The purpose of this Act is to combat aggressive driving and dangerous speed differentials on targeted roadways. This Act prohibits vehicles from traveling in the left lane on the portions of State Route 1 or Interstate 495 that are an express highway, as defined in § 101 of Title 17, or a controlled access facility, as defined in § 172 of Title 17, except in any of the following circumstances: (1) When overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction under the rules governing overtaking and passing another vehicle. (2) When necessary to enter, leave, or continue on the roadway. (3) When necessary due to an obstruction. (4) When necessary in response to emergency conditions. (5) When necessary due to traffic conditions or congestion. (6) To comply with other law or regulation. In addition to being prohibited from traveling in the left lane, a vehicle with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of more than 26,000 pounds is further restricted to traveling only in the right-hand lane except in the same circumstances as when a vehicle may travel in the left lane. An operator who refuses, fails, or neglects to comply with § 4114A is subject to a civil penalty as follows: (1) For a first occurrence, a civil penalty of not less than $25 nor more than $75. (2) For a subsequent occurrence, a civil penalty of not less than $57.50 nor more than $95.
This Act removes the registration of trade names for sole proprietorships, partnerships, and associations in the Superior Court prothonotaries and places registration of such trade names with the Division of Revenue. Additionally, this Act provides that the filing of certificates will be recorded electronically and the fee for such filing is $25.00. Under Superior Court Civil R. 77(h), the current filing fee is $25.00. This change updates the statute consistent with the current fee collected by the Superior Court.
This Act amends Title 16, Chapter 76 of the Delaware Code relating to energy conservation identified in county and municipal building and plumbing codes. Consistent with codes in other States, including New York, Rhode Island, and Washington, among others, this Act requires as a threshold that counties and municipalities must, at minimum, meet the threshold adopted by the Delaware Energy Office (“DEO”). The Act authorizes counties and municipalities to go above the threshold adopted by the DEO. This Act also amends Title 29, Chapter 80 of the Delaware Code by charging the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council and the Sustainable Energy Utility to collaborate to design programs to promote and support the development and construction of energy efficient housing, including programs to alleviate the potential increased upfront costs caused by the adoption of local stretch codes.
This Act is a Substitute for Senate Bill No. 82. Both this Act and SB 82 require State programs to provide annual reports to the General Assembly about compliance with federal and State law and regulation that require meaningful access to services for individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) and effective communication for individuals with disabilities. Both this Act and SB 82 provide support for language and communication assistance for individuals renting or purchasing a home or facing eviction or foreclosure. This Act and SB 82 create a short-term program within the Office of the Manufactured Housing Ombudsperson and the Department of Justice. This program will provide special language and communication assistance support for individuals with limited English proficiency and individuals with disabilities to better understand and participate in matters related to residential leases and evictions and home purchases and foreclosures. The Department of Justice is not required to spend more than $48,500 on translation and interpretation services, and auxiliary aids, in the fiscal year following 30 days after enactment. This Act differs from SB 82 as follows: (1) Some definitions are updated to conform more closely to federal law. Additionally, this Act narrows the definition of "individual with a disability" to be someone with a disability affecting communication, since this Act is designed to gather data and provide support related to effective communication. (2) This Act narrows the scope of agency programs about which reporting must occur. Instead of collecting information about agency-wide compliance, this Act will gather preliminary information about compliance by obtaining reports about a sample of agency programs. This Act requires the secretaries and directors of various departments and divisions to select and report about at least 2 operations, units, or services provided by their department or division. Certain enumerated entities under § 10604(b) of Title 29 will be required to report about their compliance. Also, the Department of Justice shall select 5 programs that will be required to submit reports. (3) In SB 82, programs had to complete narrative reports for the first 3 years after enactment. Beginning 4 years after enactment, the reporting programs were required to submit reports that required data collection. This Act keeps only the narrative reports. (4) Revises the special language and communication assistance program to allow the Department of Justice to create 1 program to fulfill its obligations under this Act to provide support for language and communication assistance for individuals renting or purchasing a home or manufactured home or facing eviction or foreclosure, as well as limits the program’s obligations to the extent of the appropriated funds received. (5) In SB 82, the special language and communication assistance program was to sunset 2 years after enactment unless otherwise extended, while the reporting requirements were to continue. In this Act, the entire Act sunsets 2 years after enactment unless extended by an act of the General Assembly.
