Supreme Court of Colorado

The court affirmed Brown's convictions for leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and serious bodily injury, holding that those offenses remain strict-liability crimes requiring no culpable mental state.

The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing a defaulting defendant to testify at a non‑defaulting co‑defendant's trial, by setting aside the default judgment under Rule 60(b), and by entering judgment in the defaulting defendant's…

The Colorado Supreme Court held that the common law litigation privilege for attorney publicity in pending class action litigation is not defeated by the fact that class members' identities are ascertainable from the defendant's records through discovery, rejecting the court of appeals' 'ascertainability exception.'…

The court held that the restitution statute requires every judgment of conviction to contain one of four specified restitution orders and does not permit the issue of restitution to remain wholly open after sentencing.

The Supreme Court of Colorado reversed a divided court of appeals panel that had barred termination of parental rights because permanent custody with the child's aunt was a 'less drastic alternative' that would adequately meet the child's needs.

The Colorado Supreme Court held that a defendant is not entitled to the benefit of amendatory legislation that took effect while his direct appeal was pending when he first seeks relief based on that legislation only after his conviction has become final.

The court held that proportionality review of habitual-criminal sentences must examine each triggering offense together with the predicate offenses supporting it, and must account for relevant later legislative amendments even when those amendments are nonretroactive.

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that a court of appeals division erred by supplementing the state's long-standing Oaks cumulative error standard with a two-step, multi-factor test drawn from federal circuit precedent, reaffirming that Oaks governs cumulative error review regardless of whether the underlying errors…

The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed David McCoy's convictions for unlawful sexual contact under section 18-3-404(1)(g), C.R.S., first holding that sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims may be raised for the first time on appeal and must be reviewed de novo rather than for plain error, even when they require…

The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed in part and reversed in part a court of appeals decision addressing David Rediger's convictions for interference with a public employee in a public building and interference with the staff, faculty, or students of an educational institution.

The court held that defendants may raise unpreserved double-jeopardy claims for the first time on direct appeal, ordinarily subject to plain-error review, because such claims do not challenge defects in the charging document.

The court adopted the federal plausibility standard for evaluating pleadings under Colorado’s analogous rules, holding that a complaint must contain factual allegations sufficient to make entitlement to relief plausible and that conclusory allegations are not assumed true.

The court reversed the court of appeals' judgments and remanded for outcome-specific harmless-error analysis of erroneous rulings on challenges for cause. It held that a compensated employee of the state attorney general's office is subject to removal for cause because the office is statutorily designated a…

The Supreme Court of Colorado, en banc, affirmed the court of appeals in this private condemnation action, holding that a petition under section 38-1-102(1), C.R.S., must give a general description of the property and its purpose but need not contain a metes and bounds legal description or specify the particular…

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that a prosecutor's repeated use of the word 'lie' and its variants in opening and closing statements is categorically improper and, because the defendant's credibility was essential to her self-defense theory, prejudiced the fundamental fairness of the trial and constituted…

The Supreme Court of Colorado granted certiorari to decide whether DNA evidence linking Clark to the crime scene, together with circumstantial proof, sufficiently identified him as the perpetrator of a 2004 sexual assault.

The court held that defense counsel’s opening statements did not amount to a guilty plea or judicial admission because they did not concede any element of the charged offenses or foreclose an acquittal.

The court held that an invitee may establish a landowner's statutory knowledge of a dangerous condition through either actual or constructive knowledge. It further held that evidence of a building-code violation may support a finding that the landowner failed to exercise reasonable care, although the premises…

The Colorado Supreme Court held that Robinson's contract, warranty, and unjust-enrichment claims against the Colorado State Lottery were barred by the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act because, although pleaded in contract and equity, the underlying injury arose from the Lottery's alleged misrepresentations that…

The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals resolving Mary Brodeur's tort and statutory claims arising from the insurers' handling of her deceased husband's workers' compensation claim.

