Marriage of Zunker

Opinion

25CA0123 Marriage of Zunker 10-23-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0123 City and County of Denver District Court No. 11DR4141 Honorable Marie Avery Moses, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Derek Zunker,

Appellee,

and

Sabrina Zunker,

Appellant.

ORDER AFFIRMED

Division A Opinion by JUDGE BERGER* Román, C.J., and Bernard*, J., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced October 23, 2025

Sherr Puttmann Akins Lamb, PC, Tanya L. Akins, Denver, Colorado for Appellee

Sabrina Zunker, Pro Se

*Sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice under provisions of Colo. Const. art. VI, § 5(3), and § 24-51-1105, C.R.S. 2025. ¶1 In this post-dissolution of marriage proceeding involving Derek

Zunker (father) and Sabrina Zunker (mother), mother appeals from

the district court’s adoption of the magistrate’s order enjoining her

from filing additional pro se motions or requests for relief. We

affirm.

I. Background

¶2 The parties’ three-year marriage ended in 2012. They are the

parents of one child.

¶3 The parties originally shared equal parenting time. In

November 2017, a district court magistrate awarded father sole

decision-making responsibility and modified parenting time, with

father becoming the majority-time parent. In October 2020,

mother’s attorneys withdrew from the case.

¶4 Since October 2022, mother has engaged in a persistent

campaign of filing pro se motions and other requests for relief with

the district court. Over that time, mother’s pro se pleadings

included:

• two motions for the district court magistrate to recuse;

• a motion to modify child support;

1 • two motions seeking to lift existing orders limiting her

right to record father and other third parties and lift

limitations on her right to communicate with third

parties about the case;

• multiple motions to stay court orders and continue court

proceedings;

• two separate motions for “clarification” of prior court

orders;

• multiple motions to dismiss pleadings filed by father;

• multiple motions seeking to compel father and other

third parties to produce documents; and

• nine separate petitions for district court review of various

magistrate orders.

¶5 In all, mother filed over twenty-five motions and other requests

for relief between October 2022 and September 2024.

¶6 In response to mother’s barrage of pro se pleadings, in

January 2024, father moved to enjoin her from filing additional

pleadings as a pro se party. After holding a hearing, a district court

magistrate granted father’s motion and prohibited mother from

2 filing any further motions or other requests for relief without an

attorney.

¶7 The magistrate cited mother’s numerous filings and found that

her conduct had been “egregious and harassing” because she had

been “us[ing] the judicial process to disrupt [father]’s life” and was

causing him to incur significant legal costs. Critically, the

magistrate found that most of mother’s pro se filings did “not

contain legal authority, misstate[d] facts, and [were] repetitious.”

Similarly, the magistrate observed that mother “simply appeals

every [m]agistrate [o]rder [to the district court] as a matter of

course,” and that the arguments in her multiple petitions for review

were “often unclear, overlapping, circular, and recycled.”

¶8 The magistrate also found that mother’s numerous pro se

filings took “significant time for the clerk’s office and [the]

courtroom staff to process” and consequently “interfere[d] with the

interests of other litigants and the public’s access to the court

through repetitive and nonsensical filings.” For example, the

magistrate cited mother’s July 21, 2024, “Motion for Clarification,”

which contained thirty-eight exhibits.

3 ¶9 Mother petitioned for district court review, and the reviewing

district court judge adopted the magistrate’s order. In support, the

reviewing district court judge made additional findings, including

the observation that “none of [mother’s] substantive motions ha[d]

been granted by the magistrate or the district court.” The district

court also found, based on mother’s recent sworn financial

statement, that she could afford an attorney to represent her.

II. Order Enjoining Pro Se Filings

A. Standards of Review and Applicable Law

¶ 10 Our review of a district court’s order adopting a magistrate’s

decision is effectively a second layer of appellate review. In re

Marriage of Sheehan, 2022 COA 29, ¶ 22. We must accept the

magistrate’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous,

meaning that they have no support in the record. In re Marriage of

Young, 2021 COA 96, ¶ 8. However, we review de novo questions of

law. Sheehan, ¶ 22.

