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See the 60-second demo →Colorado's Health Care Availability Act (HCAA) caps med-mal damages at a structured aggregate. The cap structure was substantially modified by Proposition 113 in 2024, raising the aggregate ceiling and indexing it to inflation. The 2-year SOL with discovery rule under C.R.S. § 13-80-102.5 is standard. Colorado was an early adopter of Daubert reliability under Brooks v. People, 975 P.2d 1105 (Colo. 1999).
This is the 2026 working overview for plaintiff firms running Colorado med-mal.
C.R.S. § 13-64-302 caps total damages in med-mal cases at $1,650,000 per defendant (raised from $1M by Proposition 113 effective 2024), of which non-economic damages cannot exceed $500,000. The cap aggregates economic + non-economic + future damages. The post-2024 figure adjusts for inflation annually.
For wrongful death claims under C.R.S. § 13-64-302(2), the cap is structured similarly but applied separately to economic and non-economic components. The 2024 amendment also created exceptions for catastrophic injuries (paralysis, permanent loss of use of limb, permanent severe disfigurement) where the non-economic cap rises to $750,000.
The HCAA cap survived constitutional challenge in Garhart v. Columbia / Healthone, LLC, 95 P.3d 571 (Colo. 2004). The post-2024 amendments have not yet been tested at the appellate level. Practical implication: Colorado is a moderate-cap state in 2026 — caps exist but are higher than Texas ($250K) or Michigan ($305K-$544K) and the inflation indexing means they grow over time.
C.R.S. § 13-80-102.5 sets the limitations period at two years from the date the act or omission was discovered or should have been discovered. The three-year statute of repose under subsection (3) caps the absolute outer limit, with exceptions for foreign-object cases and concealment.
The 3-year repose is one of the shortest in the country (PA and FL have 7- and 4-year repose periods, respectively). Late-discovered injuries that exceed 3 years from the act or omission are barred regardless of when the plaintiff actually learned. Smith v. Stuthman, 86 P.3d 393 (Colo. 2004), enforces the repose strictly.
For minors, C.R.S. § 13-81-103 tolls the limitations period until the eighteenth birthday for non-med-mal claims. For med-mal specifically, the tolling is narrower under § 13-80-102.5(3)(b), which lets minors under 6 have until their 8th birthday and minors 6-15 have until their 18th birthday.
Colorado adopted Daubert in Brooks v. People, 975 P.2d 1105 (Colo. 1999), abandoning the prior Frye general-acceptance test. Subsequent decisions including People v. Shreck, 22 P.3d 68 (Colo. 2001), refined the application to specific scientific evidence.
The reliability inquiry tracks the federal four-factor analysis (testability, peer review, error rate, general acceptance) supplemented by CRE 702's helpfulness requirement. Post-2023 FRE 702 amendment analysis has analytical force in Colorado state court given the parallel framework.
Colorado's certificate of review under Rule 13 of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure requires the plaintiff to file a certificate within 60 days of service of the complaint attesting that the attorney consulted with a qualified expert who provided a written opinion supporting the claim. The expert must be licensed in the relevant profession.
The certificate is a confidential document — it doesn't disclose the expert's identity or specific opinion to the defense. Failure to file results in dismissal, but the standard is less rigorous than the affidavit-of-merit frameworks in NJ or PA.
MedLegal AI's Daubert workup tool builds plaintiff expert reports to the Colorado standard: methodology articulated to Brooks-grade reliability with CRE 702 helpfulness, alternative-cause analysis ruled in and ruled out, expert qualifications documented for Rule 13 certificate of review, and damages modeling for the HCAA aggregate-cap structure (including 2024 Proposition 113 amendments).
The damages calculator includes Colorado HCAA modeling with current-year figures. Run a free Daubert workup on your expert.
Colorado plaintiff med-mal practice in 2026 has moderate procedural overhead, a 3-year repose that requires careful intake calendaring, and a HCAA cap structure that's higher than the most restrictive states but still constrains case economics on catastrophic cases. Cases that work in this environment have economic damages above the noneconomic cap ($500K), clean Daubert-ready expert reports, and Rule 13 certificates filed before the 60-day window closes.
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