Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In 2010, then-Governor Bill Ritter, Jr. consulted with the state's medical and nursing boards and concluded that opting out of the supervision requirement for certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) would be consistent with state law and would be in the state's best interest. The Governor sent notice of his conclusions to the federal government, and exercised the opt-out as to all critical access hospitals in Colorado and certain rural general hospitals. 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 by a physician. The Governor and three intervening medical associations (respondents) moved to dismiss petitioners'' complaint. The trial court found that petitioners failed to state a valid claim and granted the motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeal affirmed. Petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court, which also affirmed, albeit on different grounds: the Court found petitioners had standing, however, contrary to the assumption that belied this case (the Governor's attestation with regard to physician supervision of CRNAs) is not a generally binding interpretation of Colorado that is subject to de novo review. The Governor's decision, if reviewable at all, is reviewable only for a gross abuse of discretion. Because petitioners did not allege as much, the case was properly dismissed. View "Colorado Medical Society v. Hickenlooper" 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

Pursuant to its statutory authority, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), after a notice and comment period and a hearing, voted to appropriate an instream flow right (ISF) on the San Miguel River, and to file a water application for water rights with the water court. Farmers Water Development Company opposed the proposed San Miguel ISF during the notice and comment period, but did not attend the hearing. Farmers also opposed the application at the water court. On cross-motions for a determination of a question of law, the water court was asked to determine whether the CWCB's decision to appropriate an ISF was a quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial decision. Farmers argued that the decision was quasi-judicial, and that the procedures CWCB followed did not meet the dictates of procedural due process. The water court disagreed, concluding the CWCB was acting in a quasi-legislative capacity when it decided to appropriate the San Miguel ISF because, among other things, it was not adjudicating individual rights. The Supreme Court agreed: the CWCB's ISF appropriation was quasi-legislative because it was a policy decision "to preserve the natural environment" on behalf of the people of Colorado, as opposed to an adjudication of the rights of any specific party. View "Colo. Water Conservation Bd. v. Farmers Water Development Co." on Justia Law

Petitioner Sarah Burnett and a friend went camping at Cherry Creek State Park. They chose a campsite under a canopy of mature cottonwood trees. "The weather that night was uneventful." Early the next morning, while petitioner and her friend remained sleeping inside their tent, a large limb dropped from one of the trees and struck both of them. The blow fractured petitioner's skull and a vertebra, and caused other injuries, including a concussion and multiple lacerations to her scalp and face. The friend suffered only minor injuries, and was able to drive petitioner to the hospital. Petitioner brought a premises liability action against the State Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, seeking compensation for her injuries, arguing the Park was a "public facility" and the branches overhanging the campsite constituted a "dangerous condition." The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on whether the State waived its immunity for petitioner's injuries. The answer turned on whether the tree was a "natural condition...of unimproved property" under 24-10-106(1)(e) C.R.S. (2014) of the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act. The Court held that a "natural condition of any unimproved property" includes native trees originating on unimproved property. Because a limb from such a tree caused petitioner's injuries, the natural condition provision of the statute immunized the State in this case. View "Burnett v. Dept. of Natural Resources" on Justia Law

The Tip Jackwater right was originally decreed to service the Tip Jack Ditch, which is part of a 4,000-acre ranch now owned and operated by the Jim Hutton Educational Foundation. The State and Division 1 Engineers added the Tip Jack water right to the 2010 Revised Decennial Abandonment List for Water Division One because they found that the Foundation had abandoned the right. The Foundation challenged the listing. After trial, the water court concluded that the Engineers had not established by a preponderance that Jim Hutton or the Foundation had failed to use the Tip Jack water right, and even if they had, the Foundation had rebutted the presumption of abandonment. The Engineers appealed. The issue this case presented on appeal for the Supreme Court's review was one of first impression: how the presumption of abandonment applied when the water right holder continued to put decreed water to the use for which it was decreed, but nevertheless failed to divert water from the decreed diversion point for a period of ten years or more. The Supreme Court held that hold that when the Engineers prove that the water right holder has not used the decreed point of diversion for ten years or more, the Engineers trigger the rebuttable presumption of abandonment under C.R.S. section 37-92-402(11).Once triggered, the burden shifts to the water right holder to demonstrate a lack of intent to abandon. Because the water court erroneously believed that proof of nonuse at the decreed point of diversion was insufficient to raise the presumption, it failed to require evidence excusing such nonuse in order to rebut the presumption. The Court therefore reverse the water court’s judgment and remand for reconsideration of whether the Foundation met its burden of rebutting the presumption of abandonment. View "Wolfe v. Jim Hutton Educational Foundation" 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

