Opinion ID: 2600701
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consistency with Other Colorado Case Law

Text: Our conclusion today has ample support in prior Colorado appellate proceedings concerning fees, such as judgment bonds, that the appellant is required to pay before being able to pursue an appeal. Most significant is the analysis of supersedeas bonds, the judgment bonds required by the court of appeals to appeal from the district court. Elsewhere, our analyses of appellate rules in tax, child custody, and workers' compensation cases, as well as cases involving nonresident plaintiffs, are consistent with our holding today waiving the judgment bond requirement for indigent parties despite seemingly mandatory statutory language. The case law governing supersedeas bonds is particularly relevant to our analysis here of judgment bonds because the district court and county court have concurrent jurisdiction for civil matters up to $15,000. See § 13-6-104, C.R.S. (2007). As a result, State Farm could have filed its claim against Bryant in either county or district court, and thus it makes sense that the treatment of an indigent defendant appealing from these two courts should be substantially similar. Indeed, in the past, we found it to be an abuse of discretion when a district court dismissed an indigent plaintiff's case because the county court had concurrent jurisdiction over the matter, stating: Non-indigent plaintiffs are unfettered in their choice of the court in which to bring an action for less than [now $15,000]. We find nothing in section 13-16-103 to indicate that the legislature intended to constrain that choice when a civil action or proceeding is commenced by a poor person. Cook v. Dist. Court, 670 P.2d 758, 759-62 (Colo.1983). When appealing a district court decision, C.A.R. 7, like the language in section 13-6-311 and C.R.C.P. 411, sets out what appears to be a mandatory supersedeas bond requirement without exception for an indigent appellant: Unless an appellant is exempted by law, or has filed a supersedeas bond or other undertaking which includes security for the payment of costs on appeal, in civil cases a bond for costs on appeal or equivalent security shall be filed by the appellant in the trial court with the notice of appeal; but security shall not be required of an appellant who is not subject to costs. The appellants exempted by law and not subject to costs under C.A.R. 7 are not indigent plaintiffs; rather, the language refers to the parties, mostly public entities, listed in C.A.R. 8 as being statutorily exempt. Therefore, on its face, C.A.R. 7 could be read to require that a supersedeas bond be posted without exception for an indigent party before the appeal can be filed. However, Colorado courts have ruled that while a supersedeas bond is required in order to obtain a stay of execution of the judgment during appeal, it is not required as a precondition for filing an appeal. See, e.g., Muck v. Arapahoe County Dist. Court, 814 P.2d 869, 872 (Colo.1991); Colo. Korean Ass'n v. Korean Senior Ass'n of Colo., 151 P.3d 626, 628 (Colo.App.2006); Martin D. Beier, Bonds in Colorado Courts: A Primer for Practitioners, Colo. Law., Mar. 2005, at 59, 64. In Colorado Korean Ass'n, the court of appeals explained: The posting of a supersedeas bond is required to stay the execution of a trial court's judgment. It is not a prerequisite for filing and pursuing an appeal. The failure to file a supersedeas bond merely means that the prevailing party may enforce the judgment, including collection, while the appeal is pending. Therefore, defendant's failure to post the supersedeas bond does not require dismissal of the appeal. 151 P.3d at 628 (citations omitted). Instead, courts have held that the only bond required of an appellant to proceed with an appeal from a district court is a cost bond, and that bond can be waived if the appellant is indigent. See Hart v. Schwab, 990 P.2d 1131, 1135 (Colo.App.1999) (However, under today's procedures, the only mandatory bond for an appeal to the court of appeals is the cost bond required by C.A.R. 7. And, posting of that bond may be waived if the appellant is indigent.); In re Marriage of Delahoussaye, 924 P.2d 1210, 1210 (Colo. App.1996) (relying on Bell to hold that an indigent plaintiff appealing from the district court could not be required to post a cost bond); Beier, supra, at 64. Therefore, Colorado