The summaries of the Colorado Court of Appeals published opinions constitute no part of the opinion of the division but have been prepared by the division for the convenience of the reader. The summaries may not be cited or relied upon as they are not the official language of the division. Any discrepancy between the language in the summary and in the opinion should be resolved in favor of the language in the opinion.
SUMMARY January 22, 2026
2026COA4
No. 24CA1985, In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning W.P.A.S. — Family Law — Allocation of Parental Responsibilities — Attorney Fees; Appeals — Final Appealable Order
A division of the court of appeals concludes that an order
allocating parental responsibilities in a proceeding that does not
involve a dissolution of marriage is final and appealable,
notwithstanding an unresolved request for attorney fees under
section 14-10-119, C.R.S. 2025, distinguishing In re Marriage of
Hill, 166 P.3d 269 (Colo. App. 2007). COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS 2026COA4
Court of Appeals No. 24CA1985 Routt County District Court No. 21DR30033 Honorable Mary C. Hoak, Judge
In re the Parental Responsibilities Concerning W.P.A.S., a Child,
and Concerning Jonathan William Sanders,
Appellant,
and
Kristen Renea Andrea,
Appellee.
APPEAL DISMISSED IN PART, ORDER REVERSED, AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS
Division VII Opinion by JUDGE TOW Lum and Moultrie, JJ., concur
Announced January 22, 2026
Anne Whalen Gill, LLC, Anne Whalen Gill, Castle Rock, Colorado, for Appellant
Belzer Law, Aaron B. Belzer, Ashlee N. Hoffmann, Boulder, Colorado, for Appellee ¶1 In this allocation of parental responsibilities (APR) proceeding,
Jonathan William Sanders (father) appeals the permanent order
allocating parental responsibilities (APR order) concerning his child
with Kristen Renea Andrea (mother). Father also appeals the
district court’s award of attorney fees to mother under
section 14-10-119, C.R.S. 2025.
¶2 However, before we can address the merits of father’s
challenge to the APR order, we must first resolve whether he timely
filed a notice of appeal as to that order. This appeal requires us to
consider, for the first time in a published opinion, the application of
the rule of finality announced in In re Marriage of Hill, 166 P.3d 269
(Colo. App. 2007), to an APR order in a proceeding not involving a
dissolution of marriage. In Hill, a division of this court held that
orders in a dissolution of marriage proceeding are not final until all
matters are resolved, including any request for attorney fees under
section 14-10-119. Because we conclude that this rule does not
apply to APR proceedings unrelated to the dissolution of a marriage,
and because father’s notice of appeal as to the APR order was filed
well after the forty-nine-day window for him to appeal under C.A.R.
4(a)(1), we dismiss the portion of father’s appeal challenging the
1 APR order. But because the district court made unsupported
findings when awarding mother attorney fees, we reverse the award
of attorney fees and remand the case for further proceedings.
I. Background
¶3 The parties have one child. In 2021, father petitioned for an
APR as to the child.
¶4 In her proposed APR, mother sought to relocate with the child
from Colorado to Ohio. The district court held a permanent orders
hearing as to parenting time and decision-making over multiple
days in July and August of 2023, and on August 21, 2023, the
court issued the APR order. The court found that it was in the
child’s best interests to relocate to Ohio with mother and created a
regular parenting time schedule for father. The court allocated
mother sole decision-making responsibilities.
¶5 Over the next few months, the district court held a series of
hearings on the parties’ financial circumstances for the purpose of
determining child support. On February 5, 2024, the court issued
a written child support order, requiring father to pay mother
approximately $1,800 per month.
2 ¶6 On that same date, the court issued a separate written order
requiring father to pay half of mother’s attorney fees incurred in the
case under section 14-10-119 and ordered mother to file a
corresponding affidavit of attorney fees. Shortly thereafter, mother
filed attorney fee affidavits; father objected, asserting that the
affidavits failed to address the reasonableness of mother’s attorney
fees. Neither party requested a hearing, and on September 25,
2024, the district court entered an award of attorney fees in favor of
mother in the amount of $79,822. Father filed his notice of appeal
on November 12, 2024.
II. Father’s Appeal of the APR Order Is Untimely
¶7 Father filed his notice of appeal nearly fifteen months after the
district court entered the APR order and over nine months after the
entry of the child support order. Thus, before we can consider
father’s challenge to the APR order, we must resolve whether his
appeal of that order was timely. See Smith v. City & County of
Denver, 2025 COA 70, ¶ 12 (holding that an appellate court has an
independent duty to ensure that it has jurisdiction).
