Source: https://cbaclelegalconnection.com/tag/standing/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 03:59:56+00:00

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The Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion in People in Interest of C.W.B., Jr. on Monday, February 5, 2018.
Children’s Code—Dependency or Neglect Proceedings—Standing on Appeal.
The Colorado Supreme Court reviewed whether the foster parents in this case had standing to appeal the trial court’s denial of a motion to terminate the parent–child legal relationship. The foster parents intervened in the trial court proceedings pursuant to C.R.S. § 19-3-507(5)(a) and participated in a hearing on the guardian ad litem’s (GAL) motion to terminate the parent-child legal relationship between the mother and the child. The trial court denied the motion. Neither the state nor the GAL appealed the trial court’s ruling, but the foster parents did. The court of appeals concluded that the foster parents had standing to appeal the trial court’s ruling.
The supreme court concluded that the foster parents in this case did not have a legally protected interest in the outcome of termination proceedings, and that C.R.S. § 19-3-507(5)(a) did not automatically confer standing on them to appeal the juvenile court’s order denying the termination motion, where neither the Department of Social Services nor the GAL sought review of the trial court’s ruling. Because the GAL was statutorily obligated to advocate for the best interests of the child, including on appeal, there was no need to confer standing on the foster parents to represent the best interests of the child on appeal. The court therefore reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss the appeal.
The Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion in Carestream Health, Inc. v. Colorado Public Utilities Commission on Monday, June 19, 2017.
In this appeal, the supreme court considered two issues from the district court’s review of a decision of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Both issues pertain to a billing error that led Public Service Company of Colorado to undercharge Carestream Health, Inc. for gas it received over the course of a three-year period. The first issue is whether the Commission properly interpreted Public Service’s tariff, specifically the requirement to “exercise all reasonable means” to prevent billing errors. The court concluded that determining what means are “reasonable,” as that term is used in the tariff, necessarily requires considering what errors are foreseeable. The court therefore held that the Commission properly interpreted the tariff and acted pursuant to its authority. The second issue is whether Carestream had standing to challenge Public Service’s use of its tariff to recover a portion of the undercharge from its general customer base. Because Carestream suffered no injury from that action, it lacks standing to challenge it. The court accordingly affirmed the district court’s judgment.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Jones v. Samora on Thursday, December 30, 2016.
Summary Judgment—Identity of Persons Casting Votes—Colo. Const. Art. VII, § 8—Standing—§ 1983 Claim—Law of the Case—Issue Preclusion.
Residents of the Town of Center (Town) organized a recall election to oust the trustees, including Jones, from their positions. Voters either turned in mail ballots or voted in person. All of the ballots had numbered stubs and, based on these stubs, the town clerk, Samora, had a list that showed which voter had received which ballot. He used the list to ensure that each voter had voted only once. To ensure voter secrecy, the stubs were removed before they were tallied. These procedures were used for all in-person ballots that were cast. But the procedures were not followed at all times for the mail-in ballots. At some point, the election judges realized that they had not removed the stubs from some ballots, but decided to continue tallying the ballots before removing the stubs. Because they could see the identifying numbers on the stubs when tallying the votes, the judges could have determined the identity of the voters by consulting the voter list.
Jones and Citizen Center, a nonprofit, filed this lawsuit including five state law claims and a § 1983 claim. The state law claims were severed from the § 1983 claim. A bench trial was held on the state law claims. The court found that the procedural errors were unintentional, that no voter identity had been disclosed when tallying the ballots, and that the election was fundamentally untainted by any substantive intentional error of procedure. However, the court concluded that tallying the mail-in ballots had violated Article VII, § 8 of the Colorado Constitution. Even though no voter identities had been revealed, the opportunity to discover them had been available and this violated Colorado’s constitutional and statutory guarantee of a secret ballot. The court voided the results of the recall election and ordered the Town to hold a new recall election within 30 to 90 days.