The court held that the drug-analysis laboratory report was testimonial hearsay because it was prepared by police direction for use in a criminal prosecution. It nevertheless upheld admission of the report because defense counsel waived the defendant's confrontation right by failing to make the statutory request for…

The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed in part and reversed in part the postconviction court's denial of relief to Nathan Dunlap, holding that trial counsel was not constitutionally ineffective on any ground urged.

The court held that extraordinary circumstances beyond the arresting officer’s control excused the police department’s inability to complete the blood test Turbyne selected, so dismissal of the charges was an abuse of discretion.

The court reinstated Vigil’s conviction, holding that the child’s statements to the doctor, father, and father’s friend were non-testimonial and admissible under the applicable hearsay and confrontation standards.

The Colorado Supreme Court held that a trial court ruling on a C.R.C.P. 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction may not weigh and resolve material disputed jurisdictional facts against the plaintiff without first holding an evidentiary hearing; on a documentary record the plaintiff need only make…

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that Colorado's extraordinary-aggravation statute, section 18-1.3-401(6), is constitutional as properly applied and upheld Lopez's twelve-year aggravated possession sentence because it rested on Blakely-exempt prior-conviction facts — the jury's vehicular homicide and…

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that the disrupting lawful assembly statute, § 18-9-108, was constitutionally applied to a protester at an open-air election campaign rally because its express elements — intent to disrupt and significant obstruction or interference — target conduct rather than the content of speech…

The Colorado Supreme Court resolved a long-standing conflict in its precedent by holding that constitutional harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt review applies only to errors preserved by a contemporaneous objection, while unpreserved constitutional errors are reviewed solely for plain error.

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that the premises liability statute, § 13-21-115, C.R.S. (2004), comprehensively and exclusively specifies the duties landowners owe to persons injured on their property, thereby abrogating common law landowner duty principles, and that nothing in the statute's plain language…

The court held that the economic loss rule barred a subcontractor's negligence and negligent-misrepresentation claims against a design engineer and project inspector. Although the parties lacked direct contracts, their duties and remedies were defined by a network of interrelated construction contracts, and the…

The court held that admitting an unavailable witness's preliminary-hearing testimony violated the Confrontation Clause because Colorado preliminary hearings do not provide an adequate prior opportunity for cross-examination.

The court held that qualified pollution exclusions turn on whether the insured expected or intended contaminants to migrate off its property or into groundwater, not merely whether it expected seepage or intended an initial discharge.

The court held that the employees and their labor organizations had standing to challenge the Governor's executive order and the Personnel Director's payroll-deduction policy. The complaint adequately alleged both an injury-in-fact and injury to a legally protected interest because the plaintiffs claimed they were…

The court held that disbarment was manifestly excessive because the Hearing Board failed to properly weigh the established mitigating circumstances against the misconduct. Although Fischer knowingly violated the separation agreement and court order by distributing funds contrary to their terms, he acted openly…

The Supreme Court of Colorado reversed the court of appeals' ruling that an insured must prove substantial property or economic loss before recovering emotional distress damages in a bad faith breach of insurance contract action.

The Colorado Supreme Court reversed summary judgment for three excess-liability insurers that had refused to indemnify Cyprus Amax's approximately $31 million settlement with Coeur d'Alene Mines over landslide damage to the Golden Cross Mine.

The court held that a third-party administrator of a self-funded health plan may owe an insured an independent tort duty of good faith and fair dealing despite the absence of contractual privity.

The Supreme Court of Colorado reversed the court of appeals' affirmance of the summary denial of John Ardolino's Crim. P. 35(c) motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.

The court upheld the findings that Karen Roose violated professional-conduct rules by leaving a dependency-and-neglect trial despite a court order to remain and by making misrepresentations in a notice of appeal.

The court held that the evidence did not establish an actionable private claim under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act because Snyder failed to prove both a qualifying deceptive trade practice and a significant public impact.