Settle v. Valley Grown

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: July 16, 2026
• Docket: 25CA1898
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25CA1898 Settle v Valley Grown 07-16-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA1898 Mesa County District Court No. 22CV60 Honorable Brian J. Flynn, Judge

Edward Jason Settle,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

Valley Grown Nursery, LLC; Katherine Anne Adolf; and Delmar Lee Adolf,

Defendants-Appellees.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED AND CASE REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division VII Opinion by JUDGE PAWAR Sullivan and Meirink, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced July 16, 2026

Edward Jason Settle, Pro Se

Hoskin Farina & Kampf, P.C., David A. Price, Drew Kraniak, Grand Junction, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees ¶1 Plaintiff, Edward Jason Settle, appeals the district court’s

dismissal of his action against his former employers and defendants

Valley Grown Nursery, LLC; Katherine Anne Adolf; and Delmar Lee

Adolf. We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 The Adolfs hired Settle, their nephew, to work at their plant

nursery. They eventually fired him, and Settle filed this action

against defendants based on his termination and various incidents

that allegedly occurred while he worked at the nursery.

¶3 Initially, the district court dismissed the complaint under

C.R.C.P. 4(m) based on the determination that Settle had failed to

timely serve the complaint on defendants. Fourteen days later, the

court sua sponte vacated its dismissal, explaining that its division

clerk had found a previously overlooked email from a month earlier

with return of service documents attached.

¶4 Defendants then moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to

state a claim under C.R.C.P. 12(b)(5). Instead of responding to that

motion, Settle moved to supplement his complaint under C.R.C.P.

15(d), and then later to amend his complaint under C.R.C.P. 15(a).

1 ¶5 The district court ultimately rejected both his supplemental

pleading and amended complaint and granted defendants’ motion

to dismiss the original complaint.

¶6 Settle appeals. As we understand it, he argues that the

district court erred by (1) vacating the initial dismissal; (2) rejecting

his amended complaint and supplemental pleading; (3) dismissing

the original complaint; (4) making various factual findings that were

unsupported by the record; and (5) failing to rule that defendants

were in default. We conclude that none of these arguments warrant

relief.

II. Vacating the Initial Dismissal

¶7 The district court vacated the initial dismissal under C.R.C.P.

60(a), which allows a court to sua sponte correct clerical mistakes

in a judgment arising from oversight or omission. Settle argues

that vacating the dismissal was outside the scope of C.R.C.P. 60(a)

because the court’s action went beyond the mere correction of a

clerical mistake — it was, he argues, a wholesale reversal of the

judgment. According to Settle, because the vacation was

unauthorized by the civil rules, the court lacked jurisdiction to do

it.

2 ¶8 What Settle overlooks, however, is that jurisdiction is not the

same as subject matter jurisdiction. See Wood v. People, 255 P.3d

1136, 1140 (Colo. 2011). Subject matter jurisdiction is the court’s

authority to deal with an entire class of cases. In re Marriage of

Stroud, 631 P.2d 168, 170 (Colo. 1981). A court has subject matter

jurisdiction if it “has been empowered to entertain the type of case

before it by the sovereign from which the court derives its

authority.” Wood, 255 P.3d at 1140.

¶9 In contrast, the general term “jurisdiction” simply means the

court’s authority to take a particular action; — authority that can

come from rule, statute, or case law. See id. Thus, a statute or rule

that sets limits on the court’s authority to act in certain

circumstances delineates the court’s jurisdiction, but it does not

necessarily implicate the court’s subject matter jurisdiction. See id.

¶ 10 There is no question that the district court had subject matter

jurisdiction — it had authority derived from the sovereign that

created it to entertain Settle’s claims. See Colo. Const. art. VI,

§ 9(1) (“The district courts shall be trial courts of record with

general jurisdiction, and shall have original jurisdiction in all civil,

probate, and criminal cases,” subject to exceptions not applicable

3 here.). Therefore, we consider Settle’s argument that the court

acted outside the scope of its authority under the civil rules as an

argument that it lacked jurisdiction, not subject matter jurisdiction.

