Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Alexander Clark brought a medical malpractice lawsuit against the estate of his late pain management specialist, Dr. Daniel Brookoff. Clark claimed Dr. Brookoff negligently prescribed a prolonged course of drugs to alleviate Clark’s chronic pain and that Dr. Brookoff did not adequately inform his patient (then a minor) of the risks associated with the drug. Clark claimed that his consumption of the drug caused neurological and urological damage. Prior to trial, Clark indicated that he intended to present testimony about conversations he and his mother had with Dr. Brookoff prior to and during treatment. The Estate responded by filing a motion to exclude such evidence in accordance with Colorado’s Dead Man’s Statute. The trial court agreed that the anticipated testimony was inadmissible. Unable to introduce that testimony, Clark abandoned his informed consent claim, and the case proceeded to trial on his negligence claim. After judgment was entered in favor of the Estate, Clark appealed the order prohibiting him or his mother from testifying about their conversations with Dr. Brookoff. The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s decision to bar this testimony and remanded the case for a new trial on Clark’s informed consent claim. In so doing, the appellate division relied on case law predating the 2002 and 2013 amendments to the Dead Man’s Statute to conclude that, despite its current language, the statute was not applicable “in any civil action” but only when the outcome of a proceeding will increase or diminish an estate. Because Dr. Brookoff had an insurance policy, the court of appeals reasoned that any liability would be covered by insurance and thus would not diminish his estate. The court therefore declined to apply the Dead Man’s Statute. Following denial of its petition for rehearing, the Estate petitioned for certiorari. The Colorado Supreme Court held the Dead Man’s Statute was applicable “in all civil actions.” Because the statute applied irrespective of the potential impact of a judgment on an estate, the Court also held the existence of insurance coverage was not a factor militating for or against the applicability of the Dead Man’s Statute. View "Estate of Daniel Brookoff, M.D., v. Clark" on Justia Law

R. Parker Semler, a member of a condominium association, filed a breach-of- contract claim against the law firm that employed the association’s attorney. He alleged the attorney had a contract with the association’s president not to represent one association member against another. He also alleged that the attorney had, on behalf of other association members he was representing, acquired a deed conveying ownership of parking spaces over which Semler also claimed ownership, thereby breaching the contract and damaging Semler. The trial court dismissed the claim for lack of standing. A division of the court of appeals reversed, concluding that Semler had sufficiently alleged a breach-of-contract claim as a third-party beneficiary, and concluding that the strict privity rule, which “precludes attorney liability to non-clients absent fraud, malicious conduct, or negligent misrepresentation” did not bar Semler’s claim. The Colorado Supreme Court determined the strict privity rule barred Semler's breach-of-contract claim, and as such, he lacked standing to assert it. View "Bewley v. Semler" on Justia Law

In 2008, a juvenile probation officer swabbed the cheek of Petitioner Ismael Casillas, then a juvenile, to collect a DNA sample. Colorado law required certain juvenile offenders to submit to collection of their DNA for testing. However, this requirement “shall not apply to an offender granted a deferred adjudication, unless otherwise required to submit to a sample pursuant to [C.R.S. section 19-2-925.6 (2018)] or unless the deferred adjudication is revoked and a sentence is imposed.” The probation officer’s collection of Casillas’s DNA violated section 19-2-925.6(1) because Casillas had been granted a one-year deferred adjudication and he was not otherwise required under the statute to submit a DNA sample. His genetic markers were nevertheless uploaded to the federal Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Several months after Casillas successfully completed the terms of his deferred adjudication and his juvenile case had been dismissed, law enforcement investigators matched DNA evidence recovered from a stolen vehicle with the sample in the CODIS database taken from Casillas during his juvenile deferred adjudication. As a result of the DNA match, Casillas was identified and charged in connection with a carjacking. Before trial, Casillas moved to suppress all evidence derived from the DNA match, arguing that evidence derived from the unauthorized cheek swab should be excluded as the fruits of an unlawful search in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury later convicted Casillas of criminal mischief. After review, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded the exclusionary rule required suppression of the evidence stemming from the probation officer’s unauthorized collection of DNA. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded this case with instructions to vacate Casillas’ conviction. View "Casillas v. Colorado" on Justia Law

