Major Ruling Against Boulder County: Must Pay Landowner Attorney Fees
April 21, 1999
RULING: Boulder County was "abusive, substantially
groundless, frivolous and vexatious" in their dealings with Bob Eason and
his property rights.
Bob Eason, a local business owner, finally won his six-year old case against Boulder County.
The Colorado Supreme Court last week upheld a Court of Appeals decision which assessed attorney fees against Boulder County in the Eason case. The trial court (Mo Sandstead) found that the County's lawsuit against Mr. Eason was "brought in bad faith, was abusive, substantially groundless, frivolous and vexatious." Those findings were affirmed by the Court of Appeals, and cert. was denied last week.
A FIRST for the good guys, and a harbinger of things to come! At the trial level in this case, the Court dismissed the County's complaint and "found that defendant [Eason's] use of semi-trailers was lawful...that it was a use-by-right, that the land use department was creating its own arbitrary standards, and that the Board had violated defendant's due process rights..."
Sound familiar?
The County complained to the Court of Appeals that Judge Sandstead "abused his discretion" in awarding the fees. The reviewing court strongly disagreed, finding that the judge made specific findings that as pursued by the County, "...this case was abusive of defendant, brought in bad faith with little effort to determine the validity of the claim, substantially groundless, frivolous and vexatious. The Court also adopted the through statements of defense attorneys analyzing the factors set forth in the [the statute] as its findings then granted attorney fees based on those findings. We conclude theses findings are sufficient, with evidentiary support, to affirm the award of attorney fees..."
We now have a Court holding that Boulder County is abusive...
To read this ruling in its entirety, click here.
For more information contact the Land Use Coalition at info@landusecoalition.org or call 303-666-7903.
Last updated January 24, 2002.
URL: http://landusecoalition.org/bco_ruling.htm
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