Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
League of Women Voters v. Board of County Commissioners
In 2023, Weld County’s Board of County Commissioners approved a new map for electing county commissioners. In approving the map, the board chose not to comply with the state’s redistricting statutes, asserting that its compliance with statewide mandates was unnecessary because Weld is a home-rule county.
Weld County residents Stacy Suniga and Barbara Whinery, the League of Women Voters of Greeley, Weld County, Inc. and the Latino Coalition of Weld County sued the board. They sought a declaratory judgment that the board must comply with the redistricting statutes and an injunction to prohibit the board from using the new map. The district court agreed with the voters and granted summary judgment in their favor.
In this case, the Colorado Supreme Court addressed whether the voters have standing to sue under the redistricting statutes, whether the redistricting statutes contain an implied private right of action and whether a home-rule county, like Weld County, must comply with Colorado’s redistricting statutes when conducting its county commissioner election redistricting process.
The court answered each question affirmatively. The court determined that while Article XIV of the Colorado Constitution empowers home rule counties to determine the organization and structure of county government, it obliges them to comply with any mandatory county functions required by statute, including the duties laid out in the redistricting statutes.
The state Supreme Court ordered the board to complete its redistricting process and adopt a district map in accordance with the redistricting statutes’ procedures in time for Weld’s next county commissioner election.
CSU Board of Governors v. Alderman
After Colorado State University temporarily transitioned to online classes in the spring of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Renee Alderman and another student filed putative class action lawsuits seeking pro-rata refunds of the amounts they and similarly situated students paid in tuition and student fees for the six-week period during which campus was closed.
The students asserted two claims for breach of contract and two claims, in the alternative, for the equitable remedy of unjust enrichment.
The district court dismissed the students’ breach of contract claims, finding that CSU had statutory authority under state law to temporarily suspend operations in the event of “the prevalence of fatal diseases, or other unforeseen calamity” such as COVID-19. The district court later dismissed the unjust enrichment claims, finding that the students’ equitable claims and the legally enforceable contract between CSU and the students covered the same subject matter — the provision of educational services. A split division of the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision dismissing the unjust enrichment claims.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether an unjust enrichment claim can be properly asserted when it mirrors a contract that covers the same subject matter and remains legally enforceable.
The court held that claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment are mutually exclusive under these circumstances. It reversed that portion of the division’s judgment reinstating the unjust enrichment claims and remanded the case with directions to reinstate the district court’s judgment in favor of CSU.