This Act adopts the Uniform Health-Care Decisions Act of 2023 (UHCDA 2023) to supersede the Uniform Health-Care Decisions Act of 1993, which Delaware enacted in 1996. The UHCDA 2023 was authored by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) and was developed in a multiyear collaborative and non-partisan process to modernize and expand on the 1993 version of the act. The UHCDA 2023 maintains processes to address how health-care decisions can be made by or on behalf of individuals who lack capacity, including: (1) Allowing individuals to appoint agents to make health-care decisions for them should they become unable to make those decisions for themselves. (2) Allowing individuals to provide their health-care professionals and agents with instructions about their values and priorities regarding their health care and to indicate medical treatment they do or do not wish to receive. (3) Authorizing certain people to make health-care decisions for individuals incapable of making their own decisions, but who have not appointed agents. (4) Setting forth agent, default surrogate, and health-care professional rights and duties. The UHCDA 2023 reflects substantial changes in how health care is delivered, increases in non-traditional familial relationships and living arrangements, the proliferation of the use of electronic documents, the growing use of separate advance directives exclusively for mental health care, and other recent developments. Some updates to the Act include: (1) Removal of administrative barriers that make the creation of an advance health-care directive more difficult. (2) Addition of provisions to guide determinations of incapacity, which is important because an agent’s or default surrogate’s (surrogate’s) authority to make health-care decisions for a patient typically commences when the patient lacks capacity to make decisions. The Act modernizes the definition of capacity so that it accounts for the functional abilities of an individual and clarifies that the individual may lack capacity to make one decision but retains capacity to make other decisions. (3) Authorizing the use of advance directives exclusively for mental health care. (4) Modernizing default surrogate provisions that allow family members and certain other people close to a patient to make decisions in the event the patient lacks capacity and has not appointed a health-care agent. The new default surrogate provisions update the priority list in the 1993 Act to reflect a broader array of relationships and family structures. They also provide additional options to address disagreements among default surrogates who have equal priority. (5) Clarifying the duties and powers of surrogates. For example, to reduce the likelihood that an individual’s health-care needs will go unmet due to financial barriers, the Act authorizes a surrogate to apply for health insurance for a patient who does not have another fiduciary authorized to do so. (6) Modernizing the optional model form to be readily understandable and accessible to diverse populations. The form gives individuals the opportunity to readily share information about their values and goals for medical care. Thus, it addresses a common concern raised by health-care professionals in the context of advance planning: that instructions included in advance directives often focus exclusively on preferences for particular treatments, and do not provide health-care professionals or surrogates with the type of information about patients’ goals and values that could be used to make value-congruent decisions when novel or unexpected situations arise. The form addresses these concerns by providing options for individuals to indicate goals and values, in addition to specific treatment preferences. This Act also adopts some of the optional provisions suggested by the ULC, including that an agent or surrogate has limited ability to consent to the long-term placement of an individual in a nursing home without express authorization. Specifically, without express authorization, the agent or surrogate may not consent to the placement for more than 100 days over the individual’s contemporaneous objection unless (1) no alternative living arrangement is reasonably feasible or (2) the individual is terminally ill. The ULC suggested 100 days in recognition that the federal Medicare program covers up to 100 days of nursing home care for qualified beneficiaries. This Act does not authorize mercy killing, assisted suicide, or euthanasia. In addition to style changes throughout, this Act makes some modifications to the UHCDA 2023 that are consistent with Act and should not disrupt uniform interpretation. These modifications include: (1) Revising language to conform to Delaware court practices. (2) Providing surrogates with the authority to file insurance or benefit claims on behalf of the individual and to appeal such outcomes, in addition to the UHCDA 2023 allowance for a surrogate to apply for insurance or benefits on behalf of the individual. As under the UHCDA 2023, a surrogate does not have the duty to perform these actions and may only do so if no other fiduciary is authorized to do so. (3) Creating an additional disqualification that disallows a potential surrogate from serving if the individual