The Colorado Court of Appeals released two opinions on Thursday, July 2. Below is the summary with a link to the entire opinion.
The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ahmad A. Ahmed, Defendant-Appellee. 2026 COA 55. In this prosecutorial appeal of a district court’s order imposing discovery sanctions, a division of the court of appeals considers — for the first time — whether a court errs by not giving a prosecutor an opportunity to oppose the imposition of sanctions premised on a finding that the district attorney’s office engaged in a pattern and practice of failing to provide timely discovery to defense counsel.
The division holds that the court abused its discretion by not providing such an opportunity. Therefore, it reverses the district court’s dismissal of the charges against the defendant as a discovery sanction because the court did not allow the prosecutor any opportunity to address whether the district attorney’s office engaged in a pattern and practice of discovery violations or whether dismissal was too severe a sanction. Read the opinion.
Philip Aragon, Petitioner, v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office of the State of Colorado and Waste Management of Colorado, Respondents, and Indemnity Insurance Company of North America, Insurer-Respondent. 2026 COA 56. A division of the court of appeals addresses a novel issue concerning whether section 8-43-301(11), C.R.S. 2025, permits the Industrial Claim Appeals Office (the Panel) to extend the statute’s sixty-day deadline for considering a workers’ compensation appeal and concludes that it does not. Accordingly, when the Panel failed to act within sixty days in this case, the Director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation’s order closing the claim for failure to prosecute automatically became the Panel’s final order. The division further holds that the Director did not abuse his discretion by finding no “activity in furtherance of prosecution,” Div. of Workers’ Comp. Rule 7-1(C), 7 Code Colo. Regs. 1101-3, given the claimant’s failure to attend an Office of Administrative Courts hearing, obtain an extension of time, or advance his claim. In addition, the division rejects the claimant’s due process and other remaining arguments. Read the opinion.