In re Villas at Highland Park Homeowners Ass'n v. Villas at Highland Park, LLC
Citations
- 2017 CO 53
- 394 P.3d 1144
- 2017 WL 2224369
- 2017 Colo. LEXIS 415
Syllabus
Issue Preclusion—Attorney Disqualification—Colo. RPC 1.9. In this original proceeding under C.A.R. 21, the Supreme Court reviewed a district court's order applying the doctrine of issue preclusion to deny defendants' motion to disqualify one of the plaintiff's attorneys under Colo. RPC 1.9 and to disqualify her law firm by imputation of the attorney's conflict under Colo. RPC 1.10. The disqualification inquiry under Colo. RPC 1.9(a) asks whether an attorney's prior representation and current representation are \substantially related.\ This inquiry under Colo. RPC 1.9(a) is specific to the particular matter for which disqualification is sought. The supreme court therefore concludes that a motion to disqualify under Colo. RPC 1.9(a) will rarely, if ever, raise an \identical\ issue to a disqualification motion in another case for purposes of issue preclusion. Here, the Court held that the trial court abused its discretion by relying on the doctrine of issue preclusion to deny the disqualification motion instead of conducting the requisite analysis under Colo. RPC 1.9(a). The Court therefore made the rule to show cause absolute, vacated the trial court's order, and remanded the case for the trial court to address the merits of the motion to disqualify under Colo. RPC 1.9(a).
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- concluding that the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), did not create an exception to the rule that States lack parens patriae standing to sue the federal government
- holding that a party forfeits any argument when it only mentions it “in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to do counsel’s work, create the ossature for the argument, and put flesh on its bones”
- explaining that we will not “put flesh on [the] bones” of an argument raised “only in the most skeletal way”
- explaining that for a State to sue as parens patriae means that the State sues “in a representative capacity to vindicate its citizens’ interests”
- refusing to consider theory of standing identified in complaint but not developed on the record
- “Absent exceptional circumstances, a party forfeits an argument by failing to press it in district court.”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Márquez, Gabriel, Eid, Hood
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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