has a pending Protection From Abuse petition against the potential surrogate, the individual has a Protection From Abuse order against the potential surrogate, or the potential surrogate is the subject of a civil or criminal order prohibiting or limiting contact with the individual. Section 2 of this Act adds a new Chapter 25B to the Delaware Code. Chapter 25B will contain Delaware-specific supplements to the UHCDA 2023. These Delaware-specific additions are being placed within their own chapter to promote uniform interpretation of the UHCDA 2023. Chapter 25B includes § 2502B, which relates to health-care institution authorization to petition for guardianship for an individual to whom the institution is providing care. Section 2502B reinforces the work of the Non-Acute Medical Guardianship Task Force, created by Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 30 by the 150th General Assembly. That task force’s work resulted in the current § 2519 of Title 16, which offers a process and timeline whereby health-care institutions can take steps to help obtain a guardianship for patients who no longer require acute care and can be transferred to another type of health-care setting. While § 2502B retains the ability for a health-care institution to address the discharge of long-term stay patients without an authorized decisionmaker, it modifies the powers in the current § 2519 by doing all of the following: (1) Allowing health-care institutions to petition of the appointment of a guardian in instances beyond where an individual no longer needs acute care. (2) Reiterating that the health-care institution may only petition if they believe there is no less restrictive alternative that will meet the individual’s needs. (3) Streamlining notice requirements and changing who must receive these notices so that a health-care institution does not send a notice if there is a reasonably available surrogate. If there is a reasonably available surrogate and there is a dispute between the surrogate and the health-care institution about the treatment or level of care needed by an individual, then the parties should seek judicial relief under § 2526 of the UHCDA 2023 as opposed to using the guardianship process. The new Chapter 25B also contains a provision to encourage public awareness and use of advance mental health-care directives. Sections 3 through 11 of this Act update the Delaware Code in light of the adoption of the UHCDA 2023 by updating internal citations, updating terms to match the terms used in the UHCDA 2023, and ensuring a consistent list of default surrogate decisionmakers. This Act is effective immediately and is to be implemented 1 year from the date of enactment.
This Act adopts the Uniform Special Deposits Act (“the Act”) authored by the Uniform Law Commission. The Uniform Law Commission “provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.” The Act was adopted by the Uniform Law Commission in October 2023 and has been adopted in 2 states and introduced in 3 other states. The Act addresses deposits at a bank where the identity of the person entitled to payment is not determined until the occurrence of a contingency identified at the time that the deposit is created. An example of such an account is an escrow account holding funds that will be paid to one of two potential beneficiaries depending on the outcome of a contingency. Although such accounts are commonly used, the legal protections afforded them are uncertain. The fundamental purpose of the Uniform Special Deposits Act is to provide a vehicle that banks and their customers can elect to use providing greater legal certainty that the expectations of users will be respected. The Act provides a mechanism those that elect to be covered by the Act can use to avoid case law applied to special deposits that is murky and in some ways outdated in the context of modern banking. In determining whether a person is engaged in the business of banking to be considered a bank for purposes of the Act, the business of banking is intended to be construed broadly to include persons that may engage in limited functions that are part of or incidental to the business of banking, such as a trust company that engages in fiduciary and agency activities and has the power and authority to accept a special deposit. This Act takes effect on January 1, 2025.
Under Title 29, Section 5805, no state employee, no state officer, and no private enterprise in which a state employee or state officer has a legal or equitable ownership of more than 10% (more than 1% in the case of a corporation whose stock is regularly traded on an established securities market) shall enter into any contract with the State (other than an employment contract) unless such contract was made or let after public notice and competitive bidding. However, the notice and bidding requirements do not apply to contracts involving $2,000 per year or less, provided that the terms of such contract reflect arms’ length negotiations. The exemption for contracts involving $2,000 per year or less went into effect in 1991 and has not been raised since. This act raises the exemption from $2,000 to $5,000 to take into account the effects of inflation. This act also deletes language in Section 5805(c) that is out-of-date.
