Peo in Interest of GV

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: September 11, 2025
• Docket: 25CA0414
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25CA0414 Peo in Interest of GV 09-11-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0414 Adams County District Court No. 24JV30080 Honorable Emily Lieberman, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of G.V., a Child,

and Concerning R.V.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division II Opinion by JUDGE FOX Brown and Meirink, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced September 11, 2025

Heidi Miller, County Attorney, Emily Platt, Assistant County Attorney, Westminster, Colorado, for Appellee

Josi McCauley, Guardian Ad Litem

Patrick R. Henson, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Chelsea A. Carr, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant ¶1 In this dependency and neglect proceeding, R.V. (father)

appeals the juvenile court’s judgment adjudicating G.V. (the child)

dependent or neglected. Father’s sole contention on appeal is that

the court erred by combining his adjudicatory hearing with a

hearing on mother’s motion for temporary medical decision-making

authority. We disagree, and therefore, affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In April 2024, the Adams County Department of Human

Services received a referral concerning the then-five-year-old child.

The Department learned that the child, who has significant medical

needs, had been transported to the hospital after father was taken

into custody on multiple warrants.

¶3 At that time, the medical professionals discovered that for

several months, father had not followed up with medical treatment

for the child; specifically, the child was not up to date with his

cardiology, pulmonology, surgery, neurology, ophthalmology, and

rehabilitation appointments. The doctors also determined that the

child needed surgery on his gastronomy tube and advised against

discharging him until the surgery had been performed. But father

did not consent to the surgery. After father was released from

1 custody, he took the child home from the hospital against medical

advice.

¶4 The next day, the Department obtained a verbal removal order

for the child, who was taken back to the hospital. At the time of

removal, father did not have any of the child’s prescribed

medications, the right kind of formula to feed him, or the machine

required to use his gastronomy tube.

¶5 The Department then filed a petition in dependency and

neglect alleging concerns about medical neglect. The juvenile court

granted legal custody of the child to the Department, and he was

placed with kin. Thereafter, the child’s mother admitted the

allegations in the petition and entered into a deferred adjudication

agreement. Father denied the allegations in the petition and

requested an adjudicatory hearing, which was ultimately scheduled

for November 2024.

¶6 Before the adjudicatory hearing, mother moved the juvenile

court to grant her sole medical decision-making authority for the

child. The court determined that mother’s motion required a

hearing and noted that it would authorize the decision-making

2 hearing to be combined with the already-scheduled adjudicatory

hearing “if all parties [were] available and in agreement.”

¶7 The parties appeared for a pretrial conference, and father

objected to combining the adjudicatory and decision-making

hearings because he believed it would create a confusing appellate

record and would allow the juvenile court to consider evidence that

was inadmissible for purposes of adjudication. Over father’s

objection, the court combined the adjudicatory and decision-

making hearings.

¶8 The juvenile court held the adjudicatory and decision-making

hearings simultaneously over the course of three days. The court

then issued two written orders — one granting mother’s motion for

sole medical decision-making authority and another adjudicating

the child dependent or neglected pursuant to section 19-3-102(1)(b)

and (c), C.R.S. 2025.

II. Decision to Combine the Adjudicatory and Decision-Making Hearings

¶9 Father contends that the juvenile court abused its discretion

by combining the adjudicatory and decision-making hearings. He

3 argues that the adjudicatory judgment should be reversed. We are

not persuaded.

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

¶ 10 A trial court is obligated to administer justice, control the

decorum of the courtroom, and make sure that cases are decided

on appropriate grounds. Makeen v. Hailey, 2015 COA 181, ¶ 38.

Trial courts also have the responsibility of managing their dockets,

moving cases towards completion, and assuring that the parties

comply with deadlines. Redden v. SCI Colo. Funeral Servs., Inc., 38

P.3d 75, 84 (Colo. 2001). To achieve these ends, trial courts have

broad discretion over decisions involving docket and trial

management. See Makeen, ¶ 38.

