Kirk V. Denver Publishing Co‪.‬

This case involves a challenge to the constitutionality of section 13-21-102(4), 6A C.R.S. (1987), which was enacted in 1986 as part of tort-reform legislation and requires a party receiving an exemplary damages award to pay one-third of all such "damages collected . . . into the state general fund."*fn1 DeWayne C. Kirk filed a tort claim against Denver Publishing Company,  doing business as The Rocky Mountain News, and was awarded a judgment for exemplary damages in the amount of $118,980. In a post-trial motion Kirk unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the one-third payment requirement and thereafter filed this appeal. We conclude that section 13-21-102(4) effectuates a forced taking of the judgment creditor's property interest in the judgment and does so in a manner and to a degree unrelated to any constitutionally permissible governmental interest served by the taking and, therefore, violates the federal and state constitutional proscriptions against the taking of private property without just compensation. U.S. Const. amends. V & XIV; Colo. Const. art. II, § 15. We accordingly reverse that part of the judgment upholding the constitutionality of section 13-21-102(4), and we remand the case to the district court with directions to conform its judgment to the views herein expressed.