Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff-appellant Meridian Service Metropolitan District (Meridian) appealed a district court order finding that Meridian sought to appropriate designated ground water that was subject to the jurisdiction of the Colorado Ground Water Commission. Meridian petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether storm runoff could be classified as “designated ground water” subject to administration and adjudication by the Commission, or whether such water was in or tributary to a natural stream (vesting jurisdiction in the local water court). The Supreme Court concluded that because this case presented a question of whether the water at issue here met a statutory definition of “designated ground water,” the Commission had jurisdiction to make the initial determination. View "Meridian Serv. Metro. Dist. v. Ground Water Comm'n" on Justia Law

In 2011, In 2011, Regional Transportation District (“RTD”) filed a petition in condemnation against 750 West 48th Avenue, LLC (“Landowner”) to acquire approximately the approximately 1.6 acre property a light rail project. Landowner was leasing the property to a commercial waterproofing business ("Tenant"). Over the years, Landowner made several luxury improvements to the property, including adding a steam room, fitness room, atrium, ceramic and cherry-wood flooring, and marble and granite finishes. The parties stipulated to every condemnation issue except the property's reasonable market value. Landowner elected to litigate the property's value through a commission trial. RTD established the value at $1.8 million; Landowner thought the property was worth $2.57 million. Landowner's calculations focused solely on the cost of replacement; RTD based its estimation on a "superadequacy" theory, asserting that many of the luxury improvements that Landowner made to an industrial property would not fetch a price on the open market commensurate with the cost of replacement. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the interplay between the respective authorities of the supervising judge and the commission to make evidentiary rulings in eminent domain valuation hearings. Specifically, the Court considered: (1) whether a commission could alter a supervising judge's ruling in limine regarding admissibility, and (2) whether the supervising judge could instruct the commission to disregard as irrelevant evidence that the commission had previously admitted. The Supreme Court held that judicial evidentiary rulings controlled in valuation hearings. Thus, the Court affirmed the court of appeals' judgment insofar as it approved the supervising judge instructing the commission to disregard previously admitted evidence as irrelevant. The Court reversed that portion of the appellate court's opinion permitting the commission to alter the judge's evidentiary ruling in limine. View "RTD v. 750 West 48th Ave., LLC" on Justia Law

Respondents Jason Rodgers and James Hazel brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim against the Summit County Board of County Commissioners alleging the County violated the Equal Protection Clause of the federal Constitution when it denied them a certificate of occupancy to their newly built home. The trial court issued partial directed verdicts against respondents on three of the four allegedly discriminatory actions they named in their complaint. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed, concluding C.R.C.P. 50 did not permit partial directed verdicts, and that the trial court improperly considered the County' actions as separate issues rather than a pattern of conduct. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's ruling, finding that because Rule 50 is close to the summary judgment rule (C.R.C.P. 56) which permits partial judgments, the two rules should be interpreted in tandem. The Court could find "no convincing justification . . . for permitting partial summary judgments but not partial directed verdicts." The Court also disagreed with the court of appeals' additional rationale that the trial court misunderstood the nature of respondents' claim, as respondents requested the trial court to consider the four allegedly discriminatory actions as separate acts, rather than a pattern of conduct. View "Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs of Summit Cty. v. Rodgers" on Justia Law

In 2010, the Colorado Governor, under guidance from the state's medical and nursing boards, decided that Colorado would opt-out of a federal regulation requiring certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) administer anesthesia under a physician's supervision. Under the regulation, hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and critical access hospitals received Medicare reimbursement if CRNAs worked under a physician's supervision. Petitioners the Colorado Medical Society and the Colorado Society of Anesthesiologists, filed suit against the Governor, claiming that Colorado law did not permit CRNAs to administer anesthesia without supervision. In ruling on the Governor's motion to dismiss, the trial court found that petitioners failed to state a valid claim and granted relief. The appellate court agreed with the trial court's conclusion. The Supreme Court agreed with the result, but held that the Governor's decision to opt-out of the federal regulation was revieweable by a court only for a gross abuse of discretion. Because petitioners did not allege that such a gross abuse occurred here, the court of appeals' decision to affirm dismissal of the case was affirmed. View "Colorado Medical Society v. Hickenlooper" on Justia Law

