Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
Grants standing to challenge state agency actions in Board of County Commissioners [8] and treats government water claims under standard first-step rules in Centennial [4], showing measured skepticism rather than deference. Centennial Water & Sanitation Di… ↗ Board of County Commissioners v.… ↗
Judicial activismJudicial restraint
Limits judicial role to statutory text and existing doctrine, as in reversing court of appeals only when it deviated from plain language in Munoz [2] and denying fee awards absent required findings. Munoz v. Measner ↗ Denny Construction, Inc. v. City… ↗
The case concerned whether the University of Colorado Board of Regents' policy banning concealed handguns on campus (except by certified law enforcement) could stand against a challenge by students holding valid state concealed-carry permits. The students sued, claiming the policy violated the Colorado Concealed Carry Act (CCA) and the state constitutional right to bear arms; the district court dismissed the complaint, but the court of appeals reversed. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the students had stated a valid claim under the CCA. The Court reasoned that the statute's stated goal of creating uniform statewide standards, its authorization to carry "in all areas of the state" except those expressly listed, and its narrow exclusion only for K-12 schools (not universities) demonstrated the legislature's intent to occupy the field and divest the Board of authority to impose its own restrictions. Because the claim succeeded on statutory grounds, the Court did not reach the constitutional issue.
The case involved a dispute over whether the Colorado Division of Employment and Training could combine the unemployment tax accounts of five related Accord Human Resources entities after one transferred hundreds of Colorado employees to another with a lower tax rate, thereby reducing the group's overall tax liability. The Division assessed over $500,000 in back taxes by treating the entities as a single employer under section 8-70-114(1), but a hearing officer ruled for Accord, the Industrial Claim Appeals Office reversed in favor of the Division, and the court of appeals reinstated the hearing officer's decision. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute does not authorize the Division to collapse separate employer accounts for tax assessment purposes. The Court reasoned that the plain language of section 8-70-114(1) merely deems individuals performing services for an employing unit with multiple establishments to be employed by a single unit, and it applies only to benefit determinations rather than employer tax accounts.
In an arbitration between Colorado Mills and SunOpta Grains & Foods over a joint venture dispute, an arbitrator issued subpoenas for business records to two nonparty companies, SK Food and Adams Vegetable Oil, located in California and North Dakota. SunOpta asked a Colorado district court to enforce the subpoenas after the companies refused to comply, and the court granted the request under Colorado’s version of the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act and the long-arm statute. The Colorado Supreme Court held that the district court lacked authority to enforce the subpoenas. It reasoned that, as a matter of state sovereignty, Colorado courts have no power to compel out-of-state nonparties to respond to civil subpoenas, and any enforcement must instead come from the courts of the states where the discovery is located, consistent with long-standing precedent. The court therefore vacated the enforcement order.
In this case, stepfather D.P.H. petitioned the juvenile court to adopt minor child A.B. without the consent of biological father J.L.B., alleging that the father had abandoned the child by having no contact for over twenty-one months before the filing. The juvenile court found abandonment and granted the petition, but the court of appeals reversed, holding that the father's filing of parenting-time motions in the dissolution case precluded an abandonment finding and required the adoption proceeding to be stayed until those motions were resolved. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed, ruling that abandonment under § 19-5-203(1)(d)(II) turns on whether the parent's intent during the twelve months preceding the adoption petition, viewed under the totality of circumstances, was to abandon the child—a factual determination for the trial court that cannot be barred as a matter of law by the mere filing of parenting-time motions. The Court further held that a juvenile court need not delay adoption proceedings to await resolution of related motions in dissolution court, provided it adequately considers those motions when assessing abandonment. The case was remanded for the juvenile court to apply the proper totality-of-circumstances analysis.
The case involved the City and County of Broomfield's application for conditional appropriative rights of exchange on the South Platte River and Big Dry Creek, based on seventeen sources of substitute water supply, nine of which it owned or controlled and eight of which it did not. Opposers argued that the application should be treated as a proposed augmentation plan, which would require Broomfield to own or control all substitute sources at the time of the decree to prevent injury to other water rights. The water court instead classified the application as one for a conditional water right and applied the first-step and can-and-will doctrines developed for governmental entities, approving the nine owned sources plus two of the unowned sources where Broomfield showed progress toward acquisition. On appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed, holding that such exchange applications are conditional water rights rather than augmentation plans and that the required analysis applies on a source-by-source basis without mandating full ownership upfront.
In Pellman v. People, the defendant was convicted under Colorado law of sexual assault on a child aged fifteen to seventeen while in a position of trust, based on unlawful sexual contact with a fifteen-year-old victim over the summer of 2005. Pellman argued there was insufficient evidence he occupied a position of trust at the exact times of the contact because he was not performing a specific supervisory task then, claiming any such role was limited to discrete events like chaperoning a church trip. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the statute requires only that the defendant occupy a position of trust at the time of the unlawful act and that this can arise from an ongoing, continuous supervisory relationship rather than a momentary task. The court found sufficient evidence that Pellman had assumed such a continuous role through his activities as a church youth volunteer and family friend, which extended through the period of the contact until the victim disclosed the relationship to her parents.
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