Court Opinion

ID: 9617464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:55:45.235234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:09.464454
License: Public Domain

Judge BRIGGS
dissenting.
The mother sought to modify the statutorily imposed injunction to allow her to remove the minor child from the state temporarily. The trial court denied a hearing on that motion, but it subsequently held a hearing on permanent orders and entered a judgment granting sole custody of the child to the father. Under these circumstances, even if the court of appeals has jurisdiction to address the appeal as an appeal from the grant of a temporary injunction, this appeal is moot and does not require our consideration. I therefore respectfully dissent.
As the majority recognizes, our decision can have no practical effect on the controversy. Thus, the ease is moot, and we may consider it only if the question to be resolved is one of great public importance or of constitutional significance of a recurring nature that might otherwise escape judicial review. *1390See Dempsey v. Romer, 825 P.2d 44 (Colo.1992).
The seriousness of denying a hearing when a litigant may otherwise incur irreparable harm is obvious and needs no explication. Further, the courts of this state are well aware of the need to provide due process when process is due. In those isolated circumstances in which a court fails to follow appropriate procedure, an aggrieved party may, as the mother did here, seek a writ of prohibition from the supreme court pursuant to C.A.R. 21.
I would therefore dismiss the appeal as moot.