JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 The petitioner, Cathy Ritzert, has been a teacher for more than twenty years. During the events at issue here, Academy School District No. 20 ("the District") employed her at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs teaching children with severe special needs. 2 After receiving a complaint about Ritzert from a student's parents, the District placed her on paid administrative leave and told her that it would recommend her dismissal...
JUSTICE GABRIEL , delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 In this case, plaintiff-appellant Meridian Service Metropolitan District (Meridian) appeals the district court's order finding that Meridian sought to appropriate designated ground water that was subject to the jurisdiction of the Colorado Ground Water Commission (the Commission). Meridian principally asks us to decide whether storm runoff may be classified as "designated ground water" subject to administration and adjudication...
JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Petitioners are national litigation finance companies. They buy interests in the potential proceeds of personal injury cases by executing agreements with tort plaintiffs to whom the companies provide money while the cases are pending (typically, less than $1,500). By the terms of the agreements, the money cannot be used to prosecute the legal claims. Instead, the plaintiffs are supposed to use the funds to pay personal expenses while...
JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Petitioner Anthony James Chavez was convicted of a sex offense, and the trial court imposed an indeterminate, fifteen-year-to-life sentence. Chavez challenges the legality of this sentence, alleging that the trial court did not understand the range of its sentencing options. He argues the prosecution was wrong in representing to the trial court that he had to serve at least eight years in prison. In fact, Chavez argues, he was eligible...
JUSTICE GABRIEL delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 This appeal requires us to decide whether a non-attorney trustee of a trust may proceed pro se before the water court. Opposer-appellant J. Tucker, Trustee, appeals the water court's order ruling that as trustee of a trust, he was not permitted to proceed pro se because he was representing the interests of others. He further appeals the water court's order granting applicant-appellee Town of Minturn's application for a finding of...
CHIEF JUSTICE RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 In this original proceeding, we consider the legality of the "negative factor," a legislative enactment that operates to reduce education funding across all Colorado school districts. Plaintiffs below sued the State of Colorado, the Commissioner of Education, and the Governor (collectively, "the State"), arguing that the negative factor is unconstitutional because it violates Amendment 23, a constitutional provision requiring...
CHIEF JUSTICE RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 In this case, we examine the interplay between the respective authorities of the supervising judge and the commission to make evidentiary rulings in eminent domain valuation hearings. Specifically, we consider (1) whether a commission may alter a supervising judge's ruling in limine regarding admissibility and (2) whether the supervising judge may instruct the commission to disregard as irrelevant evidence that the commission had...
JUSTICE EID delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Respondents Jason L. Rodgers and James R. Hazel ("Respondents") allege in their 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim that petitioner Summit County Board of County Commissioners ("the County") violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it denied them a certificate of occupancy to their newly built home. The trial court issued partial directed verdicts against Respondents on three of the four allegedly discriminatory actions...
JUSTICE M RQUEZ delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 This is an appeal from two pretrial orders and the April 2013 judgement and decree of the District Court for Water Division No. 3 in Case Nos. 06CV64 and 07CW52. Collectively, the water court's rulings upheld the Special Improvement District No. 1 ("Subdistrict") of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District's ("District") and the State Engineer's approval of the 2012 Annual Replacement Plan ("ARP") developed pursuant to the...
Justice COATS delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 St. Jude's Co. appealed directly to this court from a consolidated judgment of the water court in favor of Roaring Fork Club. With regard to the Club's two applications for water rights, the water court granted appropriative rights, approved the Club's accompanying augmentation plan, and amended the legal description of the Club's point of diversion for an already decreed right. With regard to the separate action filed by St. Jude's Co....
CHIEF JUSTICE RICE announced the judgment of the Court. 1 Four years ago, the Douglas County School District ("the District") implemented its Choice Scholarship Pilot Program ("the CSP"), a grant mechanism that awarded taxpayer-funded scholarships to qualifying elementary, middle, and high school students. Those students could use their scholarships to help pay their tuition at partnering private schools, including religious schools. Following a lawsuit from Douglas County taxpayers,...
JUSTICE COATS delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Upper Black Squirrel appealed from an order of the water court interpreting an earlier stipulated decree, to which it and Cherokee Metropolitan were parties, concerning the latter's rights to ground water in the Upper Black Squirrel Basin and, particularly, its right to export water for use outside the basin. Upper Black Squirrel sought a declaration that a provision of the stipulation, which required Cherokee to deliver wastewater...
JUSTICE HOOD delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 We granted certiorari in this case to resolve a series of questions arising under the Colorado Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act ("the LSA" or "the Act"), 18-1.3-1001 to -1012, C.R.S. (2014), which establishes indeterminate sentencing for felony sex offenses. We primarily consider whether a minimum sentence in the aggravated range on a conviction for sexual assault on a child — pattern of abuse is legal when there is no...
JUSTICE EID , delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 This case requires us to determine whether the use of medical marijuana in compliance with Colorado's Medical Marijuana Amendment, Colo. Const. art. XVIII, 14, but in violation of federal law, is a "lawful activity" under section 24-34-402.5, C.R.S. (2014), Colorado's "lawful activities statute." This statute generally makes it an unfair and discriminatory labor practice to discharge an employee based on the employee's "lawful"...
JUSTICE EID delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 We granted review in two cases to determine what remedy is appropriate for juvenile defendants who were given sentences that would be unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. Alabama, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 2455 , 2469, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012). We granted review in a third case to determine whether that remedy applies retroactively. 2 The first two cases come to us on direct appeal. Both defendants in those...
JUSTICE EID delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Under federal regulations, in order for hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory surgical centers to receive Medicare reimbursement, certified registered nurse anesthetists ("CRNAs") who administer anesthesia must do so under a physician's supervision. A state may opt out of this requirement, however, if its governor attests to the appropriate federal agency that he has consulted with the state's medical and nursing boards...
JUSTICE COATS delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 Boyer and Singson, defendants in a suit brought by Health Grades, petitioned for review of the court of appeals' judgment declining to affirm a favorable jury verdict on their counterclaim for abuse of process. The court of appeals remanded to the district court and ordered reversal of the verdict unless that court were to find that the claims initially brought by the plaintiff, Health Grades, were devoid of reasonable factual support...
JUSTICE HOBBS delivered the Opinion of the Court 1 This water case involving neighboring property owners in Saguache County presents an issue of first impression: May the land owner whose property is burdened by an easement across his or her property for a water ditch obtain a junior conditional water right at the headgate of that ditch for non-consumptive hydropower use of water that the neighbor is diverting from the stream under a senior water right for irrigation use through that...
JUSTICE HOBBS delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 The issue in this case is whether a Health Savings Account ("HSA") qualifies as a "retirement plan" for the purposes of section 13-54-102(1)(s), C.R.S. (2014), which exempts certain property from garnishment. 1 We hold that an HSA is not a "retirement plan" within the meaning of Colorado's exemption statute. An HSA is not intended to replace income lost as a result of retirement; it is intended to cover medical costs incurred at any...
CHIEF JUSTICE RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court. 1 We consider whether to adopt, pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164, 128 S.Ct. 2379 , 171 L.Ed.2d 345 (2008), a new competency standard for mentally ill defendants who wish to waive the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Pursuant to our holding today in People v. Davis, 2015 CO 36, 1, ___ P.3d ___, we decline to create such a standard because Colorado's existing two-...