The Town appealed. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision and reinstated the recall election results, concluding that the stubs were on the ballots because a statute required them to be there; there was no violation of the Colorado Constitution; and the trial court erred in concluding that the election had been void.
The § 1983 claim was still at issue. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, both sides moved for summary judgment. The court granted the Town’s motion and denied plaintiffs’ motion.
On appeal, the Town asserted that plaintiffs did not have standing to file the case. As to the trustee, the Colorado Court of Appeals held that because the loss of the trustee’s position did not arise from the Town’s conduct, the trustee could not satisfy the injury requirement. In addition, because the trustee suffered no injury, he did not have third-party standing, and because he failed to allege his tax dollars were used in an unconstitutional manner, he did not have taxpayer standing.
Although the trustee lacked standing, the court found that Citizen Center had organizational standing because one or more of its members had voted in the recall election by mail-in ballot, and therefore their right to cast a secret ballot had allegedly been violated; the interests Citizen Center sought to protect were germane to its purpose; and the claim asserted and relief requested did not require that individual members of the organization participate in the case.
Regarding its summary judgment motion, the Town asserted that the law of the case barred Citizen Center’s claim. Here, the state law claims proceeding and the § 1983 proceeding were severed and were not the same case. In addition, the law of the case doctrine applies only to a court’s decisions of law, not to its resolution of factual questions. Whether the Town actually violated voter secrecy rights is a question of fact. Thus the law of the case doctrine does not apply.
The Town also asserted that issue preclusion barred Citizen Center’s claim. Issue preclusion bars relitigating factual matters that a court has previously litigated and decided. Here, the factual issue in the state proceeding was identical to the § 1983 factual issue: whether the mail-in voters’ secrecy rights were actually violated. Citizen Center was involved in the state claims case and that case ended in a final judgment. Citizen Center also had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the factual issue of whether the mail-in voters’ secrecy rights were violated. Therefore, issue preclusion barred Citizen Center from relitigating whether the mail-in voters’ secrecy rights were violated.
On the § 1983 claim, the court concluded that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact and the trial court properly granted the Town’s motion for summary judgment. Further, applying the issue preclusion doctrine, the election judges did not infringe on Citizen Center’s members rights, and the Town did not deprive those members of their constitutional rights.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Wibby v. Boulder County Board of County Commissioners on Thursday, June 30, 2016.
Plaintiffs are property owners in unincorporated Boulder County (the Owners) who sued to try to force the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners (the County) to maintain their subdivision roads. The roads were part of the county road system and, by statute, are assigned to the County for maintenance. They were maintained by the County until the mid-1990s, but since that time the County has reduced its road funding and the Owners claimed this has resulted in “severe deterioration” of the roads. The Owners brought claims for breach of contract, declaratory relief, and mandamus. After various amendments to the complaint and motions, the district court granted the County’s motion to dismiss for lack of standing. The Owners appealed.
The Court of Appeals analyzed whether the Owners had standing. To establish standing, a plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) plaintiff suffered an injury in fact and (2) the injury was to a legally protected interest. The Owners claimed standing by alleging that a contract was created through the statutory subdivision approval process that they could enforce. However, there is a presumption that statutory enactments alone do not create contractual relationships. The Owners alleged no facts to overcome this presumption and therefore lacked standing to sue the County for breach of contract.
The Owners requests for declaratory relief and mandamus alleged that the County violated its “statutory duty” to maintain subdivision roads under the county highway statutes. Because the statutory county road provisions do not in indicate an intent that they can be enforced by private citizens, the Owners lacked standing. Moreover, the statute clearly entrusts the County with the discretion to allocate funds for developing and overseeing its county road policies.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Greenbaum v. Bailey on Tuesday, March 31, 2015.
