Retrospective laws not to be passed

• Currency: Current through 11/8/2022 Election
• Citation: Colo. Const. art. XV § 12

The general assembly shall pass no law for the benefit of a railroad or other corporation, or any individual or association of individuals, retrospective in its operation, or which imposes on the people of any county or municipal subdivision of the state, a new liability in respect to transactions or considerations already past.

Cite as Colo. Const. art. XV § 12

Source:

Entire article added, effective August 1, 1876, see L. 1877, p. 70.

ANNOTATION

Section does not affect § 4 of art. XIV, Colo. Const. The provisions of § 4 of art. XIV, Colo. Const., being special provisions for specified objects, they are not affected by this section. In re House Bill No. 122, 9 Colo. 639, 21 P. 478 (1886).

Act authorizing annexation not retrospective. A legislative act whereby one municipal corporation becomes annexed to another, forming one consolidated town or city, the surviving municipality assuming all the corporate debts and taking all the corporate property of the annexed municipality, together with the authority to levy and collect taxes throughout the enlarged municipality, is not an act retrospect in its operation; nor does it impose on the people of either municipality a new liability in respect to transactions or considerations already past. The benefit accruing to the people of the surviving city is a present and prospective consideration, and is based upon a present and not upon a past transaction. So, too, there is a present consideration accruing to the people of the annexed territory; they receive and enjoy the greater privileges and protection which the larger municipality affords, and at the same time are relieved from the burdens of an independent municipal government. Mayor of Valverde v. Shattuck, 19 Colo. 104, 34 P. 947 (1893).

Procedural or remedial change not retroactive. Application of a statute to a subsisting claim for relief does not violate the prohibition of retroactive legislation where the statute effects a change that is only procedural or remedial in nature. Continental Title Co. v. District Court, 645 P.2d 1310 (Colo. 1982); Davis v. Bd. of Psychologist Exam'rs, 791 P.2d 1198 (Colo. App. 1989).

Application of a statute is not rendered retroactive and unlawful merely because the facts upon which it operates occurred before adoption of the statute. Continental Title Co. v. District Court, 645 P.2d 1310 (Colo. 1982).