Reynolds v. Hurd

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: October 16, 2025
• Docket: 24CA1867
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24CA1867 Reynolds v Hurd 10-16-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1867 City and County of Denver District Court No. 24CV30648 Honorable Jon J. Olafson, Judge

Jordon Reynolds,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Emmett Hurd and City and County of Denver,

Defendants-Appellants.

ORDER AFFIRMED AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division VII Opinion by JUDGE LUM Tow and Graham*, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced October 16, 2025

Cheney Galluzzi & Howard, LLC, Timothy C. Galluzzi, Kevin B. Cheney, Robert T. Lawrence, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Michiko Ando Brown, City Attorney, Andres Alers, Assistant City Attorney, Kevin McCaffrey, Assistant City Attorney, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants- Appellants

*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 Plaintiff, Jordon Reynolds, brought a personal injury claim

against defendants, Officer Emmett Hurd and the City and County

of Denver (collectively, the city). The city moved to dismiss, arguing

that Reynolds’ claim was barred by the Colorado Governmental

Immunity Act (CGIA). §§ 24-10-101 to -120, C.R.S. 2025. After a

hearing, the district court denied the motion to dismiss, and the

city appeals.

¶2 We affirm and remand the case to the district court for further

proceedings.

I. Background

¶3 One night, at approximately 10:30 p.m., Reynolds was riding

an electric scooter through an intersection. Officer Hurd was

approaching the intersection when he received an emergency call

for assistance. As Reynolds traveled through the intersection on a

green light, Officer Hurd proceeded into the intersection against a

red light and struck Reynolds with his police vehicle. Reynolds

suffered injuries as a result of the collision and brought the

underlying negligence action against Officer Hurd and against

Denver as his employer.

1 ¶4 The city moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject

matter jurisdiction under C.R.C.P. 12(b)(1), asserting that the city

was immune from liability under the CGIA. The city also argued

that immunity wasn’t waived because Officer Hurd was responding

to an emergency call, he slowed down as necessary to safely

proceed through the intersection, and he had activated his

emergency lights or siren before proceeding.

¶5 The district court held an evidentiary hearing pursuant to

Trinity Broadcasting of Denver, Inc. v. City of Westminster, 848 P.2d

916 (Colo. 1993) (Trinity hearing). As relevant here, the primary

contested issue was whether Officer Hurd had activated his

emergency lights or siren before entering the intersection. After the

Trinity hearing, the district court issued an order denying the city’s

motion to dismiss. Although the evidence conflicted, the district

court concluded that Officer Hurd hadn’t activated the lights or

siren on his car and, therefore, the city waived immunity under the

CGIA. The city now appeals the denial of the motion to dismiss.

2 II. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

A. CGIA Immunity and Waiver

¶6 The CGIA provides that a “public entity is immune from

liability in all claims for injury that lie in tort or could lie in tort.”

§ 24-10-106(1), C.R.S. 2025. Generally, a public entity waives

immunity in an action for injuries resulting from the operation of a

motor vehicle “by a public employee while in the course of

employment.” § 24-10-106(1)(a). However, as relevant here,

immunity is not waived for injuries caused by the operation of an

authorized emergency vehicle when the driver (1) is responding to

an emergency call; (2) proceeds past a red light after slowing down

as necessary for the vehicle’s safe operation; and (3) uses the

vehicle’s lights or siren. See id. (providing for an exception to the

immunity waiver for “emergency vehicles operating within the

provisions of section 42-4-108(2) and (3), C.R.S.”); § 42-4-108(2),

C.R.S. 2025 (providing that the driver of an authorized emergency

vehicle may disregard certain traffic regulations, including red

lights, when responding to an emergency); § 42-4-108(3) (providing

that the vehicle must “mak[e] use of audible or visual signals” for

the authorized emergency vehicle exception to apply).

3 ¶7 “[W]hether a public entity qualifies for immunity under the

emergency vehicle exception is a question of subject matter

jurisdiction.” Corsentino v. Cordova, 4 P.3d 1082, 1087 (Colo.

2000). The court must resolve all questions about whether

immunity applies before trial, which “may require the trial court to

hold [a] . . . ‘Trinity,’ hearing.” Hernandez v. City & County of

Denver, 2018 COA 151, ¶ 6 (quoting Martinez v. Est. of Bleck, 2016

CO 58, ¶ 27). In a Trinity hearing, “the [district] court, rather than

a jury, is the finder of fact and resolves any factual dispute on

which sovereign immunity depends.” Hernandez, ¶ 6. The district

court may receive “any competent evidence” pertaining to the

jurisdictional allegations in the complaint, Jefferson County v.

Dozier, 2025 CO 36, ¶ 12 (quoting Trinity, 848 P.2d at 924), and it

is “free to weigh the evidence and satisfy itself as to the existence of

its power to hear the case,” Trinity, 848 P.2d at 925 (quoting Boyle

v. Governor’s Veterans Outreach & Assistance Ctr., 925 F.2d 71, 74

(3d Cir. 1991)).

