Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Public Benefits
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The Department of Human Services for Arapahoe County (“the Department”) sued Monica Velarde and Michael Moore to enforce a final order it had issued against them to recover Medicaid overpayments. But the Department did so only after undertaking extensive efforts on its own to recoup the fraudulently obtained benefits. The district court dismissed the Department’s suit, finding that section 24-4-106(4), C.R.S. (2021), which was part of the State Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), required an agency seeking judicial enforcement of one of its final orders to do so within thirty-five days of the order’s effective date. The Colorado Supreme Court determined district court and the court of appeals incorrectly relied on an inapplicable statutory deadline in ruling that the complaint was untimely filed. Each court was called upon to determine whether a thirty-five-day deadline governing proceedings initiated by an adversely affected or aggrieved person seeking judicial review of an agency’s action also applied to proceedings initiated by an agency seeking judicial enforcement of one of its final orders. Both courts answered yes. The Supreme Court, however, answered no. Judgment was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "Arapahoe County v. Velarde & Moore" on Justia Law

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Brooke Rojas was convicted of two counts of theft based on her improper receipt of food stamp benefits. Rojas initially applied for food stamp benefits from the Department of Human Services in August 2012 when she had no income. She received a recertification letter in December, which she submitted in mid-January 2013, indicating that she still had no income. And although she had not yet received a paycheck when she submitted the recertification letter, Rojas had started a new job on January 1. Rojas continued receiving food stamp benefits every month until July, when she inadvertently allowed them to lapse. She reapplied in August 2013. Although still working, Rojas reported that she had no income. The Department checked Rojas’s employment status in connection with the August application and learned that she was making about $55,000 a year (to support a family of seven). The Department determined that Rojas had received $5,632 in benefits to which she was not legally entitled. At trial, Rojas’s defense was that she lacked the requisite culpable mental state—she didn’t knowingly deceive the government; she just misunderstood the forms. Before trial, Rojas objected to the prosecution’s proposed admission of the August 2013 application because it exceeded the time period of the charged offenses and didn’t lead to the receipt of any benefits. The prosecution countered that the application was admissible as res gestae evidence—to show how the investigation began—and as evidence of specific intent. The court found it relevant as circumstantial evidence of Rojas’s mental state. In its opinion issued upon Rojas' appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded it was "time for us to bury res gestae. ... By continuing to rely on res gestae as a standalone basis for admissibility and allowing the vagueness of res gestae to persist next to these more analytically demanding rules of relevancy, we have created a breeding ground for confusion, inconsistency, and unfairness." The Court's decision to abolish the res gestate doctrine in criminal cases prompted it to reverse judgment and remand for a new trial. View "Rojas v. Colorado" on Justia Law

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Peggy Harvey and Eileen Manzanares were injured in separate car accidents when their cars were struck by other drivers. Each was then taken to a Centura-affiliated hospital (along with Centura Health Corporation, “Centura”) for treatment. At the time they were treated by Centura, both women’s health insurance was solely through Medicare and Medicaid. And both women’s injuries resulted in hospital stays. In addition to Medicare and Medicaid, both women had automobile insurance whose policies included medical payment ("Med Pay") coverage for medical bills incurred as a result of a motor vehicle accident. In addition, the third-party tortfeasors who caused Harvey’s and Manzanares’s injuries also had automobile insurance. Both Harvey and Manzanares advised Centura of all of the available health and automobile insurance policies. Centura then assigned the women’s accounts to a collection agency, Avectus Healthcare Solutions, for processing; Avectus submitted Centura’s medical expenses to each of the automobile insurers involved, including the automobile insurers for Harvey, Manzanares, and the third-party tortfeasors. Within two weeks after submitting these charges to the various automobile insurers (and within two months of the women’s respective discharges from their hospital stays), Centura filed hospital liens against both of the women. Centura conceded it did not bill either Medicare or Medicaid before filing their respective liens. Both Harvey and Manzanares subsequently brought suit, alleging that Centura had violated the Lien Statute by not billing Medicare for the services provided to the women prior to filing the liens. The parties disputed whether when, as here, Medicare was a person’s principal source of health coverage, Medicare could be considered a “primary medical payer of benefits” under the Lien Statute (such that a hospital must bill Medicare before asserting a lien), or if such an interpretation was barred by the Medicare Secondary Payer statute, which designated Medicare as a “secondary payer.” The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that when Medicare was a patient’s primary health insurer, the Lien Statute required a hospital to bill Medicare for the medical services provided to the patient before asserting a lien against that patient. "Hospital liens are governed by state, not federal, law, and merely enforcing our Lien Statute does not make Medicare a primary payer of medical benefits in violation of the MSP Statute." View "Harvey v. Centura, No." on Justia Law