¶ 11 “Our constitution guarantees every person access to the courts

of this state.” Karr v. Williams, 50 P.3d 910, 913 (Colo. 2002) (citing

Colo. Const. art. II, § 6). However, the right to access the courts is

not absolute and must be balanced against the need to protect the

4 judicial system from abuse. Id. at 913-14. Therefore, a court may

exercise its discretion to impose a narrowly tailored limitation on a

party’s ability to pursue litigation when that limitation does not

place an unreasonable burden on a party’s right to access the

courts. See id. at 914; Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Winslow, 706 P.2d

792, 794 (Colo. 1985).

¶ 12 The supreme court has considered the following actions as

hampering the efficient administration of justice to an intolerable

degree, such that enjoining a litigant from affirmatively proceeding

pro se was warranted:

(1) filing a multitude of meritless claims;

(2) bringing claims that appear to be aimed at harassing

opposing parties; or

(3) using procedures to expand litigation in ways that strain

judicial resources.

GHP Horwath, P.C. v. Kazazian, 2024 CO 8, ¶ 67.

¶ 13 Given the important constitutional rights involved, we review

de novo a restriction on a party’s right to file pro se pleadings. See

Lewis v. Colo. Rockies Baseball Club, Ltd., 941 P.2d 266, 271 (Colo.

5 1997); Morris-Schindler, LLC v. City & County of Denver, 251 P.3d

1076, 1084 (Colo. App. 2010).

B. Discussion

¶ 14 As best as we can discern, mother contends that district court

erred by adopting the magistrate’s order enjoining her from filing

additional pro se motions because she was subsequently successful

in an appeal arising from one of her pro se motions. We reject this

argument. In In re Marriage of Zunker, slip op. at ¶ 1 (Colo. App.

No. 24CA1180, May 1, 2025) (not published pursuant to C.A.R.

35(e)), mother appealed the district court’s adoption of a

magistrate’s order that had denied, under the doctrine of res

judicata, mother’s pro se request to lift prior limitations that had

been placed on her right to record father and communicate with

third parties. Another division of this court ultimately reversed the

district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings because

the magistrate had misapplied the doctrine of res judicata given

that the doctrine only bars a party from relitigating claims in a

separate legal proceeding, as opposed to within the same legal

proceeding. Id. at ¶¶ 17, 19, 22, 24.

6 ¶ 15 But for multiple reasons, we reject mother’s suggestion that

the resolution of that appeal in her favor demonstrates that her pro

se filings have been meritorious, and therefore, the order enjoining

her from filing pro se motions was in error.

¶ 16 To start, when enjoining mother from filing pro se, the

magistrate and the reviewing district court judge did not have the

benefit of the division’s opinion in Zunker, which was issued after

both the magistrate’s order and the district court’s review.

Therefore, the later resolution of Zunker in mother’s favor could not

have been considered by the magistrate and district court.

¶ 17 However, even if we consider the outcome of Zunker, we

disagree that mother’s success in that appeal means that she has

presented persuasive and meritorious arguments. Taking judicial

notice of this court’s file in Zunker, see Harriman v. Cabela’s Inc.,

2016 COA 43, ¶ 64, we observe that at no point in her appellate

briefing did mother argue that res judicata did not apply to orders

within the same proceeding, which was the rationale upon which

the division in Zunker reversed and remanded for further

proceedings. See Zunker, No. 24CA1180, slip op. at ¶¶ 17, 19, 22,

7 24. Instead, mother had argued that the application of the doctrine

of res judicata was a violation of her constitutional rights.

¶ 18 Moreover, while the division in Zunker remanded the case for

further proceedings because the magistrate had improperly applied

res judicata, that division otherwise expressed no opinion as to the

merits of mother’s underlying requests for relief. See id. at ¶¶ 19-

24.

¶ 19 Finally, although mother may have prevailed in Zunker, we

observe that she has not even attempted to justify her numerous

other pro se filings involving matters outside the scope of that

appeal, which were also cited by the magistrate as justifying an

order enjoining her from proceeding pro se. Our review of mother’s

numerous other pro se motions and requests for relief supports the

magistrate’s conclusion that her filings were often meritless, given

that they did not contain relevant legal authority, were repetitious

and circular, and otherwise contained numerous arguments

recycled from previously denied motions. See Kazazian, ¶ 67.