¶ 11 We review a court’s decisions related to docket and trial

management for an abuse of discretion. Id.; see also People in

Interest of M.W., 2022 COA 72, ¶ 12. A juvenile court abuses its

discretion when its decision is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable,

or unfair, or if it is based on an erroneous understanding or

application of law. M.W., ¶ 12.

4 B. Analysis

¶ 12 Father argues that the juvenile court failed to properly analyze

whether consolidating the two hearings was warranted under

C.R.C.P. 42. However, we are not convinced that the juvenile court

was required to apply C.R.C.P. 42 in its analysis of whether to

combine the adjudicatory and decision-making hearings. The rule

allows a trial court to consolidate “actions involving a common

question of law or fact [that] are pending before the court” or to hold

a joint hearing or trial on any or all the matters in those “actions.”

C.R.C.P. 42(a) (emphasis added). But here, there was only one

action pending before the court — the dependency and neglect

proceeding. See In re Marriage of Plank, 881 P.2d 486, 487 (Colo.

App. 1994) (when the term “action” is used with reference to legal

proceedings, it should be taken to refer to the proceedings

themselves). And mother’s motion for sole medical decision-making

authority was simply a request for an order within the dependency

and neglect action. See id. (a motion ancillary to the pending

proceedings is not an “action”); see also C.R.C.P. 7(b)(1) (describing

a “motion” as an “application to the court for an order”).

5 ¶ 13 Thus, the juvenile court’s decision to combine the two

hearings was not “consolidation” under C.R.C.P. 42. Instead, it was

a discretionary trial and docket management decision. And based

on our review of the record, the court did not abuse its discretion in

making that decision.

¶ 14 First, the juvenile court provided a logical explanation for its

decision. After mother’s counsel pointed out that they had made a

“very big effort” to subpoena the child’s doctor and the hospital

social worker, the court found that it “made the most sense” to

allow mother to examine those witnesses when they were already

scheduled to testify. The court noted that the witnesses would

provide “much of the same testimony” for the adjudicatory hearing

and the decision-making hearing.

¶ 15 The juvenile court also stated that it made its decision, in part,

based on efficiency. Although the court did not explicitly cite the

Children’s Code in its order, the Code’s overriding purpose is to

protect a child’s welfare and safety by providing procedures through

which the child’s best interests can be served. People in Interest of

J.G., 2021 COA 47, ¶ 19. To that end, the juvenile court must

consider efficiency because it must “proceed with all possible speed

6 to a legal determination that will serve the best interests of the

child.” § 19-1-102(1)(c), C.R.S. 2025. And when, as here, a child is

under six years old at the time the petition is filed, courts must

consider the child’s need to be placed in a permanent home “as

expeditiously as possible.” § 19-1-102(1.6); see also § 19-1-123,

C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 16 Second, the juvenile court remedied father’s specific concerns

about its decision to combine the adjudicatory and decision-making

hearings. To alleviate his concern that the appellate record would

be unclear, the juvenile court expressly delineated, throughout the

hearings, which testimony would only be considered for the

decision-making hearing and not the adjudicatory hearing. To

ensure that it did not consider testimony or evidence that was

admitted only for the decision-making hearing, the court kept

separate notes for each hearing. It also heard separate closing

arguments and issued separate orders on adjudication and

decision-making.

¶ 17 Based on the foregoing, we cannot conclude that the juvenile

court’s decision to combine the adjudicatory and decision-making

hearings was manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or based

7 on an erroneous understanding or application of the law.

Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion by combining the

hearings. See M.W., ¶ 12.

III. Procedural Due Process

¶ 18 Father next seems to contend that the juvenile court’s decision

to combine the hearings rendered the proceedings fundamentally

unfair, thereby violating his right to procedural due process. To the

extent father makes this argument, we discern no reversible error.