Health Grades, Inc., operated a website providing information to healthcare consumers about hospitals and physicians around the country, filed suit against two of its former employees, Christopher Boyer and Patrick Singson. Its complaint alleged that Boyer and Singson created competing websites during their employment at Health Grades and solicited Health Grades’ clients to advertise on their competing websites, which utilized proprietary methodologies created by Health Grades to increase the probability that consumers would discover their websites. The complaint included claims of breach of the fiduciary duty of loyalty, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference with prospective business advantage, and ultimately, breach of contract and conversion. Defendants Boyer and Singson denied Health Grades’ material allegations and asserted a counterclaim for abuse of process. In support of their counterclaim, they alleged that Health Grades’ claims lacked a reasonable factual basis or cognizable basis in law and were based on allegations Health Grades largely knew to be false. A jury rejected all of Health Grades’ claims and returned a verdict for defendants on their counterclaim. The court subsequently denied Health Grades’ motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. On appeal, the intermediate appellate court found that the district court erred by allowing the jury to decide the question of whether Health Grades’ claims were devoid of reasonable factual support or lacked any cognizable basis in law such that they were not immune from liability under the Petition Clause of the First Amendment; and it remanded with instructions for the district court to make an independent judicial determination of that question. Shortly after the opinion was released, the Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion in "General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC v. Bacheller," (291 P.3d 1), holding that the heightened standard set forth in earlier case law did not apply where the underlying alleged petitioning activity was the filing of an arbitration complaint concerning a purely private dispute. On rehearing, the court of appeals modified its initial opinion, concluding that nothing in "General Steel" required the modification of its remand order. Because the Supreme Court held that the underlying rationale for its judgment in General Steel concerning arbitration proceedings was equally applicable to actions filed in courts of law, and because it was uncontested by the parties that the action filed by Health Grades involved a purely private dispute, the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and the matter remanded with directions to affirm the jury’s verdict. View "Boyer v. Health Grades, Inc." on Justia Law

Shortly before the 2011 election, the Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder received a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request from Marilyn Marks for access to voted paper ballots from the 2010 general election. Because the Clerk believed that Colorado law prohibited disclosing voted ballots, and because Marks requested the ballots within twenty days of an upcoming election, the Clerk sought a declaration that it was prohibited from disclosing the ballots. Before the district court ruled on the merits of the Clerk's request, the General Assembly enacted 24-72-205.5, C.R.S. (2014) that made voted ballots subject to CORA. The Clerk thereafter produced a single voted ballot for Marks to inspect. The only remaining issue in the case was whether Marks was entitled to costs and attorney fees. After its review, the Supreme Court held that when an official custodian sought an order prohibiting or restricting disclosure, a prevailing requestor was entitled to costs and attorney fees unless the district court found that the denial of the right of inspection was proper. The district court in this case found the denial was proper, therefore Marks was not entitled to attorney fees. View "Reno v. Marks" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was a change-of-water-rights application filed by East Cherry Creek Valley Water & Sanitation District and the Colorado Water Network, Inc. (collectively, East Cherry Creek). East Cherry Creek submitted its application involving shares it owned in the Greeley Irrigation Company (GIC) for use in its water system. The "Poudre Prairie Decree" used a ditch-wide analysis for calculating the amount of historical consumptive use ascribable to each GIC share. East Cherry Creek asserted its ability to use the same Poudre Prairie pro-rata allocation of consumptive use water to its shares as occurred for previously changed shares in the ditch system. The water court denied East Cherry Creek's C.R.C.P. 56(h) motion. East Cherry Creek then sought an order entering the denial as a final judgment. The State and Division Engineers opposed the motion, but was overruled. East Cherry Creek then appealed its Rule 56(h) motion denial (raising three issues), and the Engineers cross-appealed (raising two issues). The Supreme Court agreed with the Engineers: that the trial court did not enter a final judgment on any claim for relief in this litigation. The water court's certification order was reversed, the appeal dismissed, and the case remanded for further proceedings at the water court. View "East Cherry Creek Valley v. Wolfe" on Justia Law

