Marriage of Allen

Colorado Court of Appeals·Decided June 25, 2026·No. 24CA1396·Unpublished

Opinion

24CA1396 Marriage of Allen 06-25-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1396 Douglas County District Court No. 22DR258 Honorable Benjamin Figa, Judge

In re the Marriage of Daniel J. Allen, Appellee, and Cecelia J. Allen, Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division V

Opinion by JUDGE WELLING

Román, C.J., and Grove, J., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)

Announced June 25, 2026

Aitken Law, LLC, Sharlene J. Aitken, Denver, Colorado, for Appellee

Epstein, Patierno, LLP, Courtney J. Leathers Allen, Denver, Colorado; Anne Whalen Gill, LLC, Anne Whalen Gill, Castle Rock, Colorado, for Appellant

¶1 In this dissolution of marriage case between Cecelia J. Allen (wife) and Daniel J. Allen (husband), wife appeals the marital property division portion of the permanent orders judgment. We affirm and remand the case for further proceedings on wife’s request for appellate attorney fees.

I. Background

¶2 The parties were married in 1998. They had four children. At the time of this appeal, only the youngest child had not yet emancipated. Husband petitioned for dissolution, and the district court issued temporary orders.

A. Temporary Orders

¶3 The court’s temporary orders authorized husband to withdraw funds from his Vanguard 401(k) account (the Vanguard account) to pay the parties’ debts. The court ordered husband to “continue paying all household expenses including but not limited to the mortgage and utilities, bills, and insurance he paid during the marriage.” And he was required to pay wife, for the first three months, $2,166 monthly in temporary maintenance. After the first three months, he was to pay her $2,639 in monthly maintenance until permanent orders entered. Husband was also required to

transfer $10,000 into his attorney’s COLTAF account, to be used to pay maintenance to wife for the first three months.

¶4 Four months after the court issued temporary orders, wife filed a motion for a contempt citation against husband, alleging that he had failed to comply with temporary orders. The court issued the citation and combined the hearing on wife’s contempt motion with the permanent orders hearing. As discussed further in Part II.D below, the court ultimately denied wife’s contempt motion.

B. Permanent Orders

¶5 At the conclusion of the permanent orders hearing, the court entered a decree dissolving the parties’ marriage.

¶6 Two days after the permanent orders hearing, the court made its oral findings of fact and conclusions of law on the record. In its oral ruling, the court made findings regarding the value of the parties’ assets and debts and allocated the marital property, purporting to do so equally. Specifically, the court allocated to wife the marital home; two cars; a bank account; and the marital business, valued at $2,800; and certain personal property. The court allocated to husband a second home in Florida; one car; a second bank account; and certain personal property.

¶7 The court allocated all marital debt to husband. This marital debt included the outstanding attorney fees each party owed their respective attorneys, as well as the full amount of five outstanding promissory notes husband had executed in favor of certain family members and friends.

¶8 In its oral ruling, the court said that it understood that “the marital property that [it] allocated to [h]usband is substantially less than” what it allocated to wife, so it ordered that, “to the extent that there is a discrepancy or a difference” in the value of the marital assets allocated between the parties, an equalization payment would come from the Vanguard account. The parties stipulated that the market value of the Vanguard account was $587,288 at the time of the permanent orders hearing.

¶9 The court ordered both parties to prepare a spreadsheet reflecting their respective understandings of the court’s findings regarding valuation of marital property and debt and the court’s orders allocating such property and debt. Both parties did so within a week of the court’s oral ruling. The parties also agreed to have the district court adopt the transcript of its oral ruling as the permanent orders.

¶ 10 The transcript of the oral ruling took four months to prepare. In February 2024, three months after the transcript was prepared, the court held a status conference, after which it entered the written permanent orders, which included adopting husband’s spreadsheet as part of those orders.

C. Post-Trial Motions and Notice of Appeal

¶ 11 At the February 2024 status conference, both parties agreed that they would need a transcript of the entire permanent orders hearing in order to prepare and file post-trial motions. Based on this representation, the district court ordered that any post-trial motions be filed within fourteen days of the parties’ receipt of that transcript.

