The Colorado Supreme Court approved a set of rule changes last week that will make it easier for tenants facing eviction to respond to and learn about their landlord’s initial court filing, and for lawyers to be held professionally accountable for unlawful sexual conduct.

On Dec. 11, the justices enacted a change to the civil rules that will require a court to assign a case number in an eviction matter before the landlord serves the tenant with a summons. While a relatively minor adjustment, the mandate for a case number primarily impacts “batch filings” of evictions.

State law treats an eviction case as beginning with the landlord’s court complaint against the tenant. But members of the Supreme Court’s Civil Rules Committee heard that if law firms submit hundreds of complaints at once, a tenant may receive their summons before a court clerk has had time to process the eviction complaint. The result may be confusion for the tenant who has no case number to reference.

Committee members who were attorneys for landlords pushed back against the proposal, arguing there was no evidence of a problem and that waiting for a case number would cause unreasonable delays for landlords. Proponents of the amendment responded that they heard multiple stories of tenants or clerks being hampered by the lack of an immediate case number.

A majority of the rules committee voted to send the change to the Supreme Court. However, some members were concerned that the proposal veered into state policymaking rather than simply adjustments to court procedure.

The justices approved the rule, which will take effect in March.

Separately, the court adopted a mix of procedural changes and clarifications to the timeline for opening an investigation into an attorney in misconduct proceedings. Notably, the final version included an added provision that was the sole focus of a public hearing in November.

Several commenters, including legislators, advocated for a means of holding lawyers professionally responsible for unlawful sexual behavior that does not come to light until much later. The rules provided no time limit for investigating a lawyer who committed a “serious crime,” meaning a felony or certain lesser offenses. Unlawful sexual behavior that does not amount to a felony, however, is excluded from that definition.

Those who weighed in to the Supreme Court pointed to a former Larimer County prosecutor who was recently criminally charged and sentenced for a misdemeanor over a sexual offense from 1999. Because of the time window, the professional investigation into his misconduct was dismissed.

The Supreme Court agreed to incorporate the commentators’ suggestion. The final rule clarifies that unlawful sexual behavior is also a serious crime, which can be investigated by attorney regulators at any time. Offenses ranging from indecent exposure to sexual assault are included in the definition.

The rule change took effect immediately.

Justice Melissa Hart did not participate in the adoption of either set of rules. She has been on a leave of absence since October for reasons that are not entirely clear, and has missed the adoption of several rule changes since then.