The Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday it will hear appeals in six cases, including the question of whether a person can claim he knowingly ingested one substance that was secretly laced with another behavior-altering substance as a defense to criminal charges.

At least three of the court’s seven members must agree to grant an appeal.

The justices will also evaluate how much time a person has to sue for minimum wage violations, a potential roadblock for malicious prosecution lawsuits, the logistics for filing claims on behalf of someone who is under legal disability at the time of their death, and judges’ ability to deny parents a child neglect jury trial when they fail to show up in court.

The laced marijuana joint

A Denver jury convicted Isaac U. Mion of robbery, criminal mischief and menacing after he acted aggressively toward two security guards and threatened a motorist. Although there was clear evidence he committed the offenses, Mion claimed he was involuntarily intoxicated at the time. Specifically, he testified a friend shared a marijuana joint with him, but it must have contained an illicit substance because it caused Mion to have a far different reaction than normal.

No other case in Colorado had addressed whether a defendant could claim involuntary intoxication when he acknowledges ingesting an intoxicating substance but is unaware of the presence of a second substance. Mion’s trial judge declined to instruct the jury they could find Mion was involuntarily intoxicated, noting there was “no evidence that it was anything other than marijuana” that Mion smoked.

However, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals concluded the defense of involuntary intoxication can apply in situations akin to ingesting an alcoholic drink secretly laced with a “date rape” drug.

“To rule otherwise would mean that anytime a person knowingly ingests an intoxicant — no matter how mild — the person will be criminally responsible for any resulting behavior, even if what was ingested contained, unbeknownst to the defendant, a different intoxicant,” wrote Judge Craig R. Welling.

The prosecution turned to the Supreme Court, arguing the Court of Appeals had expanded the defense of involuntary intoxication to cover “egregiously risky behavior” for which defendants alone are responsible — completely dissimilar from a “date rape” drugging.

“Mion was aware at the outset of smoking the joint that he did not know the nature of the drug he was ingesting and was therefore aware that he was subject to any number of intoxicating effects,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Jaycey DeHoyos.

The Supreme Court will review the panel’s decision.

The case is People v. Mion.

Minimum wage claims

Samuel Perez filed a proposed class action lawsuit against his employer, By the Rockies, LLC, for allegedly refusing to pay its Carl’s Jr. employees for required rest and meal breaks. Perez filed suit in 2022, despite having left his job in 2017. After looking at competing legal interpretations by federal judges in recent years, an Arapahoe County judge dismissed the case, persuaded that Perez needed to file within two or three years of the violation.

However, by 2-1, a Court of Appeals panel determined the Colorado Wage Claim Act explicitly includes a two- or three-year statute of limitations, but lawmakers omitted similar language from the Minimum Wage Act — which Perez used to file suit. Therefore, the broader six-year window applied for raising alleged minimum wage violations.

Judge Neeti V. Pawar, who wrote the majority opinion, observed during oral arguments there may be valid reasons to treat claims for unpaid minimum wages differently than other wage violations.

“If somebody doesn’t get paid on the day they don’t get their rest break, they’re not gonna file a claim for $1.12,” she said. “Doesn’t it seem like six years would make more sense in order for the accrual of the claim itself to have some value?”

Judge Terry Fox dissented, noting the majority’s interpretation drove a wedge not only between the two wage laws, but between Colorado law and its federal counterpart.

By the Rockies appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the two wage laws were “a comprehensive statutory scheme addressing the same subject matter,” and should have the same statute of limitations. The Supreme Court will examine that issue.

The case is By the Rockies, LLC et al. v. Perez.

Malicious prosecution

Patricia Ann Scott originally sued Steamboat Springs real estate broker Kaylee Schnelle, accusing Schnelle of professional negligence for the way she marketed Scott’s commercial property. Schnelle moved for summary judgment, which would have ended the case in her favor without a trial, but a judge believed there were disputed issues for a jury to resolve. 

At trial, Schnelle also moved for a directed verdict in her favor after Scott presented her case, but the judge similarly denied that motion. The jury ultimately sided with Schnelle.

Schnelle then sued Scott and Scott’s lawyers for malicious prosecution. The defendants moved to dismiss, focusing on one of the elements of malicious prosecution: lack of probable cause. By rebuffing Schnelle’s motions to end the professional negligence case, they reasoned, the previous trial judge found probable cause of Schnelle’s wrongdoing — even if she ultimately prevailed.

Chief Judge Michael A. O’Hara III noted there were two schools of thought from courts around the country. Some states’ courts treat the denial of a defendant’s summary judgment motion or directed verdict as generally fatal to a later claim of malicious prosecution. Other states use it as “just a factor” to consider. O’Hara opted to treat the prior rulings as a factor and declined to dismiss Schnelle’s malicious prosecution claim.