In 2007, the Albuquerque city charter was amended to prohibit campaign contributions from businesses. On May 6, 2013, plaintiffs Greenbaum and three other individuals filed a civil rights complaint against Bailey in her official capacity as Clerk for the City of Albuquerque and against the City Board of Ethics and Campaign Practices, alleging the amendment prohibiting campaign contributions violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, nominal damages, fees, and costs. The Committee to Elect Pete Dinelli Mayor (“committee”) was granted leave to file a complaint in intervention seeking declaratory relief that the amendment was constitutional. The committee also filed a brief in support of Bailey’s motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs (all of whom are individuals) lacked standing to challenge the amendment. Shortly thereafter, Giant Cab Co. moved to intervene as plaintiff and the four original individual plaintiffs were dismissed, leaving Giant Cab as the only plaintiff.
The district court ruled the city charter’s amendment violates the First Amendment and entered judgment in favor of Giant Cab. Bailey and the ethics board declined to appeal, but the committee appealed, alleging the amendment is constitutional because it is closely drawn to further government interests in preventing quid pro quo corruption, the appearance of corruption, and circumvention of individual campaign contribution limits.
In its appellate brief, Giant Cab asserted the committee lacked standing and moved to dismiss the appeal. The Tenth Circuit requested further briefing on the standing issue, and noted that standing can either be piggybacked or individualized, but because Bailey and the board did not appeal, the committee’s standing for the appeal must be evaluated on an individual basis. Following the recent Supreme Court decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Tenth Circuit declined to address the merits of the committee’s appeal, finding instead that the committee had no direct stake in the outcome of the litigation, and found compelling Giant Cab’s assertion that the committee’s standing was no different than that of the general public. The Tenth Circuit found the committee lacked standing to pursue the appeal, and granted Giant Cab’s motion to dismiss.
Editor’s note: This is Part 11 of a series of posts in which Denver-area real estate attorney Frederick Skillern provides summaries of case law pertinent to real estate practitioners (click here for previous posts). These updates originally appeared as materials for the 32nd Annual Real Estate Symposium in July 2014.
Maralex Resources, Inc. v. Chamberlain, Public Trustee of Garfield County Colo. App January 2, 2014 2014 COA 5 Oil and gas lease; prescriptive easement for access to wells; adverse or permissive use of roads; standing. Since 1996, Maralex has been a lessee under a series of federal oil and gas leases in Rio Grande County. Maralex operates and maintains various oil and gas wells located on federal land. To access the wells, Maralex and its predecessors in interest have historically used two roads crossing private property now owned by Nona Jean Powell. The Powell property is adjacent to the federal land. After issues arose between Maralex and Powell regarding use of the roads, Maralex filed a quiet title action seeking a decree that it has prescriptive easements over the roads for ingress and egress to the oil leaseholds. The trial court first found that Maralex lacked standing, as a real property lessee, to assert a prescriptive easement claim. Notwithstanding that finding, the court went on to consider the merits of the easement claims as a matter of judicial economy. It found that Maralex’s use of the roads was permissive and not adverse, and that Maralex did not establish the existence of the asserted prescriptive easements. On appeal, the court reverses the holding on standing. Citing a long string of cases, an oil and gas lessee has standing to bring a quiet title action and to enforce easement rights. One can even draw an analogy to surface cases in which use by a tenant may be tacked on to prior use by the fee owner in proving possession for the prescriptive period. The court finds sufficient evidence in the record to affirm the finding that the use by Maralex and its predecessors was permissive, not adverse. It was conceded that oil operators on the government land openly and continuously used the roads on Powell’s property for the statutory period. However, because Powell previously permitted the use, the use was not adverse. What made the use permissive? Like so many cases of this sort, we have gates on the roads, and cattle on a ranch. At one point a former owner of the Powell property gave keys to the oil company, telling a grazing tenant that he wanted to oil operation to be successful, but that he did not want his tenant’s herd to be impacted. Over the course of decades, there was all manner of evidence of a problematic nature, sufficient that the court could go either way on the “adversity” issue. The trial court resolved