Meech v. Hillhaven West, Inc.

This is the blackest judicial day in the eleven years that I have sat on this Court. Indeed it may be the blackest judicial day in the history of the state. Certainly this decision is more regressive than the ill-boded Ashcraft v. Montana Power Company (1971), 156 Mont. 368, 480 P.2d 812 case, which deprived injured workers of their full legal redress against third party tortfeasors. The decision today cleans the scalpel for the legislature to cut away unrestrainedly at the whole field of tort redress. Perhaps worse by this decision today, the Court throws in the sponge as a co-equal in our…