After an exchange of Rule 26 disclosures, Anero Resources Corporation, Antero Resources Piceance Corporation, Calfrac Well Services Corporation and Frontier Drilling, LLC (collectively, Antero Resources) asked the trial court to enter a modified case management order requiring plaintffs, William and Beth Strudley, to present prima facie evidence that they suffered injuries attributable to the natural gas drilling operations of Antero Resources. The trial court granted the motion and issued a "Lone Pine" order that directed the Strudleys to provide prima facie evidence to support their claims of exposure, injury, and causation before the court would allow full discovery. The trial court determined that the Strudleys failed to present such evidence, and dismissed their case with prejudice. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that, as a matter of first impression, "Lone Pine" orders were not permitted as a matter of Colorado law. Upon review of the matter from an appeal of the court of appeals, the Supreme Court held that Colorado's Rules of Civil Procedure did not allow a trial court to issue a modified case management order (such as a "lone Pine" order) that required a plaintiff to present prima facie evidence in support of a claim before plaintiff could exercise its full rights of discovery under the Colorado Rules. "Although the comments to C.R.C.P. 16 promote active judicial case management, the rule does not provide a trial court with authority to fashion its own summary judgment-like filter and dismiss claims during the early stages of litigation." View "Antero Resources v. Strudley" on Justia Law

The district court declared a vacancy in the Adams County School District 12 Director District 4 school board director position because defendant-appellee Amy Speers was elected but unqualified to serve. An issue arose when the two candidates signed affidavits affirming that they met all the requisite qualifications to hold the office, but unbeknownst to Speers, the School District had redrawn the director districts in 2012, and had placed Speers' home outside of Director District 4. The School District's designated election officer was also unaware that Speers no longer met the residency requirement, and deemed both petitions sufficient. Neither the sufficiency of Speers' petition nor her certification to the ballot was challenged within the five-day window (under C.R.S. 1-4-909(1) (2014)). The election officer's certification of both candidates to the ballot was therefore valid. In a final attempt to effectively withdraw Speers from the election, the Secretary of State issued an emergency rule at the end of the final day of the election that instructed the clerks not to count the ballots cast for Speers. A district court invalidated this rule as incompatible with Colorado's election code, and we upheld that court's decision in "Hanlen v. Gessler," (333 P.3d 41 2014)) because "questions regarding a certified candidate's eligibility [must] be determined by a court, not an election official." On remand, the district court considered plaintiff-appellant Enrico Figueroa's claims that Speers was not eligible to hold office, that the votes cast for her were invalid, and this he was legally elected to the Director District 4 position. The district court concluded that because neither Figueroa nor any other party sought any judicial intervention whatsoever prior to the election, Figueroa had "slept on his rights" and thus Speers had won the election. Regarding Speers, the court found that there was no dispute that she was ineligible to hold the office for which she was elected and because she had not sought to take the oath of office and did not intend to cure the residency defect, her election was voided. The court then declared a vacancy in the Director District 4 position. Figueroa appealed directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court held that, though Speers was unqualified to serve, no court declared her to be unqualified until after the voting had been completed. In this situation, the legally elected party is the party who receives the most legal votes. Thus, Speers was legally elected because she received the most legal votes, meaning Figueroa was not legally elected. The district court therefore correctly voided her election and declared a vacancy under the provisions of Colorado' selection code, and its judgment was affirmed. View "Figueroa v. Speers" on Justia Law

Defendant Marion Villegas appealed the district court's grant of plaintiff Lillian Malm's motion to reopen her personal injury lawsuit, some six years after the case had been marked inactive and closed. The court denied Villegas' motion to reconsider and her motion to dismiss the action for failure to prosecute, despite the passage of more than seven years between the filing and service of complaint. Relying on Malm's self-reported efforts to find and serve Villegas, and Villegas' failure to demonstrate prejudice from the delay, the district court found that service was had within a reasonable time. After review, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded service was delayed for an unreasonable amount of time, and that the district court abused its discretion by not dismissing the lawsuit for failure to prosecute. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded the case to the district court for entry of dismissal. View "In re Malm v. Villegas" on Justia Law