This Act amends the Delaware Antitrust Act (“DAA”) (Chapter 21, Title 6 of the Code) to provide indirect purchasers who have been harmed by violations of the Delaware Antitrust Act the ability to sue for damages. Indirect purchasers of a product or service in the chain of distribution are often the ones who bear the burden of any overcharges from antitrust violations such as price-fixing. Direct purchasers and others in the chain of distribution of the affected product or service often have the ability to pass the overcharge through the chain of distribution to end users. This will align Delaware with at least 36 other states which currently allow for a cause of action for damages for indirect purchasers. Often, end users who make purchases in Delaware, primarily Delaware residents and businesses, are excluded from making claims against multimillion dollar settlement funds set up to compensate indirect purchasers for transactions made in other states that do authorize lawsuits for damages for indirect purchasers. To avoid complicated proof issues related to the pass through of any overcharge through the chain of distribution of a product or service, the Act creates a presumption that any overcharge paid by the first purchaser as a result of a violation of the DAA is passed through to the end user. Also, to simplify issues of proof, the Act provides a plaintiff may elect 25% of the consideration paid for the goods or services in connection with the transaction affected by an illegal restraint of trade as an alternative liquidated damage amount to actual harm. To allow Delaware consumers and businesses to fully take advantage of the remedies provided by this Act, the Act creates a private right of action. Delaware is one of only 2 states that do not provide for a private right of action under their state antitrust law of general applicability. Currently, only the Attorney General has a right to bring actions under the DAA and the Attorney General does not have the resources to review or participate in every national antitrust action. This will ensure Delaware indirect purchasers receive the benefits of private enforcement of the DAA. Section 2 of the Act creates a Delaware state law equivalent to Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the federal antitrust statute, which establishes three offenses commonly termed “monopolization,” “attempted monopolization,” and “conspiracy to monopolize.” Delaware is only 1 of 9 states that does not have a state law equivalent to Section 2 of the Sherman Act and its addition to the DAA is needed to ensure the remedies under the DAA including a right of recovery for indirect purchasers are available to the Attorney General and to Delaware consumers and businesses. Section 3 of the Act modifies the confidentiality restrictions of materials produced to the Attorney General pursuant to an investigative demand. It would allow for the materials to be shared with the Attorney General’s agents such as consultants, experts, electronic discovery platform vendors and economists which would be necessary for the Attorney General to decide on whether the law has been violated and how best to remedy the violation. The Act would also allow the Attorney General to share materials produced pursuant to an investigative demand with federal or state law enforcement officers that agree to keep the information confidential and use it only for official law enforcement purposes. Likewise, the Act requires the Attorney General to keep materials provided by other law enforcement officers received under similar process confidential. These provisions will make it easier for the Attorney General to work together with other federal and state law enforcers in enforcing state and federal antitrust laws. Section 4 of the Act provides an alternative calculation for civil penalties for violations of the Delaware Antitrust Act. Under certain facts and circumstances, the current maximum penalty for a violation of the DAA may be lower than the amount of the gain a violator may obtain by violating the DAA making any penalty a cost of doing business and an insufficient deterrent to violate the law. The alternative calculation provides for an assessment of a civil penalty of up to twice the gross gain or loss associated with the violation. This is like the alternative method for calculating federal criminal fines for the same conduct. Section 4 also authorizes a Court to award investigative costs, expert witness fees, and attorneys’ fees to the Attorney General when the Attorney General successfully brings a law enforcement action to enforce the DAA. Currently, a Court may only award attorney’s fees and expert costs to the Attorney General when the Attorney General brings an action on behalf of a public body or natural persons. Section 5 of the Act creates a right for indirect purchasers who have been harmed by violations of the DAA to sue for damages. It creates a presumption that overcharges paid by the first purchaser as a result of such violations are passed to the end user, and allows a plaintiff to seek liquidated damages in the amount of 25% of the consideration paid, as an alternative to seeking damages for actual harm incurred. Section 6 of the Act clarifies that the Court of Chancery has exclusive jurisdiction of all state court actions or proceedings under the DAA. The Act also makes several clarifications throughout the DAA to recognize it is often federal courts exercising supplemental jurisdiction deciding claims arising under the DAA.