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Alma Vidauri was convicted of one count of theft and three counts of forgery in connection with filings she made with the Garfield County, Colorado Department of Human Services (“Department”) between 2009 and 2016 for medical assistance benefits. A division of the court of appeals concluded that the evidence was insufficient because the prosecution had not shown the difference in value between the total amount of certain public benefits Vidauri received and the amount for which she might have been eligible had she accurately reported her household income. Therefore, the division reversed the trial court and entered judgment for the lowest level of theft, a class 1 petty offense. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the division, finding the applicable theft statute placed no burden on the prosecution to establish that Vidauri would have been ineligible for any of the benefits she received. "Because an applicant is not entitled to, and so has no legally cognizable interest in, any benefits until she has submitted accurate information demonstrating as much, we conclude that all the benefits Vidauri received by submitting false information were obtained by deception. Therefore, the original judgment of conviction for a class 4 felony must be reinstated." View "Colorado v. Vidauri" on Justia Law

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Petitioner John Halaseh petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court to review a court of appeals' remand order to his underlying appeal, which directed the district court to enter four convictions for class 4 felony theft in place of the single conviction of class 3 felony theft that was reflected in the charge and jury verdict. The appellate court reversed the class 3 felony on grounds that when the statutory authorization for aggregating separate acts of theft was properly applied, there was insufficient evidence to support a single conviction for theft of $20,000 or more. It also found, however, that there was sufficient evidence to support four separate convictions for aggregated thefts with values qualifying as class 4 felonies, and that substituting these four class 4 felony convictions for the vacated class 3 felony conviction was necessary to fulfill what it understood to be its obligation to maximize the effect of the jury’s verdict. The Supreme Court disapproved of the appellate court's judgment, finding no theft offense required the aggregation of two or more separate instances of theft, whether that aggregation were to be based on commission within a period of six months or on commission as a single course of conduct, was a lesser included offense of the class 3 felony of which Halaseh was actually charged and convicted. Further, no such offense was implicitly found by the jury, and therefore none could be entered in lieu of the reversed conviction without depriving the defendant of his right to a jury trial. The matter was remanded for further proceedings. View "Halaseh v. Colorado" on Justia Law

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Brooke Rojas received food stamp benefits to which she was not legally entitled. Colorado charged her with two counts of theft under the general theft statute, section 18-4-401(1)(a), C.R.S. (2019). Rojas moved to dismiss these charges, arguing that she could only be prosecuted under section 26-2-305(1)(a), C.R.S. (2019), because it created the specific crime of theft of food stamps. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury convicted Rojas of the two general theft counts. Rojas contended on appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court that the trial court erred by denying the motion to dismiss because section 26-2-305(1)(a) abrogated the general theft statute in food stamp benefit cases. A split division of the court of appeals agreed with her. The Supreme Court, however, disagreed with Rojas and the division majority. Based on the statute’s plain language, the Court held that the legislature didn’t create a crime separate from general theft by enacting section 26-2-305(1)(a). View "Colorado v. Rojas" on Justia Law

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Brooke Rojas received food stamp benefits to which she was not legally entitled. The prosecution charged her with two counts of theft under the general theft statute, section 18-4-401(1)(a), C.R.S. (2019). Rojas moved to dismiss these charges, arguing that she could only be prosecuted under section 26-2-305(1)(a), C.R.S. (2019), because it created the specific crime of theft of food stamps. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury convicted Rojas of the two general theft counts. Rojas contended on appeal that the trial court erred by denying the motion to dismiss because section 26-2-305(1)(a) abrogated the general theft statute in food stamp benefit cases. A split division of the court of appeals agreed with her. The Colorado Supreme Court, however, disagreed with Rojas and the division majority. Based on the statute’s plain language, the Supreme Court held the legislature didn’t create a crime separate from general theft by enacting section 26-2-305(1)(a). View "Colorado v. Rojas" on Justia Law

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To address economic conditions and projections demonstrating a severely underfunded plan, the Colorado General Assembly approved measured designed to protect present and future retirees by providing an adequately pension program. This appeal centered on changes made to the annual cost of living (COLA) that applied to increase each retiree's vested base retirement benefit. Plaintiffs in this case were retired public employees who contended that they had a contract with the State entitling each of them, upon retirement, to have their base pension benefit annually adjusted by the specific COLA formula in existence at the time they were eligible to retire, for the rest of their lives without change. The district court ruled they had no such contract right to an unchangeable COLA formula. The court of appeals disagreed, finding the retirees had a contract right to the formula in place at the time of eligibility for retirement or actual retirement based on the so-called "public policy exception," and remanded for further review to determine whether the legislature's act violated the Contract Clauses of the federal and state constitutions. The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed with the court of appeals, and agreed with the district court. The appellate court's judgment was reversed that the district court's judgment reinstated. View "Justus v. Colorado Public Employee's Retirement Association Pension Plan" on Justia Law