A Court of Appeals panel agreed with that approach. Judge Christina F. Gomez expressed concerns about giving significant weight to a pretrial ruling in another case — which “almost certainly wasn’t subject to any potential appellate review” — when deciding whether to bar a later malicious prosecution lawsuit.

Scott and her lawyers turned to the Supreme Court, arguing the Court of Appeals’ ruling would encourage defendants who prevail in civil lawsuits to turn around and sue out of retaliation, even if a judge believed sufficient grounds existed to bring the original claims to trial. The Supreme Court will decide whether the appellate court chose the correct standard.

The case is Cantafio et al. v. Schnelle.

Suing on behalf of the deceased

Danielle Nicola was crossing a Grand Junction street one night in November 2018 when a driver struck and seriously injured her. After spending 19 days unconscious, Nicola died. Her father, John Nicola, settled with the driver who hit her, but he then sued the city and Xcel Energy. Those entities owned and maintained a streetlight that, according to John Nicola, was inoperable and contributed to the vehicle-pedestrian collision.

A trial judge dismissed John Nicola’s claims on multiple grounds. In reviewing the case, a Court of Appeals panel addressed a complex set of interlocking provisions governing whether John Nicola had filed suit in time, just before the two-year anniversary of Danielle Nicola’s death. The law accounted for three factors:

• Whether an injured party is under a legal disability at the time of their death, which Danielle Nicola was

• Whether an injured party has a legal representative

• Whether the statute of limitations is measured from the date of injury or the date of death

Contrary to what the trial judge, Grand Junction and Xcel believed, the appeals court determined the specific provision accounting for a person who dies under disability did not apply to Danielle Nicola. That provision would have imposed a one-year deadline to sue. Instead, the panel decided her representative — John Nicola — had two years from the date of her death to file suit.

The city and Xcel argued to the Supreme Court that the Court of Appeals was wrong to bypass the rule addressing people with legal disabilities who die before they can sue. Moreover, even if John Nicola had two years to file suit, the two years began from the date of Danielle Nicola’s injury, not the date of her death.

The Supreme Court will decide if the Court of Appeals correctly measured the statute of limitations given Danielle Nicola’s death and disability.

The case is City of Grand Junction et al. v. Nicola.

Failing to appear

Under Colorado law, parents have the right of a jury trial to determine whether a child is neglected. However, a parent can forfeit their choice of a jury trial by, among other things, failing to show up at the trial.

A Denver father, identified as D.J.M., invoked his right to a jury trial in his child welfare case. He did not appear for a pretrial conference, leading then-Juvenile Court Judge Pax L. Moultrie to set the case for a bench trial, rather than a jury trial. Yet Moultrie, who is now a Court of Appeals judge, said she simultaneously was not ruling D.J.M. had given up his right to a jury trial.

On the date of the trial, D.J.M. did not appear and Moultrie herself proceeded to find D.J.M.’s children neglected.

By the time of appeal, the Court of Appeals had already issued a decision in a similar case involving a judge who converted a jury trial to a bench trial after the parent failed to appear at a pretrial conference. The appellate panel in that instance found no authority allowing a judge to do that. Consequently, the panel hearing D.J.M.’s appeal agreed he did not give up his right to a jury trial by failing to appear at a pretrial proceeding.

“We acknowledge that the juvenile court stated it was not finding that father waived his right to a jury trial,” wrote Judge Michael H. Berger. “Nevertheless, it set the matter for a bench trial, not a jury trial. Consequently, father did not voluntarily waive his right to a jury trial by failing to appear either at the pretrial hearing or at the erroneously set bench trial.”

The Supreme Court will review whether that conclusion is correct.

The case is People in the Interest of C.C.M. et al.

The missing mother

An Arapahoe County mother, identified as R.G., requested a jury trial in her child welfare case. The morning of trial, she was not present. Pursuant to her request for a disability accommodation, the county had arranged transportation, but R.G. never got in the vehicle. Moreover, she had not spoken with her attorney.

After a break, R.G.’s lawyer disclosed his client left him a message earlier in which she sounded “different,” either tired or sick. Another legal representative for the mother agreed the message was concerning. District Court Judge Don J. Toussaint tried unsuccessfully to call R.G. Allowing for additional time to find R.G., he then converted the jury trial to a bench trial.

R.G. appealed the ultimate finding of child neglect based on the revocation of her jury trial. The Court of Appeals had previously addressed a similar scenario in which a trial judge dismissed jurors after the mother was more than 10 minutes late. In that instance, the court ruled judges need to inquire about parents’ whereabouts and the circumstances of their absence before revoking a jury trial.

In R.G.’s case, the appellate court determined Toussaint had made those necessary inquiries. Now, the Supreme Court will assess that conclusion.

The case is R.G. v. People.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify which trial judge presided over the case of R.G. v. People.