This Act changes the requirements for continuing education for doctors related to Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias to require that doctors must only complete 2 hours of this continuing education once. Doctors who do not have direct patient interactions with adult populations over the age of 25 or do not currently practice within the State of Delaware are exempt from this requirement.
This Act amends Delaware’s laws regarding release of persons accused of crimes (Chapter 21 of Title 11 of the Delaware Code) as required in conjunction with the enactment of an amendment to § 12 of Article I of the Delaware Constitution permitting preventive detention, as proposed by Senate Bill No. 11 of the 152nd General Assembly. This Act protects both defendants’ due process rights and public safety by establishing the list of circumstances for which defendants may be detained pretrial without the opportunity for release and providing adequate due process protections for detention-eligible defendants. This Act protects public safety by permitting courts to detain a defendant who is charged with an enumerated felony offense where no condition or combination of conditions of bail will reasonably assure a defendant’s appearance in court or the safety of a witness, a victim, or the community. This Act also protects defendants’ rights by doing the following: (1) Requiring the Attorney General to establish by proof positive or presumption great that the defendant committed the detention-eligible offense and by clear and convincing evidence that no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance at court proceedings, reasonably assure the protection of the community, victims, witnesses, or any other person, and reasonably maintain the integrity of the judicial process, such that the defendant will not obstruct or attempt to obstruct justice. (2) Ensuring detention-eligible defendants are represented by counsel at the initial detention and subsequent hearings. (3) Requiring courts to hold a full preventive detention hearing within 10 days of the defendant’s arrest where defendants have the right to testify, to present evidence, and to cross-examine witnesses against them. (4) Requiring expedited review of the detention order by Superior Court. (5) Providing speedy trial protections for any defendant who is detained before adjudication due to preventive detention. This Act also does the following: (1) Improves procedural fairness by permitting courts to make transparent decisions about who to detain and who to release pretrial. (2) Strengthens the strong presumption of pretrial release under least restrictive conditions for those defendants who can safely be released in the community. This Act requires a greater than majority vote for passage because this Act is enabling legislation to an amendment to the Constitution which, when enacted, amends § 12 of Article I of the Delaware Constitution to require an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to create the list of detention-eligible offenses created by § 2116(b)(1) of Title 11 contained in this Act. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
The governance of this State relies on the qualifications and performance of the members of the Governor’s cabinet. The General Assembly finds that the confirmation process is an important step to ensure the qualifications and performance of the Governor’s cabinet. This Act implements the process of aligning the end of the term of each of the members of the Governor’s cabinet with the end of the Governor’s term by designating the principal officer of each executive department who is subject to the amendments to § 10 of Article III of the Delaware Constitution proposed by Senate Bill No. 15. The General Assembly’s intent in making this change is to require each member of the Governor’s cabinet to be reconfirmed by the Senate at the beginning of each term of a Governor. This Act also makes the following consistent: (1) The method of determining the annual salary of members of the Governor’s cabinet, by providing that the General Assembly is to set the salary in the annual appropriations act, thereby conforming the Delaware Code to current practice. (2) The preference for members of the Governor’s cabinet being residents of this State on appointment, by removing from the Delaware Code the preference for residency for the Secretary of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, the Secretary of the Department of Finance, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, the Secretary of Labor, the Housing Director of the Delaware State Housing Authority, and the Secretary of the Department of State. Residency requirements for members of the Governor’s cabinet are being removed from the Delaware Code by this Act and replaced with a notation that residency requirements are as provided in the Delaware Constitution. Residency requirements for members of the Governor’s cabinet will now be consistent, requiring the members to be residents of this State within at most 1 year after appointment and to remain residents of this State or be deemed resigned from office. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Because the next General Assembly must concur in the proposed amendment to the Delaware Constitution, this Act does not take effect until the passage of the second leg of the constitutional amendment in the 153rd General Assembly.
This Act requires crisis pregnancy centers in this state to provide notice if the center is not licensed by this state as a medical facility and does not have a licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises, in person, the provision of services. A violation of this Act is an unlawful practice under § 2513 of Title 6 and a violation of Subchapter II, Chapter 25 of Title 6.