¶8 “The burden of proof is on the plaintiff to prove the

government has waived its immunity, but this burden is relatively

lenient, as the plaintiff is afforded the reasonable inferences from

4 her undisputed evidence.” City & County of Denver v. Dennis, 2018

CO 37, ¶ 11.

B. Standard of Review

¶9 A district court’s decision on a party’s motion to dismiss under

the CGIA is subject to interlocutory appellate review under section

24-10-108, C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 10 When, as here, the question of CGIA immunity involves a

factual dispute, we will not disturb the district court’s factual

findings unless they are clearly erroneous. Springer v. City &

County of Denver, 13 P.3d 794, 798 (Colo. 2000). A court’s factual

finding is clearly erroneous only when there is no support for the

finding in the record. Cronk v. Bowers, 2023 COA 68M, ¶ 12.

¶ 11 Whether the trial court correctly applied the burden of proof is

a question of law that we review de novo. Cf. McCallum Fam. L.L.C.

v. Winger, 221 P.3d 69, 72 (Colo. App. 2009) (reviewing de novo

whether the court applied proper burden of proof); Morris v. Belfor

USA Grp., Inc., 201 P.3d 1253, 1257 (Colo. App. 2008) (“[We] review

de novo a trial court’s application of governing legal standards.”).

5 III. Analysis

A. Lights and Siren

¶ 12 At the hearing, the district court received Officer Hurd’s body

camera footage as evidence. The footage showed that, “at the time

. . . Officer Hurd exited the police vehicle” to assist Reynolds, his

lights and siren were not activated. The city argues that the district

court erred by relying on that footage to conclude that the lights

and siren were off during the accident.

¶ 13 As a threshold matter, we reject Reynolds’ contention that the

city failed to preserve this issue. During closing arguments,

counsel for the city argued, “The fact that the lights are [off] after

the accident is completely irrelevant to the determination this court

will have to make.”1 This was sufficient to bring the “sum and

substance” of the city’s argument to the district court’s attention.

Berra v. Springer & Steinberg, P.C., 251 P.3d 567, 570 (Colo. App.

2010).

1 The transcript reflects counsel saying that “the lights are on.”

Counsel either misspoke or was mistranscribed. In any event, we don’t perceive that this affected the district court’s ability to understand the sum and substance of the argument.

6 ¶ 14 The city asserts that the district court erred by tethering its

ruling to “post-hoc” logic. Essentially, the city argues that, because

the bodycam footage only showed the state of the lights and siren

just after the accident, the court couldn’t use the footage to draw

any inferences about the use of the lights and siren during the

accident. We disagree.

¶ 15 Officer Hurd testified that, as soon as he hit Reynolds, he

“immediately” put the car in park, jumped out, and did “nothing

else.” Further, he said he jumped out of the car so fast that it was

still rolling from being abruptly put into park. Given Officer Hurd’s

testimony that he took “no intermediate steps between stopping the

car and getting out to render aid” to Reynolds, the court could

reasonably infer from the footage that the state of the lights and

siren when Officer Hurd exited the vehicle immediately after the

accident was the same as it had been during the accident. See In re

Marriage of Yates, 148 P.3d 304, 308 (Colo. App. 2006) (the

inferences drawn from the evidence are the “sole discretion” of the

district court); cf. Maphis v. City of Boulder, 2022 CO 10, ¶ 13 (in a

Trinity hearing, the court affords the plaintiff “the reasonable

inferences from [their] undisputed evidence” (citation omitted)).

7 ¶ 16 The city also argues that other evidence presented at the

hearing favors the city and not Reynolds, noting that (1) Officer

Hurd’s statements in his post-accident interviews were consistent

with his testimony that the lights and siren were on and (2)

Reynolds’ statements about the lights and siren were inconsistent.

These arguments amount to a request for us to re-weigh the

evidence, which we can’t do. It is the district court’s sole

prerogative to determine “the weight, probative force, and

sufficiency of the evidence, as well as the inferences and

conclusions to be drawn therefrom.” Yates, 148 P.3d at 308.

¶ 17 Because the record supports the court’s conclusion that

Officer Hurd’s lights and siren weren’t activated at the time of the

accident, we don’t disturb its finding. See Springer, 13 P.3d at 798.

B. Burden of Proof

¶ 18 The city next contends that the district court erred by

impermissibly shifting the burden of proof to the city to show that

the lights and siren had been activated. We disagree.

¶ 19 In its order, the district court correctly articulated that

Reynolds bore the burden to demonstrate that the city waived

immunity. As discussed above, the court relied heavily on Officer

8 Hurd’s bodycam footage to conclude that the lights and siren hadn’t

been activated when he went through the intersection. And after

discussing the bodycam footage, the court noted that Officer Hurd

(1) made “no contemporaneous statements” that the lights and

siren were on at the time of the accident but (2) said he was using

or toggling the emergency signals during his post-accident

interviews. We don’t perceive these comments as burden-shifting.

Rather, we conclude that the court merely acknowledged the timing

of Officer Hurd’s statements and weighed that evidence accordingly.

IV. Disposition

¶ 20 The order is affirmed, and the case is remanded to the district

court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

JUDGE TOW and JUDGE GRAHAM concur.