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the historical beneficial consumptive use calculation of an 1872 irrigation right in a change of water right and augmentation plan proceeding. Sedalia Water and Sanitation District was the owner of a portion of that water right which it acquired from Owens Brothers Concrete Company. When the company owned its portion of the appropriation, it obtained a change of water right decree quantifying an annual average of 13 acre-feet of water available for use as augmentation plan credit for replacement of out-of-priority tributary groundwater depletions from a well. Having acquired the concrete company's interest, Sedalia claimed a right to the same amount of historical consumptive use water for its well augmentation plan in this case. On competing motions for summary judgment, the water court ruled that the doctrine of issue preclusion prohibited the State and Division Engineers from relitigating the quantification question (because they had been parties to the concrete company's 1986 augmentation plan case). The court held that the Engineers could raise the issue of abandonment at trial if they chose to. The Engineers argued on appeal to the Supreme Court that the Court should adopt a comprehensive rule that every change case triggered requantification of a water right. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part: issue preclusion applied to prevent relitigation of the historical beneficial consumptive use quantification; issue preclusion did not prevent the water court from inquiring into the alleged 24-year post-1986 non-use the Engineers alleged. View "Wolfe v. Sedalia" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on judicial enforcement of an administrative investigatory subpoena for documents of a corporation outside of Colorado, but was suspected of conducting business within the state in violation of state consumer protection statutes. Tulips Investments, LLC was a Delaware corporation that the State alleged was running a loan business in violation of the Colorado Uniform Consumer Credit Code (UCCC) and the Colorado Protection Act (CCPA). The State issued a subpoena requesting certain documents from Tulips, which Tulips failed to produce. The State then obtained a trial court order in an unsuccessful attempt to enforce the subpoena. The State then pursued a contempt citation against Tulips for failing to comply. Tulips responded by filing a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The trial court granted the motion, and the State appealed. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction. The Court affirmed the appellate court's decision setting aside the trial court's grant of Tulips' motion to dismiss. View "Tulips Investments, LLC v. Colorado ex rel. Suthers" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether the Special District Act (SDA) gave special districts the power to assign to a private party the right to receive development fees. Cherry Creek South Metropolitan District 1 assigned to a predecessor-in-interest of petitioner SDI, Inc. the right to receive fees the District assessed on developers within its boundaries to finance development of municipal infrastructure. The District increased the fees by about four percent each of the years prior to the assignment. SDI increased the fees it collected, but at a rate of eight percent per year. SDI sued Pivotal Parker Commercial, LLC to recover unpaid development fees, and requested a declaratory judgment that it could raise annual fees in the future. The trial court held that SDI was entitled to receive the fees as increased annually. Pivotal argued on appeal that the fee increase was an improper delegation of legislative authority. The appellate court reversed the trial court, which found that the District had no right to assign the fees. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, finding that the appellate court's reasoning was contrary to the SDA itself. As such, the Supreme Court held that the District's assignment of the right to collect fees was a lawful exercise of its statutory authority. The case was remanded to the appellate court for consideration of other issues Pivotal raised on appeal. View "SDI, Inc. v. Pivotal Parker, LLC" on Justia Law