it like this – “By giving someone a key, it seems to the Court that the only reasonable interpretation is that ‘I want to keep people out, but not you. You have permission to use my road. Here is a key.’” The appeals court also notes that this could also be a recognition of a right of the user to access, with acquiescence by the easement claimant to blockage of use by others. The court goes along with the trial judge. Sinclair Transportation Company d/b/a Sinclair Pipeline Company v. Sandberg Colorado Court of Appeals, June 5, 2014 2014 COA 76 Pipeline easement; assignability of easement in gross; proof of assignment of easement rights by parol evidence; abandonment. This is one in a series – one might say a family – of cases involving Sinclair’s pipeline between oil fields in Wyoming and Denver. At one point, the pipeline crosses land in Weld County, creating friction with residential development, and with owners of land such as the Sandbergs. Sinclair seeks to upgrade its pipeline from 6” to 10” according to terms of the written pipeline easement, which dates back to 1963. The easement was in favor of the original servient owner and its “successors and assigns.” In an extensive opinion, the court affirms a partial summary judgment ruling in favor of Sinclair on defenses raised by the landowners, who sought to block any expansion or to require movement of the easement in order to minimize its impact on their residential development. The first issue deals with the use of parol evidence to prove a part of Sinclair’s interest (ownership of a series of assignments from partial owners of the pipeline). The court upholds a ruling that Sinclair could prove a part of its chain of title by proving assignment of one 50 percent interest in the line through testimony of an attorney representing one of the parties to the assignment. The court holds that no statute of frauds bars oral testimony to prove of an assignment of an easement. More importantly, the court holds that an easement in gross, especially one created for commercial uses, is assignable. The court relies on the modern trend in case law and comments in the Restatement of Property (Servitudes) § 4.6(1)(c) (“a benefit in gross is freely transferable”), as well as C.R.S. § 38-30-101 (“any person . . . entitled to hold . . . any interest in real estate whatever, shall be authorized to convey the same to another”). The court cites a Utah case, Crane v. Crane, 683 P.2d 1062 (Utah 1984) which surveys the easement in gross case law as it applies to pipelines and other commercial uses. For those interested in the industry, the court goes on to discuss interpretation of the easement document in regard to how a pipeline company can expand and improve its pipeline – whether a pipeline company must “remove, then replace” or “replace, then remove.” Finally, the court holds that Sinclair’s attempt in a parallel case to condemn a way across the land in question did not effect an abandonment of its deeded easement rights. The attempt to condemn was derailed in a 2012 decision of the Colorado Supreme Court discussed in this space. Another court of appeals decision (not discussed in this outline) deals with the pipeline condemnation issues.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Anderson v. Suthers on Thursday, November 7, 2013.
Plaintiffs, who are former directors or volunteers of the Colorado Health Foundation (seller), appealed the trial court’s judgment dismissing the action as moot. The Court of Appeals affirmed, but on different ground than those relied on by the trial court.
Plaintiffs challenged the Office of the Colorado State Attorney General’s (OAG) approval of a transaction between seller and HealthONE of Denver, Inc. (purchaser), by which the seller sold to the purchaser its interest in HealthONE Health Care System. Plaintiffs claimed they had standing to represent the public as beneficiary of the seller because of their “close and lengthy association with the [seller].” They also claimed they had a “direct interest in the activities of the hospitals and a special interest in the proper administration of the hospitals in accordance with [the seller’s] charitable purposes.” These relationships, however, do not endow the plaintiffs with standing to sue the seller or the OAG over the transaction. Because plaintiffs do not have a special interest in the seller distinct from that of the general public and have not alleged an injury to their legally protected interests, they do not have standing.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in Northern Laramie Range Alliance v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, October 22, 2013.
This action grew out of efforts by Wasatch Wind Intermountain, LLC to establish two wind energy projects. Wasatch was able to sell the wind energy by certifying both projects as qualifying facilities. These efforts drew the ire of the Northern Laramie Range Alliance, which objected to Wasatch’s certification. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected the objections, and the Alliance appeals FERC’s decision.