Based on acts that defendant Curtis Brooks committed when he was fifteen years old, prosecutors charged him as an adult with felony murder and other crimes. After a jury convicted Brooks on multiple counts, including the felony murder charge, the trial court imposed a mandatory life without the possibility of parole ("LWOP") sentence in accordance with Colorado’s then-applicable sentencing statutes. This case presented a question of whether Colorado’s recently enacted sentencing scheme for juvenile offenders who received unconstitutional mandatory sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole (“LWOP”) violates the Special Legislation Clause of the Colorado Constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that it did not. View "Colorado v. Brooks" on Justia Law

Jairo Perez was shot and killed in his garage. A witness later positively identified defendant Daniel Gutierrez as the murderer in a police photo array. Gutierrez filed several motions that required pretrial evidentiary hearings. Relevant here, he sought to suppress the statements he made to the arresting officer on the basis of an alleged Miranda violation. The court scheduled a hearing on that motion in February 2017, but ended up continuing it three times to accommodate witness availability. At a hearing in early June where the officer was not present but other witnesses testified, the People stated that he would be back and prepared to testify in July. The officer was not present at the July hearing because of an on-the-job shoulder injury that required surgery and left him "not cleared for duty." The People asked for another continuance to which the trial court granted over defendant's objection. When rescheduling the hearing, the court noted that the trial date could not be moved because the court had no available dates between the scheduled trial time in August and the speedy trial deadline in September. The court closed the July 7 hearing by again cautioning the People that if the officer was not present, the People would be unable to meet their burden in contesting the motion to suppress. The officer was not at the next hearing; he was out of state recuperating from surgery. The People offered to have the officer testify as a civilian, and remotely via Skype or similar service. The trial court denied the People's request. The People then filed an interlocutory appeal. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the order suppressing defendant's statements. View "Colorado v. Gutierrez" on Justia Law

Steve Taylor unwittingly invested millions of dollars in what proved to be a massive Ponzi scheme. Before the scheme’s collapse, Taylor fortuitously withdrew his entire investment, plus nearly half a million dollars in profit. After the Ponzi scheme’s collapse, a court-appointed receiver brought what is commonly referred to as an “actual fraud” claim under the Colorado Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“CUFTA”) section 38-8-105(1)(a), C.R.S. (2018), to claw back Taylor’s profits. As an innocent investor, Taylor argued he should be allowed to keep the money, contending (in the words of a statutory affirmative defense) that he provided “reasonably equivalent value” in exchange for his profits. A division of the court of appeals concluded that Taylor was not precluded as a matter of law from keeping some of the profit, because he may have provided reasonably equivalent value in the form of the time value of his investment. The receiver appealed. The Colorado Supreme Court determined Taylor could not keep the profit exceeding his initial investment based on the time value of money: under CUFTA, an innocent investor who profited from his investment in an equity-type Ponzi scheme, lacking any right to a return on investment, does not provide reasonably equivalent value based simply on the time value of his investment. View "Lewis v. Taylor" on Justia Law

This quiet title action called on the Colorado Supreme Court to determine whether the owner of a garage condominium unit could validly subdivide that unit under section 38-33.3-213, C.R.S. (2018) of the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (“CCIOA”) by merely painting or marking lines on the garage wall, and thereafter separately convey the spaces thus marked as individual condominium parking units. Petitioner Perfect Place, LLC (“Perfect Place”) claimed ownership of three parking spaces (spaces “C, D, and E”) in a mixed-use residential and commercial building. Respondent R. Parker Semler contended he owned spaces C and D. The dimensions of these parking spaces were not marked or otherwise discernible from the condominium declaration or accompanying map. Quail Street Company (“Quail Street”) obtained a majority of the building’s condominium units, including the Garage Unit, from the original owner. Quail Street’s manager and sole shareholder, John Watson, later physically marked the boundaries of spaces C, D, and E with paint or tape, purportedly subdividing the Garage Unit into three individual units that could be separately conveyed. However, there was no evidence that Watson ever recorded any amendment to the declaration reflecting the subdivision of the Garage Unit, as required by section 38-33.3-213 of CCIOA. Watson later transferred his interests in spaces C and D to different buyers; those buyers later transferred their interests to others, including Semler. In June 2013, Perfect Place filed a quiet title action, asserting superior title to spaces C, D, and E based on a quitclaim deed it obtained from Watson in 2011 (the “2011 Quitclaim Deed”) that purportedly conveyed the Garage Unit as a single, undivided condominium unit. Although the individual spaces C, D, and E had been conveyed to other owners, Perfect Place contended that these conveyances were invalid because Watson had never validly subdivided the Garage Unit. Perfect Place thus claimed title to all three parking spaces, contending that the quitclaim deed it obtained from Watson was the only valid conveyance of the Garage Unit. Semler claimed superior title to spaces C and D based on deeds that conveyed these spaces to him as individual units. He further argued that Perfect Place obtained the quitclaim deed from Watson through fraudulent misrepresentations. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s conclusion that the Garage Unit was properly subdivided and that Semler owned spaces C and D. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded Watson did not validly subdivide the Garage Unity; and the court of appeals erred in concluding the 2011 Quitclaim Deed was void for fraud in the factum. View "Perfect Place v. Semler" on Justia Law

