I'm not sure there are any active level threes that, that happen. The idea is that the car could tell at any time, driver, you need to take over this car. And so I, I think this kind of falls into the Sunset discussion that we had. Maybe there's, there's some aspects that we should pull into a level three, but in, but in any event, what this is really targeted at is kind of the Waymo type cars, where there isn't going to be any driver at all. We want to encourage them to come into our state to provide the benefits that we talked about before. This provides that, uh, statutory framework that, uh, is the right balance that doesn't use those kind of archaic, uh, uh, claims, either in common law or under our, our statutory framework that where they're really envisioning in a vehicle accident that there was a human involved. And so if there were a level three to, to come up and a, uh, human was involved, or maybe they weren't even involved, the, the car was driving itself and it was a level three, they would have all the protections that they have today. Um, any sort of negligence claim that you wanna bring, any product liability claim, it really just doesn't have the caps that you put on for those level four and five claims.

Thank you, Madam Speaker Pro Tam, I, I am in, uh, strong support of this, uh, legislation. This technology is rapidly emerging. It is already, in some cases in production. Um, it's going to be here if not already, um, very, very shortly. This is not only forward looking, but it's seeking to solve a, a, an actual current problem too. That there are these questions that, uh, that we have in law enforcement, that we have in, um, in liability when it comes to safety and understanding how to deal with how this technology is going to be impacting people. And I think creating these new liability standards are all additive. We're creating new categories, um, in, in, uh, in order to try to tackle these. I I think this is absolutely, uh, uh, a great way forward and I highly encourage your, um, support.

Thank you. Thank you for the questions. I know that this is a new emerging area of, um, technology and we're all kind of getting up to speed with what that does. This really just sets the proper framework to allow that to grow as we're going to be make changing to the, make making changes to the statute, I'm sure year over year to, to make sure we've figured out we're we're in the right space. The one thing I did want to just respond to is, is this comments that, that in, in whatever way maybe this legislation doesn't value humans. Um, I, I just, I take a little bit of issue with that. Really what we're trying to do is streamline the process for those, those small fender bender type accidents, uh, that actually provides better relief than we would have in the status quo. It would be very difficult. Right now, if you have a driverless vehicle that's driving around, you get into a fender bender, and now you have to decide, okay, what am I going to do, sue them under a product liability claim for this? And now, you know, I'm in years of litigation for it. It just doesn't make any sense. And so if we allow for the strict liability claim, that's clear, you cause the accident. It was an autonomous vehicle that was driving by itself. You get relief immediately. In the other claims that we're talking about in any of any claim where you have a quadriplegic, you have wrongful death, you have actual damages that are happening, the, the, the sky is the limit, we will ensure that that person is a hundred percent, um, compensated for whatever damages happening. Nothing in this bill changes that at all. The only thing that it changes in is in those non-economic damages when you start talking about pain and suffering and others that really in, in a lot of ways goes after, um, enterpri enterprising attorneys that are trying to make big payments, um, or, you know, trying to get punitive damages or something that, that really discourage, uh, companies for coming into states that have those types of frameworks in place. And so this will encourage these autonomous companies to want to be in Utah to ensure that we have the right laws in place to protect them while at the same time protecting all the victims, protecting those that are in these, these small little accidents and, uh, allow us to continue looking at this law as it moves forward. It's a good bill and I urge its support. Thank you.

Uh, yes. These were changes from a substitute I presented in the House committee and it's, it's just better to find the three different routes for, um, liability and recovery with the deployment of these autonomous vehicles.