Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
Trinidad Area Health Association v. Trinidad Ambulance District
In this dispute between an ambulance district and a hospital, a division of the Colorado Court of Appeals determined whether the ambulance district complied with the Special District Act’s requirement under Section 32-1-207(1), that every special district conform to its approved service plan “so far as practicable.”
In this case, Trinidad Area Health Association appealed the trial court’s declaratory judgment entered after a bench trial holding that Trinidad Ambulance District had conformed to its service plan, so far as practicable, despite the ambulance district materially modifying its services.
In practice, the ambulance district’s service plan obligation means it needs to respond to approximately 2,000 emergency calls in the region and perform hundreds of interfacility transfers, or IFTs, for the hospital each year.
To comply with its service plan, the ambulance district employs six full-time crews that rotate on a three-shift basis every 24 hours — two crews work a 24-hour shift with 48 hours off. Only two ambulance crews are on duty at any given time to respond to 911 calls and IFT requests, although a third crew remains on standby to respond when the two on-duty crews are unavailable due to other 911 calls or IFTs.
As a special district, the ambulance district receives local tax funds and can charge fees for its services under the service plan. But by 2015, a decrease in tax revenue led the ambulance district to focus more on capturing revenue from IFTs. The ambulance district has consistently performed around 400 IFTs for the hospital each year since 2016.
Before 2018, the vast majority of IFTs that the ambulance district performed for the hospital involved transfers to Pueblo, roughly 85 miles away. But by 2019, a majority of IFTs performed for the hospital resulted in transfers further north to Colorado Springs (128 miles away) or Denver (198 miles away).
Due to the increase in long-distance IFTs, the corresponding effect on crew availability, safety concerns caused by crew fatigue and financial considerations, the ambulance district informed the hospital in 2019 that it would no longer perform IFTs to Denver.
Beginning in 2019 and again in 2021, the ambulance district revised its policies to further restrict IFTs. For example, the revised policies allowed the ambulance district to delay IFTs that are deemed unsafe due to weather or crew fatigue, prioritized 911 calls over IFTs, limited certain IFTs originating outside of Las Animas County to patients with private insurance and postponed certain IFTs requested near the end of a crew’s shift until the next day’s crew begins its shift.
In August 2021, to help alleviate crew availability concerns, the hospital entered into a 60-day agreement with the ambulance district to pay $50 per hour to any paramedic willing to perform IFTs while off duty. Other than that short-term agreement, the ambulance district and the hospital have never operated under a formal contract despite the ambulance district’s service plan stating specifically that the parties “will” enter into a contract for the transportation of Medicare patients.
In October 2021, shortly before this litigation began, the ambulance district’s counsel sent a letter to the hospital to develop a more robust contract that would make the hospital the payer of last resort for certain IFTs and restrict long-distance IFTs to specified hours. The hospital didn’t respond to counsel’s letter.
As a matter of first impression under the Special District Act, the division interpreted “practicable” to mean “reasonably capable of being accomplished” and “feasible in a particular situation.” Applying this definition, the division held that the ambulance district conformed to its service plan so far as practicable under the circumstances. Additionally, the division discerned no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision denying the hospital’s request for an injunction.
McLellan v. Weiss
In this personal injury action, a division of the Colorado Court of Appeals determined as a matter of first impression whether a subsequent offer of settlement made under Section 13-17-202 of the state’s Offer of Settlement statute impacts a defendant’s entitlement to an award of costs based on an earlier offer when the plaintiff’s final judgment didn’t exceed the earlier offer but exceeded the subsequent offer.
Denise McLellan sued Lyle Weiss to recover damages she suffered due to an accident Weiss caused. Before trial, Weiss made two written offers of settlement. On July 21, 2022, Weiss offered to settle for $7,500, inclusive of costs and interest. On Nov. 17, 2022, Weiss increased the gross amount of his offer to $15,000, inclusive of costs and interest. McLellan rejected both offers.
Following a three-day trial in May 2023, a jury awarded McLellan $1,150 in economic damages. McLellan’s final judgment exceeded the second statutory offer.
After trial, Weiss moved for an award of costs, arguing that he was entitled to recover his actual costs accrued after July 21, 2022, through trial, because McLellan’s final judgment didn’t exceed his first offer. The same day, McLellan moved for an award of costs as the prevailing party, arguing that she was entitled to recover all her reasonable and necessary costs despite Weiss’ first offer because her final judgment exceeded Weiss’ second offer.
McLellan appealed the district court’s award of costs to Weiss. McLellan contended that the court erred by allowing Weiss to recover all the costs he accrued after his first statutory offer of settlement because he made a subsequent statutory offer of settlement that either extinguished the first offer altogether or limited the costs he could recover.
The division concluded that a subsequent offer doesn’t extinguish a previous offer or limit the costs the defendant is otherwise entitled to recover based on the earlier offer. Rather, the parties’ respective rights under the statute are to be determined as to each statutorily compliant offer made.
The division affirmed the district court’s judgment awarding Weiss costs accrued after the first statutory offer through trial, even though McLellan’s final judgment exceeded the second statutory offer. The division also affirmed the district court’s judgment awarding McLellan only actual costs accrued before the first offer.
Rios de Martinez v. Landaverde
A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals held, as a matter of first impression in Colorado, that one spouse may bring an action against the other spouse (and others) alleging a fraudulent transfer in violation of the Colorado Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act where the spouse who transferred the property had reason to know at the time of the transfer that marital dissolution proceedings were imminent (or dissolution proceedings were ongoing) and the transfer bears sufficient indicia of fraud.
In this case, the appeals court considered whether a wife who petitioned for dissolution of her marriage may maintain a cause of action against her husband and others under CUFTA as her husband’s “creditor” based on allegations that he transferred property in anticipation of the divorce to deprive her of an equitable distribution of the marital estate. The court concluded she may.
Pool Company v. MW Golden
A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals held, as a matter of first impression, that a party may not appeal a district court’s order denying a motion to remand a case to an arbitrator for clarification of an award. The court noted this decision builds on case law applying Section 13-22-228 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, which identifies the types of orders in cases involving arbitrations from which a party may appeal.
In this case, the Pool Company, Inc. appealed the district court’s order denying its motion to remand the case to the arbitrators for them to clarify their final award. MW Golden Constructors and Western Surety Company moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
The appeals court granted their motion and dismissed the appeal because it found Section 13-22-228(1) doesn’t permit an appeal from this type of order.