¶ 12 After receiving the transcript, wife timely filed a C.R.C.P. 59 motion to amend the court’s permanent orders (the April motion). The district court summarily denied the April motion for lack of conferral pursuant to C.R.C.P. 121, section 1-15(8).

¶ 13 In June 2024, wife filed a second motion to amend the court’s judgment pursuant to C.R.C.P. 59 and 60(b)(1) (the June motion). In the June motion, wife contended that she had properly conferred before filing the April motion. Before the district court issued an

order resolving the June motion, wife filed a timely notice of appeal in this court appealing the permanent orders.

¶ 14 The district court, in an order indicating it took no action, concluded that, given the pending appeal, it lacked jurisdiction to consider wife’s June motion. In August 2024, wife filed a motion to reconsider this order pursuant to C.R.C.P. 59 (the August motion), which the court denied.

¶ 15 Wife then filed a motion to amend her notice of appeal to include the court’s orders regarding her June and August motions. She also filed a request for a limited remand for the court “to consider the relief requested under Rule 60(b)(1) — that [w]ife’s counsel’s mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect regarding conferral about the post-trial motion . . . should not negate the [t]rial [c]ourt’s consideration of [w]ife’s timely [April motion].” A motions division of this court denied these requests.

II. Issues on Appeal

¶ 16 On appeal, wife contends that the district court erred by (1) not reopening the evidence to consider changes in asset values in the seven months between the bench ruling and the entry of permanent orders; (2) denying her post-trial motions; (3) adopting

husband’s spreadsheet, which double-counted some debt; and (4) limiting time for the parties to present evidence at the combined permanent orders and contempt hearing. Wife also requests an award of her appellate attorney fees.

A. Reopening of the Evidence

¶ 17 Wife first contends that the court abused its discretion when it declined to reopen the evidence to consider changes in the value of certain assets during the seven months between the permanent orders hearing and the court’s entry of written permanent orders. We aren’t persuaded.

1. Relevant Law

¶ 18 Generally, property is valued as of the date of the decree or the date of the hearing on the disposition of property, whichever is earlier. § 14-10-113(5), C.R.S. 2025. Under certain circumstances, a district court may reopen evidence. In re Marriage of Medeiros, 2023 COA 42M, ¶¶ 10, 16.

¶ 19 As discussed in Medeiros, a district court has the discretion to consider a party’s request to reopen the evidence after the permanent orders hearing but before the entry of permanent orders based on changed economic circumstances. Id. In determining

whether to do so, it must consider certain factors, one of which is “the length of the court’s delay in issuing permanent orders.” Id. at

¶ 22.

2. Analysis

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Marriage of Allen, (Colo. Ct. App. 2026).

Marriage of Allen (Marriage of Allen) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

In Re the Marriage of Goellner
770 P.2d 1387 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1989)
In Re the Marriage of Rieger
827 P.2d 625 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1992)
Mission Denver Co. v. Pierson
674 P.2d 363 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1984)
In Re the Marriage of Finer
893 P.2d 1381 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1995)
Maloney v. Brassfield
251 P.3d 1097 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2010)
In Re the Marriage of Powell
220 P.3d 952 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2009)
Musick v. Woznicki
136 P.3d 244 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2006)
In Re the Marriage of McSoud
131 P.3d 1208 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2006)
In Re the Marriage of Balanson
25 P.3d 28 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2001)
In Re the Marriage of Burford
26 P.3d 550 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2001)
White v. Estate of Soto-Lerma
2018 COA 34 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2018)
of Alvis
2019 COA 97 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2019)
In re Marriage of Boettcher
2019 CO 81 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2019)
v. People
2019 CO 95 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2019)
of Martin
2021 COA 101 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2021)
In re the Marriage of Jorgenson
143 P.3d 1169 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2006)
In re the Marriage of Cardona
2014 CO 3 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2014)
Norton v. Ruebel
2024 COA 107 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2024)