courts have consistently held that a supersedeas bond is not required to pursue an appeal from the district court to the court of appeals. This holding is based on section 13-16-103's requirement that courts waive costs for indigent parties, and is in spite of the fact that C.A.R. 7 contains no explicit exemption for indigent parties. Besides supersedeas bonds, when a taxpayer wants to challenge in district court a tax deficiency determined by the Department of Revenue, the statute at issue requires that the taxpayer shall file with the district court a surety bond in twice the amount of the judgment owed. § 39-21-105(4)(a), C.R.S. (2007) (emphasis added). Thus, on its face, section 39-21-105(4)(a) appears to require a surety bond  essentially a judgment bond to be posted by any appealing taxpayer, without an exception for an indigent taxpayer. However, Colorado courts have consistently held that a trial court can waive the statute's surety bond requirement when the taxpayer presents sufficient evidence of indigency. See Callow v. Dep't of Revenue, 197 Colo. 513, 514-15, 594 P.2d 1051, 1051 (1979); Reed v. Dolan, 195 Colo. 193, 195, 577 P.2d 284, 285-86 (1978); Overstreet v. Colo. Dep't of Revenue, 178 P.3d 1259, 1262 (Colo.App. 2007); AF Prop. P'ship v. State of Colo., Dep't of Revenue, 852 P.2d 1267, 1269 (Colo. App.1992). In a custody proceeding, we have held that it was an abuse of discretion when the trial court refused to order a custody evaluation requested by an indigent party, who by statute was required to pay for the custody evaluation but who could not afford to pay for it. Hernandez v. Dist. Court, 814 P.2d 379, 379, 381 (Colo.1991) (interpreting what is now section 14-10-127, C.R.S. (2007)). We held that the trial court should have selected another option to finance the cost of a custody evaluation, stating, In determining the reasonable amount of the deposit, the court may not hamper or prevent a poor person's participation in the judicial process because of his financial status. Id. at 381. In a workers' compensation case, the statute at issue required a worker appealing a treating physician's diagnosis to pay for a division independent medical examination (DIME) before being able to proceed with the appeal of the diagnosis. Whiteside v. Smith, 67 P.3d 1240, 1246 (Colo.2003). We held in Whiteside that the requirement that the worker must pay for a DIME as a precondition for pursuing an appeal was an unconstitutional violation of due process because it meant an indigent worker who could not afford to pay for a DIME could not appeal an unfavorable decision. Id. Finally, soon after issuing Bell, we considered the requirement in the statute now codified at section 13-16-102, C.R.S. (2007), that all nonresidents of the state shall post a bond before being able to pursue a civil action in Colorado courts. Walcott v. Dist. Court, Second Judicial Dist., 924 P.2d 163, 164-65 (Colo.1996). We held in Walcott that reading the nonresident bond statute in conjunction with section 13-16-103's requirement of court waiver for indigent parties of court costs meant that nonresident indigent parties did not have to post a bond to pursue their cases. Id. at 166. We concluded: Dismissal of a plaintiff's case, therefore, may not be based solely on inability to pay costs or indigency. Id. at 168. In sum, across a wide range of civil actions and proceedings, we have reached a similar conclusion: no matter the arguably mandatory language in the statutes requiring that all appellants post judgment bonds or other prefiling fees before prosecuting an appeal, these requirements do not apply to parties found by the court to be indigent. It is true that being unable to post a judgment bond will mean that the execution of the judgment will not be stayed during the pendency of the appeal, and thus the appellant risks that the judgment creditor-appellee will execute the judgment while the case is still being appealed, but an inability to post the bond does not bar the indigent party from pursuing the appeal. These decisions reflect the legislative intent of section 13-16-103 and are consistent with our holding in Bell. As a result, because Bryant was found by both the county and district courts to be indigent, her appeal cannot be conditioned on her posting a judgment bond. Rather, the district court should allow Bryant to proceed with her appeal in the normal course.