The Tenth Circuit could entertain the appeal only if the Alliance established standing, which required traceability and redressability. For both, the Alliance relied on increases in electricity rates. But the wind projects have not been completed, Wasatch has not found a buyer for the anticipated wind power, and the court did not know whether sales of wind energy would increase or decrease a utility’s costs. Even beyond these uncertainties, electricity rates depend on the actions of third parties, those of the utility and the state regulatory commission. With the multitude of uncertainties surrounding the effect of Wasatch’s certification or decertification on electricity rates, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the Alliance showed neither traceability or redressability.
The court therefore DISMISSED the petition for lack of standing.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in Niemi v. Lasshofer on Friday, September 6, 2013.
John Niemi and his investors set out to build a luxury ski condominium complex in Breckenridge, Colorado, in two phases, working through a set of companies controlled by Mesatex. But traditional financing proved hard to find: after completing the first phase of development they found no bank willing to loan the $220 million needed to finish the project. So they looked for alternative sources.
They found Michael Burgess. Mr. Burgess claimed to represent a European investor, Erwin Lasshofer, who Burgess said had $250 million to loan. All Mesatex had to do was to pay a $180,000 commitment fee and provide another $2 million as a collateral deposit. This Mesatex did, but the promised loan never materialized. Mr. Burgess found himself in federal prison serving time for fraud and money laundering.
The investors brought this lawsuit alleging that the lost loan ruined Mesatex’s business, caused it millions in lost profits, and sent its properties into foreclosure. But neither Mesatex nor any of its subsidiaries was included as a party to this lawsuit. Instead, the suit named only Mesatex’s investors as plaintiffs.
The district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, effectively freezing the worldwide assets of Mr. Lasshofer and the corporate defendants and ordering them to deposit $2.18 million in escrow pending a final judgment. It is this interlocutory order Mr. Lasshofer and the corporate defendants asked the Tenth Circuit to undo.
However, it was Mesatex that sought the loan, signed the loan application, and received the loan commitment. It was Mesatex’s subsidiaries that signed the loan agreement and its amendment, paid the loan fees, and advanced the loan collateral. It was those companies, too, that owned the Breckenridge properties and whose business allegedly suffered when the loan failed to materialize. Yet neither Mesatex nor any of its subsidiaries was named as a plaintiff in this lawsuit. Accordingly, plaintiffs lacked standing to proceed under Colorado state law, let alone to win a preliminary injunction.
Plaintiffs argued that they invested in Mesatex and its subsidiaries; they stressed, too, that they guaranteed some of the corporations’ loans. But it is long settled law that a shareholder or guarantor lacks standing to assert RICO claims when their losses are only derivative of a corporation’s when the individuals’ losses come about only because of the firm’s loss. And despite being challenged to do so in this appeal, the plaintiffs did not identify any direct and personal injury they suffered.
Accordingly, the preliminary injunction was VACATED and the case was REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning M.D.E. on Thursday, January 31, 2013.
In this parental responsibilities action, Scott Rottler (father) challenged the district court’s order allowing Bernice Spencer (great-grandmother) to intervene and seek grandparent visitation of father’s child (great-grandmother’s great-grandchild) under CRS § 19-1-117. The order was reversed.
In May 2009, the child’s mother filed a petition for allocation of parental responsibilities as to the child. Several months later, the court entered permanent orders and a parenting plan resolving the dispute between father and mother. The orders and parenting plan did not mention great-grandmother. More than six months later, great-grandmother filed a motion to intervene in the proceeding and a motion for grandparent visitation. The district court granted her motion to intervene by applying the principle of liberal construction to CRS § 19-1-117.
On appeal, father argued that the trial court erred in granting great-grandmother’s motion to intervene. CRS § 19-1-117 limits the meaning of grandparent to “a person who is the parent of a child’s father or mother.” Therefore, great-grandmother is not a grandparent within the meaning of the statute. Because she did not have standing to seek visitation, the district court’s order was vacated.

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