Petitioner Albert Johnson sought review of the court of appeals’ judgment reversing jury verdicts in his favor on personal injury claims against Ryan Schonlaw and VCG Restaurants of Denver, Inc. At the close of the case, the district court overruled the objections of Schonlaw and VCG to its announced decision to allow the alternate to deliberate to verdict with the other jurors. The court of appeals concluded that the trial court had erred in allowing an alternate juror to participate in jury deliberations over the objection of a party, and that the error gave rise to a presumption of prejudice, which remained unrebutted by Johnson, and therefore required reversal. The Colorado Supreme Court determined the error in this case did not affect the substantial rights of either Schonlaw or VCG, and it should have been disregarded as harmless, as required by C.R.C.P. 61. The judgment of the court of appeals was therefore reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Johnson v. Schonlaw" on Justia Law

Petitioner Dustin James sought review of the court of appeals’ judgment affirming his conviction for possession of methamphetamine. Upon realizing that it had failed to discharge the alternate juror before the jury retired to deliberate, the district court recalled and dismissed the alternate; instructed the jury to continue on with deliberations uninfluenced by anything the alternate may have said or done; and denied the defense motion for dismissal or mistrial. The court of appeals concluded that the trial court’s error in allowing the alternate juror to retire with the jury and the juror’s presence for part of the deliberations were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and after rejecting James’s other assignments of error, affirmed his conviction. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded the evidence supporting the defendant’s guilt of the lesser offense of possession, the only offense of which he was convicted, was overwhelming and was in fact never seriously challenged, the district court’s failure to recall the alternate for approximately ten minutes amounted, under the facts of this case, to harmless error. The judgment of the court of appeals was therefore affirmed. View "James v. Colorado" on Justia Law

A jury found petitioner Matthew Zoll guilty of second degree assault on a peace officer, criminal impersonation, and two counts of resisting arrest. The trial court adjudicated Zoll a habitual criminal and sentenced him to eighteen years in the Department of Corrections. Zoll appealed, and a division of the court of appeals affirmed his convictions in a unanimous, unpublished opinion. The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine: (1) the proper remedy when an appellate court concludes that the trial court incorrectly failed to disclose certain documents from a responding officer’s personnel file; and (2) whether replaying a 911 recording for the jury in the courtroom during deliberations is a critical stage of the proceeding requiring the defendant’s presence. After review, the Supreme Court held found court of appeals erred in assessing whether the nondisclosure of documents in a responding officer’s personnel file affected the outcome of the trial: the court of appeals should have remanded the case for the trial court to disclose the improperly withheld documents to the parties and for petitioner to demonstrate a reasonable probability that had the documents been disclosed to him prior to trial, the result of the proceeding might have been different. Furthermore, the Supreme Court concluded that even if playing the 911 recording during jury deliberations could have been deemed a critical stage of the proceedings, petitioner's absence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, the Court declined to address whether the appellate court correctly decided whether petitioner's absence did not occur during a critical stage. Accordingly, the Court reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded with instructions to return this case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Zoll v. Colorado" on Justia Law