Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
In Re the Application for Water Rights of Lazy D Grazing Association
The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the water court’s decision that the Lazy D Grazing Association is authorized to withdraw and use the nontributary groundwater from the Upper Laramie Aquifer underlying the ranch in manages.
In this appeal, the state Supreme Court addressed whether a large ranch in northern Colorado has the right to use a large deposit of groundwater. The water court sitting in Greeley determined that groundwater under the property managed by the Lazy D Grazing Association is nontributary — meaning, the water is not subject to the prior appropriation system and that Lazy D, as the overlying landowner, is entitled to use it.
The city of Sterling and the city of Fort Collins opposed and appealed that decision. They asserted that the state engineer exceeded his authority in determining that the groundwater in question was nontributary and the water court improperly presumed the truth of the state engineer’s findings, relied on sources not in evidence and discredited expert evidence without justification.
The Colorado Supreme Court disagreed with the cities. It noted that in a thorough order, the water court largely got the law right, and the few errors it made were harmless.
Sellers v. People
In this petition, the Colorado Supreme Court considered whether a life without the possibility of parole sentence for felony murder is categorically unconstitutional or grossly disproportionate to the offense of felony murder following the General Assembly’s 2021 reclassification of that offense.
Based on a variety of factors, the court concluded the sentence isn’t categorically unconstitutional. It also found that, even assuming without deciding that felony murder isn’t per se grave or serious, Wayne Tc Sellers’s offense was grave and serious. Sellers was charged with first-degree felony murder, aggravated robbery, two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, three counts of attempted aggravated robbery, menacing and six crime of violence counts. He was convicted on all counts except for one of the conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery counts, menacing and one crime of violence count, which were dismissed.
Sellers was sentenced to a composite term of life without the possibility of parole for the felony murder plus 32 years in prison and five years parole for the aggravated robbery conviction.
The high court determined his sentence, although severe, doesn’t run afoul of the Eighth Amendment of Article II of the Colorado Constitution, so it wasn’t grossly disproportionate.
It affirmed the appeals court’s decision partially on different grounds.
People v. Whittington
The Ouray County Court partially granted Ashton Michael Whittington’s motion for sanctions against the 7th Judicial District Attorney’s Office based on violations of Criminal Procedure Rule 16(I)(b)(1), both in Whittington’s prosecution and as an alleged pattern in other cases.
Under Rule 16, prosecutors needed to disclose certain types of evidence in their actual or constructive possession to defense counsel within 21 days of first filing charges. In this case, they didn’t provide any additional disclosures within the required period. After the window closed, prosecutors provided five additional sets of disclosures, some of which they had prior to the window closing.
The Ouray County Court excluded all evidence from the preliminary hearing that had been in the prosecution’s actual or constructive possession that had been disclosed after the 21-day deadline. But it didn’t make a record as to why the exclusion of evidence was an appropriate curative sanction or why a continuance would be insufficient.
The prosecution argued that the county court both lacked jurisdiction and abused its discretion when it excluded evidence from a felony preliminary hearing as a discovery sanction.
The Colorado Supreme Court held that the county court abused its discretion because it didn’t make factual findings to support the severity of the sanction. Because it concluded the court abused its discretion, it didn’t address whether the county court had jurisdiction to exclude evidence from the preliminary hearing.
Klabon v. Travelers
The Colorado Supreme Court was asked to answer a certified question from the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado: Whether an employee injured in the course of his employment by the acts of an underinsured third-party tortfeasor and who receives worker’s compensation benefits as a result, is barred, under Colorado’s Workers’ Compensation Act from bringing suit against their employer’s uninsured/underinsured motorist insurer?
The state’s high court concluded that the answer to this question is no.
Under Colorado law, an employee who is injured in such a way can also sue to recover benefits from their employer’s separate UM/UIM carrier.
The state Supreme Court reached this conclusion because it noted the plain language of the pertinent section of the WCA immunizes only employers and their workers’ compensation insurance carriers from liability.
The high court also determined that when an employee is injured by the negligence of a third party, rather than by an employer or co-employee, a suit to recover UM/UIM benefits doesn’t constitute a suit against the employer or co-employee and isn’t barred by the exclusivity clause of the WCA.