Court Opinion

ID: 9778421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:03:54.725035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:18:27.671833
License: Public Domain

Judge CONNELLY
dissenting.
The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (CGIA) protects the City from actions that either "lie in tort or could lie in tort." § 24-10-106(1), C.R.S.2009. In my view, this action sounds in tort; at the very least, it could have been brought as a tort claim.
Plaintiff relies on Roaring Fork Club, L.P. v. St. Jude's Co., 86 P.3d 1229 (Colo.2001). Roaring Fork recognized that "interference with a ditch easement without consent constitutes trespass." Id. at 1237. In precluding resort to "self-help," the case requires a burdened landholder to obtain either the casement holder's consent or court approval "before commencing alterations" to a ditch. Id. at 1287-38. Landholders must follow this procedure "in order to avoid an adverse ruling of trespass or restoration." Id.
Plaintiff alleges, and at this procedural stage we must assume, that the City engaged in (or at least was complicit with a private *718company in engaging in) precisely the type of "self-help" prohibited by Roaring Fork. The upshot is that the City has trespassed on plaintiff's ditch easement. Among the relief sought by plaintiff is an order that the City restore (or at least stand by while the company restores) the ditch easement to its pre-trespass condition.
Thus, as pled, this action appears to be for a "tort of trespass," Hoery v. United States, 64 P.3d 214, 217 (Colo.2003). It does not involve a "distinctly non-tortious ... duty," Colorado Department of Transportation v. Brown Group Retail, Inc., 182 P.3d 687, 691 (Colo.2008).
At the very least, plaintiff could have pled a trespass claim. Cf. Robinson v. Colorado State Lottery Div., 179 P.3d 998, 1005 (Colo.2008) ("the CGIA is less concerned with what the plaintiff is arguing and more concerned with what the plaintiff could argue"). Plaintiff pled a trespass claim against the company that allegedly was complicit with the City in interfering with its ditch easement. But for the CGIA, it could (and presumably would) have pled the same claim against the City.
The procedural vehicle chosen by plaintiff to assert its claim-a declaratory judgment action-cannot avoid the CGIA bar. The supreme court has made clear that "[the nature of the relief requested is not disposi-tive of coverage by the Act, and the mere fact that a claim for relief seeks a declaration of liability resulting from tortious conduct rather than actual damages for the tortious conduct itself has no impact with regard to coverage." Brown Group, 182 P.3d at 692.
The City, in my view, is entitled to immunity. This does not condone the City's conduct. To the contrary, we must assume at this stage that the City has contravened Roaring Fork and thereby committed the tort of trespass. But the CGIA embodies a legislative judgment that, with exceptions not relevant here, governmental bodies are immune from tort actions. And the City's possible constitutional liability for an uncompensated taking is not before us.