¶ 20 Similarly, we find record support for the magistrate’s

observation that mother’s numerous and lengthy filings were

consuming a disproportionate amount of court resources. See id.

8 For example, a petition for district court review filed by mother on

January 8, 2024, contained over seventy exhibits spanning

approximately 2,200 pages.

¶ 21 Thus, we perceive no error in the magistrate’s decision to

enjoin mother from filing additional pro se motions. See id.

III. Mother’s Other Contentions

¶ 22 With little explanation and minimal legal authority, mother

presents a laundry list of additional claimed errors that are

unrelated to the magistrate’s order enjoining her from filing pro se,

and which largely consist of her grievances against husband, the

magistrate, and the district court.

¶ 23 To start, it is not clear to us what order or orders mother is

even attempting to appeal, as her lengthy list of alleged errors spans

multiple years of the parties’ litigation and even references other

civil proceedings. And while mother suggests that the magistrate

has erred by not “reconsidering” prior evidence, testimony, and

court orders, she has not directed us to any motion and resulting

final order in which she requested such relief. See In re Marriage of

Evans, 2021 COA 141, ¶ 11 (“Our jurisdiction is limited to review of

final, appealable judgments or orders.”).

9 ¶ 24 Moreover, mother’s protracted list of alleged errors violates

C.A.R. (a)(7)(A), requiring a separate heading for each issue as to

the applicable standard of review and issue preservation, C.A.R.

28(a)(7)(B), requiring “a clear and concise discussion of the grounds

upon which the party relies in seeking a reversal” of an order, and

C.A.R. 28(a)(8), requiring an appellant to identify “the precise relief

sought” on appeal.

¶ 25 Lastly, to the extent that we can discern her contentions of

error, we decline to address them given that they are largely

undeveloped and presented without supporting legal authority. See

In re Marriage of Zander, 2019 COA 149, ¶ 27 (appellate court will

not consider an argument not supported by any meaningful legal

analysis), aff’d, 2021 CO 12; see also Antolovich v. Brown Grp.

Retail, Inc., 183 P.3d 582, 604 (Colo. App. 2007) (declining to review

appellants’ arguments because they reflected a “shotgun approach”

and set forth “little analysis”). We also do not address new or

expanded arguments made for the first time in a reply brief. See In

re Marriage of Dean, 2017 COA 51, ¶ 31.

10 IV. Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 26 Asserting that mother’s appeal lacks substantial justification,

father requests an award of his appellate attorney fees under

section 13-17-102, C.R.S. 2025. An appeal lacks substantial

justification when it is substantially frivolous, substantially

groundless, or substantially vexatious. § 13-17-102(9)(a). However,

mother is pro se, and therefore, before imposing an award of

appellate attorney fees under that statute, we must conclude that

she clearly knew or reasonably should have known that her claims

lacked substantial justification before we may award father attorney

fees. § 13-17-102(6).

¶ 27 We view at least portions of mother’s appeal as lacking

substantial justification, especially given her failure to follow the

appellate rules when asserting numerous, largely undeveloped

contentions of error in a disjointed, shotgun-style pleading. See

Antolovich, 183 P.3d at 604; C.A.R. 28(a)(7), (8). But we are not

convinced that mother clearly knew or reasonably should have

known that all or any portion of her appeal lacked substantial

justification. § 13-17-102(6).

11 ¶ 28 Mother is now on notice of her obligation to comply with the

appellate rules in any future appellate proceedings and of the

potential consequences if she does not, including dismissal and the

potential for sanctions. See C.A.R. 38; § 13-17-102; Martin v.

Essrig, 277 P.3d 857, 862 (Colo. App. 2011) (authorizing sanctions

for frivolous appeals).

¶ 29 Given our disposition, father is entitled to an award of his

appellate costs. See C.A.R. 39(a)(2).

V. Disposition

¶ 30 The order is affirmed.

CHIEF JUDGE ROMÁN and JUDGE BERNARD concur.