¶8 Accordingly, this court issued an order requiring father to
show cause why his appeal should not be dismissed as to the APR
3 order and both of the February 5, 2024, orders1 because his notice
of appeal was filed more than forty-nine days after those orders.
After father filed a response to the show cause order, a motions
division of this court deferred consideration of his appeal’s
timeliness to the merits division.
¶9 We now hold that because father’s appeal was untimely as to
the APR order, we lack jurisdiction for appellate review and must
dismiss his appeal as to that order.
A. A Timely Notice of Appeal as a Jurisdictional Prerequisite
¶ 10 Our jurisdiction is generally limited to the review of final
judgments and orders, L.H.M. Corp., TCD v. Martinez, 2021 CO 78,
¶ 14; § 13-4-102(1), C.R.S. 2025; C.A.R. 1(a)(1), and once an order
or judgment is final, the timely filing of a notice of appeal is a
jurisdictional prerequisite for appellate review, In re Marriage of
Buck, 60 P.3d 788, 789 (Colo. App. 2002). Pursuant to
1 Although father listed the February 5, 2024, orders in his notice of
appeal, he asserts no challenge to either order in his opening brief. We therefore deem his appeal of the February 5, 2024, orders to be abandoned. See Armed Forces Bank, N.A. v. Hicks, 2014 COA 74, ¶ 38 (holding that an issue not presented or argued in the party’s briefing was abandoned).
4 C.A.R. 4(a)(1), a party has forty-nine days after the entry of a final
judgment or order in which to file a notice of appeal.
B. Attorney Fees and Finality
¶ 11 A judgment is typically final if it “ends the particular action in
which it is entered, leaving nothing further for the court
pronouncing it to do in order to completely determine the rights of
the parties involved in the proceeding.” Schaden v. DIA Brewing
Co., 2021 CO 4M, ¶ 46 (citation omitted). However, “[a] judgment
on the merits is final for purposes of appeal notwithstanding an
unresolved issue of attorney fees.” L.H.M. Corp., ¶ 2 (reaffirming
Baldwin v. Bright Mortg. Co., 757 P.2d 1072, 1074 (Colo. 1988)).
C. Discussion
¶ 12 Father argues that his notice of appeal, which was filed within
forty-nine days of the September 25, 2024, order awarding mother
attorney fees, was timely as to the APR order because there was no
final, appealable order or judgment for us to review until the court
had fully resolved mother’s request for attorney fees under
section 14-10-119.
¶ 13 In support, father cites Hill, 166 P.3d at 272, in which a
division of this court held that an award of attorney fees under
5 section 14-10-119 is an “integral and substantive part of equitably
disposing of the parties’ assets and liabilities and dissolving the
marriage.” Therefore, the permanent orders in a dissolution
proceeding are not final for purposes of appellate review until an
attorney fee request under that statute has been resolved and
reduced to a sum certain. Id.
¶ 14 Specifically, Hill explained that “[w]hen considering a petition
for dissolution, a court must address several intertwined issues,
including parental responsibilities, child support, [maintenance],
and disposition of property. These are not separate claims; they are
issues that are part and parcel of dissolving the marriage.” Id. Hill
also observed that when equitably apportioning attorney fees under
section 14-10-119, the district court must consider the financial
resources of both parties, and therefore the court must “make
findings concerning [the parties’] relative incomes, assets, and
liabilities.” Id.
¶ 15 Hill further reasoned that an unresolved request for attorney
fees prevents finality in a dissolution proceeding because “when an
appellate court reverses a [marital] property division, the [district]
court must make a new property division, and, because the issues
6 are ‘inextricably intertwined,’ it must also reconsider the award of
maintenance and the apportionment of attorney fees in light of the
new property division.” Id. (quoting In re Marriage of Antuna, 8 P.3d
589, 595 (Colo. App. 2000)).
D. Hill Is Inapplicable to APR Orders Outside of a Dissolution of Marriage Proceeding
¶ 16 Mother argues that our supreme court implicitly overruled Hill
when it “reaffirm[ed] the bright-line rule [that a] judgment on the
merits is final for purposes of appeal notwithstanding an unresolved
issue of attorney fees.” L.H.M. Corp., 2021 CO 78, ¶ 2. Under such
a “bright-line” rule, the appeal of the APR order would clearly be
untimely. But we need not decide whether L.H.M. Corp. overruled
Hill because even if Hill remains good law, we conclude that it is
inapplicable to an APR proceeding that is unrelated to the
dissolution of a marriage.
