Colorado Supreme Court Opinions

May 02, 2016

2016 CO 26. No. 13SC560. Industrial Claim Appeals Office v. Town of Castle Rock.

Workers’ Compensation—Firefighters—Statutory Presumptions.

In a companion case, City of Littleton v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 2016 CO 25, the Supreme Court held that the presumption created by the firefighter statute, CRS § 8-41-209, relieves the claimant firefighter of the burden to prove that his cancer "result[ed] from his or her employment as a firefighter" for purposes of establishing under CRS § 8-41-209(1) that his condition is a compensable "occupational disease" under the Workers’ Compensation Act. However, CRS § 8-41-209(2) does not establish a conclusive, or irrebuttable, presumption. Instead, the firefighter statute shifts the burden of persuasion to the firefighter’s employer to show, by a preponderance of the medical evidence, that the firefighter’s condition "did not occur on the job."

Here, the Court held that an employer can seek to meet its burden to show a firefighter’s cancer "did not occur on the job" by presenting particularized risk-factor evidence indicating that it is more probable that the claimant firefighter’s cancer arose from some source other than the firefighter’s employment. To meet its burden of proof, the employer is not required to prove a specific alternate cause of the firefighter’s cancer. Rather, the employer need only establish, by a preponderance of the medical evidence, that the firefighter’s employment did not cause the firefighter’s cancer because the firefighter’s particular risk factors render it more probable that the firefighter’s cancer arose from a source outside the workplace.

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2016 CO 27. No. 14SC123. City of Englewood v. Harrell.

Workers’ Compensation—Firefighters—Statutory Presumptions.

The Supreme Court accepted transfer of this case from the Court of Appeals pursuant to CRS § 13-4-109 and CAR 50. The Court set aside the order issued by a panel of the Industrial Claim Appeals Office and remanded with directions to return the matter to the administrative law judge for reconsideration in light of its decisions announced in City of Littleton v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 2016 CO 25, and Industrial Claim Appeals Office v. Town of Castle Rock, 2016 CO 26.

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2016 CO 29. No. 15SC667. City of Longmont v. Colorado Oil and Gas Ass’n.

Preemption—Inalienable Rights Provision.

Applying well-established preemption principles, the Supreme Court concluded that the City of Longmont’s ban on fracking and the storage and disposal of fracking wastes within its city limits operationally conflicts with applicable state law. Accordingly, the Court held that Longmont’s fracking ban is preempted by state law and, therefore, is invalid and unenforceable. The Court further held that the inalienable rights provision of the Colorado Constitution does not save the fracking ban from preemption by state law. The court thus affirmed the district court’s order enjoining Longmont from enforcing the fracking ban and remanded the case for further proceedings.

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