¶ 19 To protect a parent’s parental liberty interest, due process

requires the state to provide fundamentally fair procedures to a

parent in a dependency and neglect proceeding. People in Interest

of J.A.S., 160 P.3d 257, 262 (Colo. App. 2007). A parent may not

obtain relief on a due process claim absent a showing of harm or

prejudice. Id.

¶ 20 We review alleged due process violations de novo. People in

Interest of C.J., 2017 COA 157, ¶ 25.

B. Analysis

¶ 21 The crux of father’s due process argument is that combining

the hearings was fundamentally unfair because it allowed the

8 juvenile court to consider, in its adjudication analysis, evidence that

was not admitted for purposes of adjudication. He asserts that the

court’s findings about his “position on surgery” and “ongoing

disagreements with providers” in the months before the

adjudicatory hearing show that it considered and relied on evidence

admitted only for the decision-making hearing.

¶ 22 However, nothing in the record indicates that the juvenile

court relied on evidence admitted only for the decision-making issue

in its analysis of whether the child was dependent or neglected. In

fact, the court repeatedly stated that it would not consider the

evidence admitted only for the decision-making hearing for

purposes of adjudication. And, as noted above, the court kept

“separate notes and separate documents on the two hearings.”

¶ 23 Moreover, the child’s doctor testified during the adjudicatory

portion of the hearing that the child needed the recommended

surgery; that father was angry at medical providers and had verbal

disagreements with them; and that father was required to have a

chaperone accompany him to the hospital “for recent visits over the

past several months.” Based on that testimony, the juvenile court

could have inferred that, at the time of the adjudicatory hearing,

9 father still refused to consent to the surgery and continued to

disagree with the child’s medical providers. And, while mother’s

counsel elicited similar testimony in relation to the decision-making

motion, we presume that the court considered only the evidence

admitted in the adjudicatory trial when determining whether the

child was dependent or neglected. See People in Interest of C.O.,

541 P.2d 330, 332 (Colo. App. 1975) (absent any showing to the

contrary, we must presume that a trial court considered only those

matters properly before it); People in Interest of M.M., Jr., 215 P.3d

1237, 1249-50 (Colo. App. 2009) (in the context of a bench trial, we

presume that the trial court disregards any evidence admitted for

an improper purpose).

¶ 24 Even if the juvenile court considered — for the purposes of

adjudication — the testimony about father’s ongoing refusal to

consent to surgery and disagreements with providers that was

admitted only for the decision-making hearing, father was not

prejudiced. Contrary to father’s assertions, that testimony would

have been admissible at the adjudicatory hearing because it was

relevant to the child’s status at the time of adjudication. See People

in Interest of A.E.L., 181 P.3d 1186, 1192 (Colo. App. 2008) (an

10 adjudication of dependency or neglect must be based on existing

circumstances and related to the child’s status at the time of

adjudication). Specifically, it was relevant to whether prospective

harm existed at the time of the adjudicatory hearing. See People in

Interest of G.E.S., 2016 COA 183, ¶ 15 (an adjudication may be

based on current, past, or prospective harm); see also People in

Interest of S.N., 2014 COA 116, ¶¶ 15-17 (to determine if

prospective harm exists, a juvenile court may consider a “parent’s

past conduct and current circumstances”).

¶ 25 Also contrary to father’s assertions, the testimony about his

ongoing refusal to consent to surgery and disagreements with

medical providers was not evidence of allegations that were “outside

the scope of the issues raised in the petition.” In the petition, the

Department alleged that the child lacked proper parental care and

was in an injurious environment based on father’s failure to provide

necessary medical care. Thus, the testimony about these ongoing

problems did not inject new issues into the case beyond what was

initially alleged; it simply established that the concerns about

medical neglect were ongoing.

11 ¶ 26 Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the juvenile court’s

decision to combine the adjudicatory and decision-making hearings

did not result in fundamentally unfair proceedings or prejudice

father. Accordingly, reversal is not warranted on due process

grounds. See J.A.S., 160 P.3d at 262.

IV. Disposition

¶ 27 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE BROWN and JUDGE MEIRINK concur.