¶ 17 In a dissolution of marriage proceeding, the court must divide
the parties’ marital assets with the aim of “allow[ing] the parties to
disentangle themselves financially and provide[ing] some measure
of closure.” In re Marriage of Hunt, 909 P.2d 525, 540 (Colo. 1995).
In an APR proceeding that is unrelated to the dissolution of a
7 marriage, there is no division of financial assets. Instead, the
district court is primarily concerned with crafting a parenting time
and decision-making arrangement that serves the child’s best
interests. See § 14-10-124(1.5)(a), (b), C.R.S. 2025 (listing the
various factors on which the court shall make findings, and
consider, in accordance with the child’s best interests when
allocating parenting time and decision-making responsibilities); In
re Marriage of Barker, 251 P.3d 591, 592 (Colo. App. 2010) (best
interests are always the controlling factor for any parenting time
order). Thus, while the allocation of the financial burden of
attorney fees is “part and parcel of dissolving the marriage,” Hill,
166 P.3d at 272, it is not so integral to the process of allocating
parental responsibilities.
¶ 18 We acknowledge that during an APR proceeding, the court
considers the parties’ respective finances when crafting a
corresponding child support order, which is then intertwined with
and dependent upon the court’s determination of parenting time. In
re Marriage of Roosa, 89 P.3d 524, 528 (Colo. App. 2004). Yet, even
when determining child support, the court’s ultimate objective is to
act in the best interests of the child. See People v. Martinez, 70
8 P.3d 474, 478 (Colo. 2003) (recognizing that a child support order
should serve the best interests of the children).
¶ 19 In contrast, while a district court in a dissolution of marriage
proceeding must, if applicable, allocate parental responsibilities in
the child’s best interests, § 14-10-124(1.5)(a), (b), such a proceeding
also remains squarely focused on “equitably disposing of the
parties’ assets and liabilities.” Hill, 166 P.3d at 272; see In re
Marriage of Nelson, 2012 COA 205, ¶¶ 13-19 (holding that an order
resolving a post-decree motion to modify maintenance is final and
appealable notwithstanding unresolved section 14-10-119 attorney
fees because the issue before the court is not the equitable division
of the marital estate, but is instead whether a substantial and
continuing change of circumstances has made maintenance unfair).
¶ 20 Moreover, in a dissolution of marriage proceeding, when the
district court weighs the “inextricably intertwined” issues of the
marital property division and maintenance, those decisions then
inform the court’s allocation of attorney fees under section 14-10-
119. See Hill, 166 P.3d at 272; see also In re Marriage of de Koning,
2016 CO 2, ¶ 26 (“[A]wards of spousal maintenance and [section
9 14-10-119] attorney’s fees flow from the property distribution,
which is typically the linchpin of financial permanent orders.”).
¶ 21 But the same is not true in an APR proceeding unrelated to a
dissolution of marriage. APR orders are not financial; they allocate
parenting time and decision-making authority between the parents.
And although child support is financial, its primary purpose is to
provide “an adequate standard of support for [the] children.”
§ 14-10-115(1)(a)(I), C.R.S. 2025. It is different from property
division, maintenance, and attorney fees under section 14-10-119,
which are aimed at putting spouses on equitable financial footing.
Indeed, unlike a property division in a dissolution of marriage
proceeding — which, when reversed on appeal, necessitates the
district court’s reconsideration of section 14-10-119 attorney fees,
see de Koning, ¶ 26; Hill, 166 P.3d at 272 — we are not aware of
any legal authority suggesting that the reversal of an APR or child
support order requires the same.
¶ 22 In sum, given the differences between dissolution of marriage
proceedings and APR proceedings not related to the dissolution of
marriage, we conclude that the holding of Hill, 166 P.3d at 271-72,
does not extend to such APR proceedings. Instead, permanent
10 orders allocating parental responsibilities are final and appealable
once the intertwined issues of parental responsibilities and child
support are resolved, and an unresolved request for attorney fees
under section 14-10-119 does not prevent finality. See L.H.M.
Corp., ¶¶ 2, 23; Roosa, 89 P.3d at 528. Accordingly, the APR order
was final for purposes of appeal once the district court issued the
related child support order on February 5, 2024. Thus, father’s
November 12, 2024, notice of appeal, which was filed months after
the child support order, was untimely as to the APR order. See
C.A.R. 4(a)(1). We therefore lack jurisdiction to consider father’s
appeal of the APR order and dismiss his appeal as to that issue.
