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LMcn <br />9. EXCESS LIABILITY COVERAGE LIMITS <br />What can go wrong <br />The statutes limit the city's tort liability to $600,000 per <br />occurrence. LMCIT provides a standard $600,000 liability <br />coverage limit to match the statutory limit. However, there are <br />several ways in which that coverage could turn out not to be <br />enough. For example: <br />- The statutory limits don't apply to some of the city's <br />liability exposures. Some possible examples are liability <br />under the federal civil rights laws; liability assumed by <br />contract; liability for actions in another state (under an <br />inter-state mutual aid agreement, or while a city officer <br />is attending an out-of-state conference, for example); or <br />inverse condemnation liabil'^ty for land I'se regulation <br />actions. <br />- The LMCIT liability coverage includes annual aggregate <br />limits on the products liability coverage, the limited <br />pollution liability coverage, and the land use liability <br />coverage. If the city should experience more than one <br />liability incident in one of these areas in a single year, <br />the city's LMCIT coverage might not cover the full extent <br />of the city's liability under the statute. <br />- Although the statutory liability limits have now been <br />tested several times in court and have been upheld, it is <br />still conceivable that the courts might someday change <br />their minds and hold the municipal tort liability limits <br />unconstitutional. <br />All of these represent ways in which the city could conceivably <br />end up with more liability than it has coverage. If so, the <br />city would have to bear the excess from its own resources. <br />There's another issue too that some view as a problem. The tort <br />liability limits literally mean that if an injured individual's <br />proven damages exceed the statutory limits, he will not be fully <br />reimbursed for the damage he has suffered because of the city s <br />negligence. Since the statutes include a "per-occurrence limit <br />as well as a ’'per-clairoant" limit, an individual's reimbursement <br />could be severely limited if a number of other people were also <br />injured in the same incident. E.g.,‘if 60 people were injured <br />in a single incident - say a bleacher collapses, or a city <br />vehicle hits a school bus full of Kids - there could be as <br />little as $10,000 available under the statutory limits to <br />compensate each person. In other words, the statutory liabili / <br />limits mean that sometimes an individual will not be fully <br />compensated for the damage the city has caused.