Maria Teresa Fox

The case involved plaintiff Michael Kelso, who received a right-to-sue notice from the EEOC and filed a Title VII employment discrimination suit against his former employer, Rickenbaugh Cadillac Co., in 2008. The trial court dismissed the first case without prejudice for failure to set a trial date as ordered, denied Kelso's later motions to reinstate, and then dismissed his 2010 refiled complaint with prejudice as untimely under the 90-day filing requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that the second complaint did not relate back to the original filing under C.R.C.P. 15(c), could not be treated as an independent equitable action because Kelso had failed to pursue a timely appeal from the first dismissal, and that the 90-day limit barred the refiled claims. The court lacked jurisdiction to review alleged errors in the first case due to the lack of a timely appeal.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

In Hamill v. Cheley Colorado Camps, Inc., a minor who attended summer camp and was injured when she fell from a horse sued the camp for negligence and gross negligence, alleging that a wrangler had improperly saddled the horse. The district court granted summary judgment to the camp, and the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. The court held that the exculpatory agreement signed by the plaintiff's mother was valid under the four-factor Jones test, that the mother's decision was voluntary and informed under C.R.S. § 13-22-107, and that the record contained no evidence of gross negligence or recklessness by the camp's staff. The agreement's release language expressly waived claims for negligence on behalf of the child, and undisputed facts showed that wranglers had checked and adjusted the saddle multiple times before the ride.

torts & liabilityfamily lawprocedure

The case involved a seventeen-year-old defendant convicted by jury of second-degree assault after the prosecution initially filed a delinquency petition in juvenile court and later directly filed an information charging him as an adult in district court. The defendant contended that the district court lacked jurisdiction because the direct filing occurred more than thirty days after his initial advisement in juvenile court, past the deadline for requesting a transfer hearing under C.R.J.P. 3.2(e). The court held that the district court had jurisdiction and affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the plain language of sections 19-2-104(1)(b), 19-2-517(2), and 19-2-518(2) permits direct filing until the juvenile court actually conducts a transfer hearing, rendering the thirty-day request deadline and any good-cause exception irrelevant when no hearing has occurred. The opinion emphasized that exclusive juvenile court jurisdiction vests only upon conducting such a hearing, and speedy-trial rights provide a check against undue delay.

criminal lawprocedure