See Buck, 60 P.3d at 789.
III. Award of Attorney Fees to Mother
¶ 23 Father next asserts the district court abused its discretion
when awarding mother $79,822 in attorney fees under
section 14-10-119. While father does not challenge the district
court’s finding that he should be responsible for half of mother’s
attorney fees, he contends that the court’s determination of the
dollar amount of the attorney fee award was not accompanied by
11 sufficient factual findings and was otherwise unsupported by the
record. We agree.
A. Applicable Legal Standards
¶ 24 To ensure that a party does not suffer undue economic
hardship from the proceedings, a court in an APR proceeding may
order a party to pay a reasonable amount of the other party’s
attorney fees and costs based on the parties’ relative economic
circumstances. § 14-10-119; In re Marriage of Gutfreund, 148 P.3d
136, 141 (Colo. 2006). In addition to weighing the financial
resources of each party, the court must also consider the
reasonableness of the hourly rate and the necessity for the hours
billed. See de Koning, ¶ 26; In re Marriage of Aragon, 2019 COA 76,
¶ 9.
¶ 25 When assessing the reasonableness of the attorney fees that a
party seeks to recover, the court must typically calculate a lodestar
amount, which represents the number of hours reasonably
expended on the case multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.
Aragon, ¶¶ 9, 15. The lodestar amount is a starting point and
carries with it a presumption of reasonableness. Id. at ¶¶ 15, 17.
12 ¶ 26 The court may adjust the lodestar amount based on factors
such as (1) the time and labor required; (2) the novelty and difficulty
of the issues involved; (3) the fee customarily charged in the locality
for similar legal services; (4) the experience, reputation, and ability
of the lawyer or lawyers performing the services; (5) the nature of
the fee agreement; and (6) the nature and length of the professional
relationship with the client. Id. at ¶ 15 (citing Colo. RPC 1.5(a)(1),
(4), (6)); see also Payan v. Nash Finch Co., 2012 COA 135M, ¶ 46 (“A
trial court should award attorney fees based on the prevailing
market rate by private lawyers in the community.”).
¶ 27 We review a district court’s decision to award attorney fees for
an abuse of discretion. In re Parental Responsibilities Concerning
M.E.R-L., 2020 COA 173, ¶ 33. A trial court abuses its discretion
when the court’s decision is based on a misapplication of law or is
manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. In re Marriage of
Young, 2021 COA 96, ¶ 7. We may not disturb the amount of fees
awarded unless it is patently erroneous and unsupported by the
evidence. See Yaekle v. Andrews, 169 P.3d 196, 201 (Colo. App.
2007), aff’d on other grounds, 195 P.3d 1101 (Colo. 2008).
13 B. Discussion
¶ 28 After the district court determined that father should pay half
of mother’s attorney fees, mother filed attorney fee affidavits from
the two different law firms that had represented her during the
proceedings. The affidavits averred that mother had incurred
approximately $221,000 in attorney fees. While the affidavits
showed the hourly rate for each attorney and legal support staff
who worked on the case, they did not indicate how many hours
each individual spent on the case. However, mother did attach
billing statements as exhibits to the fee affidavits.
¶ 29 Father filed an objection, asserting that mother had failed to
demonstrate that the rates charged and time spent by her attorneys
were reasonable. Because neither party requested a hearing, the
district court ruled based on the written record. The court found
that while mother had submitted fee affidavits and billing
statements, she had failed to provide any of her attorneys’
engagement letters or fee agreements.
¶ 30 The court also found that the affidavits had failed to “itemize[]
the total number of hours spent on the case, either per attorney or
combined. Instead, [m]other’s attorneys have submitted a
14 combined total of 299 pages of billing invoices.” Accordingly, the
court expressed frustration that it was “impossible for [it] to
calculate the lodestar amount” because the court was “not in a
position to add time entries over the span of [twenty-four] months
from [twenty-three] different people in two different law firms.”
Moreover, the court found that “[m]other’s attorneys have not
provided any evidence demonstrating whether their hourly fees are
based on the prevailing market rate by other lawyers in the
community” and had “failed to specify the nature and length of their
professional relationship with [m]other, failed to provide any
evidence in their affidavits regarding their experience, reputation,
and ability, and failed to specify whether their fee is fixed or
contingent.”
