Court Opinion

ID: 9785011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:00:57.984306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:03.067723
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in the judgment only.
I would make the rule absolute because I believe the district court erred, as a matter of law, in finding Chaffee County to be an improper venue. The plaintiffs claims are clearly personal in nature, and the district court appears to have jurisdiction over both the subject matter of the claims and the parties. Although there may be adequate *1261reason from the reported cases of this court to conclude otherwise, I believe that C.R.C.P. 98(a), which circumscribes permissible venues for actions having real property as their subject, is properly construed to apply only to actions that are, with minor exceptions, truly in rem.
It seems to me, however, entirely too facile to characterize the district court’s ruling as presenting merely a question of venue, and not jurisdiction as well. The motion upon which the district court ruled was a motion to dismiss, pursuant to C.R.C.P. 12, and it expressly challenged the jurisdiction of the court. While the motion referenced analogous venue concerns in actions affecting real property and the district court purported to rule on the basis of Rule 98(a), the court acknowledged that the rationale for its ruling would preclude a finding of proper venue anywhere in the state. Of necessity, then, the district court ruled either that the courts of this state lack jurisdiction over the plaintiffs claims, or that no court in the state, despite having jurisdiction to do so, is permitted by the venue rule of this court to provide the plaintiff a forum.
Despite being couched in terms of venue, the rationale for the district court’s order therefore goes directly to the capacity of the courts of this jurisdiction to adjudicate claims having an impact on real property situated in other states or countries. Because the rule, by its owns terms, is applicable to “all actions affecting real property,” I do not think it can fairly be construed to apply only to those actions affecting real property situated in this state. (Nor do I consider it adequate to simply declare venue subservient to jurisdiction.) Similarly, however, I do not believe this court’s prior interpretations of the word “affecting,” in Rule 98(a) and its predecessors, can be understood to designate Chaffee County a proper venue for these claims, much less be reconciled with an interpretation of Rule 98(a) capable of providing a proper forum somewhere for every action over which the courts of this state have jurisdiction. See Colo. Nat’l Bank v. Dist. Ct., 189 Colo. 522, 524-25, 542 P.2d 853, 855-56 (1975) (finding that substance of action challenging enforceability of option to purchase directly affected ownership of property); see also Jameson v. Dist. Ct., 115 Colo. 298, 300, 172 P.2d 449, 450 (1946) (holding that subject of action to rescind contract to purchase property is ultimately the property rather than the contract).
Rather than attempt to distinguish this action from others we have previously found to be included within our broad reading of the term “affecting,” I would take this opportunity to construe Rule 98(a), with regard to real property, as prescribing venue only for actions seeking to resolve actual ownership interests in, or perhaps direct injury to, real property. Since we amended the rule in 1975 to make clear that its reference to property intends only “real” property, it is unnecessary to decide whether the rule should ever have been construed to address personalty; but it seems obvious that our failure to limit the predecessor rule to real property is directly responsible for our broad reading of the term “affecting” and our failure to distinguish contract from conveyance, or a contractual right to acquire an interest in property from existing interests in property itself. The ensuing debate over the scope of the term “affecting” has led us away from the central and meaningful question — whether immovable property situated elsewhere is actually the subject of the litigation.
I am convinced that our special venue rule for real property embodies, and was merely intended to extend to separate vicinities within the jurisdiction, the “transitory”/“local” distinction long held to govern the appropriate allocation of jurisdiction among various sovereign powers. See Centennial Petroleum, Inc. v. Carter, 529 F.Supp. 563, 564 (D.Colo.1982); see generally 17 Moore’s Federal Practice § 110.20 (3d ed.2007). I can divine no meaningful rationale for having a more restrictive rule for venue in real property actions within the state than for asserting the jurisdiction of the state over real property actions in the first place, and the imposition of such a restriction by court rule can lead, as this case demonstrates, to a de facto restriction of the state’s jurisdiction. The rule is our own, and I would construe it now, even if that has not always been the case, to impose no greater limitation on ven*1262ue for actions concerning real property than applies to the determination of jurisdiction itself. Except in the limited case of actions qualifying as local for purposes of jurisdiction, venue should not be determined by the location of real property.
Because the plaintiffs complaint raises contract-related claims against particular defendants, over whom it has personal jurisdiction, I would find that the real property that is the subject of the contract is not also the subject of the action, and therefore venue in Chaffee County is not rendered improper by C.R.C.P. 98(a).
I therefore concur in the judgment only.