¶ 31 Yet, despite the shortcomings of mother’s attorney fee
affidavits and billing records, “for the sake of efficiency,” the district
court calculated a lodestar amount of $204,899 on mother’s behalf
based on her attorneys’ billing statements. In other words, the
court acknowledged that mother’s attorney fee request “[was]
deficient because [she] has not provided evidence or even a
statement as to the prevailing market rates” but nevertheless found
15 that the rates charged by her attorneys were reasonable for the
locality because “the Court has awarded similar billing rates in
analogous cases.” The court then reduced the lodestar amount by
twenty percent to account for the numerous deficiencies in mother’s
attorney fee affidavits.
¶ 32 As an initial matter, father argues that, given mother’s failure
to itemize the per-attorney hours spent on the case, the district
court erred by undertaking such an exercise on her behalf when
calculating the lodestar amount. We agree with father that the
burden of justifying attorney fees rests with the party seeking such
fees. Payan, ¶ 35. But we disagree with father that the district
court abused its discretion by using the numerous billing
statements that mother provided in determining the number of
hours reasonably expended on the case.
¶ 33 Though not every entry identified the specific attorney or
paralegal who took the action, each one described the task
undertaken, the time billed for that task, and the hourly rate billed.
(The billing records from one of the law firms identified the billing
individual by initials; the records from the other law firm did not.)
The accompanying affidavits identified the hourly rate charged by
16 individual lawyers and paralegals. The court could properly glean
from these entries how many hours were expended and whether
they were reasonable. Thus, we cannot say that the court’s use of
this information to arrive at a number of hours reasonably spent on
the case was manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair.
¶ 34 We agree with father, however, that the district court erred by
finding that the hourly rates charged by mother’s attorneys were
reasonable despite acknowledging that she had “not submitted any
evidence that the requested rates are in line with those prevailing in
the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably
comparable skill, experience[,] and reputation.” See Payan, ¶ 16
(noting that, in reviewing a court’s attorney fee award for abuse of
discretion, we will not disturb the ruling unless it is unsupported
by the record). Indeed, the affidavits provided no information
whatsoever about “the skill, experience[,] and reputation” of the
billing individuals.
¶ 35 And while the court effectively took judicial notice of what
rates were reasonable based on its own experience with “similar
billing rates in analogous cases,” the court’s own experience as to
reasonableness was insufficient absent other evidence in the record.
17 See Roget v. Grand Pontiac, Inc., 5 P.3d 341, 347 (Colo. App. 1999)
(“It is improper for a trial court to take judicial notice of fees
charged in the community when assessing the reasonableness of an
award.”); L.D.G. v. E.R., 723 P.2d 746, 749 (Colo. App. 1986)
(holding that the trial court’s “general knowledge of the fees charged
in the community was [not] sufficient to support its award absent
any other evidence on that issue”).2
¶ 36 In sum, the record as it presently stands does not support the
district court’s order reducing the amount of fees to a sum certain.
Thus, we reverse the award of attorney fees and remand the case
for further proceedings. On remand, the court may, in its
discretion, take additional evidence as to mother’s request for
attorney fees. See In re Marriage of Mohrlang, 85 P.3d 561, 564
(Colo. App. 2003).
IV. Mother’s Request for Appellate Attorney Fees
¶ 37 Given father’s partial success on appeal, we reject mother’s
contention that the appeal was frivolous. Consequently, we deny
2 Because we are remanding the attorney fee issue, we need not
address father’s additional (and underdeveloped) contention that the district court erred by arbitrarily reducing the lodestar amount by only twenty percent.
18 her request for appellate attorney fees under section 13-17-102,
C.R.S. 2025.
¶ 38 Mother also requests an award of her appellate attorney fees
under section 14-10-119, due to the alleged disparities between the
parties’ respective economic circumstances. Because the district
court is better equipped to determine the factual issues regarding
the parties’ current financial resources, we direct the district court
to address this request on remand. See C.A.R. 39.1; In re Marriage
of Schlundt, 2021 COA 58, ¶ 54.
V. Disposition
¶ 39 The portion of father’s appeal concerning the order allocating
parental responsibilities is dismissed. The order awarding mother
$79,822 in attorney fees is reversed, and the case is remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand the
district court shall address mother’s request for appellate attorney
fees under section 14-10-119. Those portions of the judgment not
challenged on appeal remain undisturbed.
JUDGE LUM and JUDGE MOULTRIE concur.