See Stroud, 631 P.2d at 170-71 (where a statute gave the court

authority to revoke or modify an order under certain circumstances,

a party’s argument that the court modified an order in violation of

that statute did not implicate the court’s subject matter

jurisdiction); In re Marriage of McKendry, 735 P.2d 908, 909 (Colo.

App. 1986) (holding that the court’s amendment of a final judgment

in violation of C.R.C.P. 60 “constituted error,” not that the court

acted without subject matter jurisdiction).

¶ 11 Whereas a lack of subject matter jurisdiction requires reversal,

Olson v. Hillside Cmty. Church SBC, 124 P.3d 874, 878 (Colo. App.

2005), all other errors in civil cases are reversible only if the

complaining party can show prejudice to their substantial rights,

Poudre Valley Rural Elec. Ass’n. v. City of Loveland, 807 P.2d 547,

557 (Colo. 1991); accord C.R.C.P. 61; C.A.R. 35(c). And Settle

cannot show prejudice here. The district court’s vacation of its

initial dismissal inured entirely to Settle’s benefit — it reinstated his

complaint and allowed him to litigate it.

4 ¶ 12 We therefore conclude that even if Settle is correct that the

district court vacated the initial dismissal in violation of the civil

rules, that alleged error could not have prejudiced him and does not

require reversal.

III. Motion to Amend the Complaint

¶ 13 Settle next presents various arguments about why the district

court should have granted his motion to amend the complaint and

accepted his amended complaint. We will assume for the purpose

of our analysis that he did not need the court’s permission to

amend the complaint and was entitled to do so as a matter of

course under C.R.C.P. 15(a). Even with that assumption in place,

we conclude that Settle is not entitled to relief.

¶ 14 The district court ruled that the entirety of Settle’s amended

complaint was “subject to a motion to strike under C.R.C.P. 12(f).”1

This provision empowers a court to sua sponte “order any

redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter stricken

from” a pleading or motion. C.R.C.P. 12(f).

1 The court’s order explicitly adopted defendants’ argument in

response to Settle’s motion to amend that the entirety of the amended complaint was subject to being stricken under C.R.C.P. 12(f).

5 ¶ 15 Settle’s only challenge to the court’s C.R.C.P. 12(f)

determination is that the rule’s “plain language only allows matters

to be struck ‘from’ an amendment” and does not allow striking the

entire amendment. Settle is mistaken: “Under C.R.C.P. 12(f), a

court may strike a responsive pleading,” not just part of one.

Wagner v. Grange Ins. Ass’n, 166 P.3d 304, 308 (Colo. App. 2007).

¶ 16 Settle presents no further argument about why the court erred

by determining that his entire amended complaint was subject to a

motion to strike. Therefore, we are left with the conclusion that the

court’s determination was proper. And because it was proper, all of

Settle’s challenges to the court’s amended complaint rulings fail.

IV. Motion to Permit Supplemental Pleading

¶ 17 Settle next argues that the district court erred by rejecting his

supplemental pleading that purported to assert a defamation claim

based on statements made after he filed the original complaint. We

review the court’s ruling for an abuse of discretion. See Eagle River

Mobile Home Park, Ltd v. Dist. Ct., 647 P.2d 660, 662 n.4 (Colo.

1982). A court abuses its discretion if its ruling misapprehends the

law or is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. Francis v.

6 Aspen Mountain Condo. Ass’n., Inc., 2017 COA 19, ¶ 25. We

perceive no abuse of discretion here.

¶ 18 The district court rejected Settle’s supplemental pleading in its

order dismissing the original complaint and rejecting the amended

complaint. Although the court did not explicitly address the

supplemental pleading, there is no dispute that the court implicitly

rejected it. And our review of the court’s order reveals findings,

unchallenged on appeal, that support this implicit rejection.

¶ 19 Courts have a liberal policy of allowing supplemental pleadings

and should not impose arbitrary restrictions on requests to file

them. Eagle River, 647 P.2d at 662 n.4. That said, courts can

reject supplemental pleadings for reasons such as undue delay, bad

faith or dilatory motive by the movant, repeated failure to cure

deficiencies in previous amendments or supplements, undue

prejudice to the opposing party, and futility. Id. at 663.

¶ 20 In its order here, the district court found that Settle’s filings,

taken together, “show[ed] a pattern of conduct designed to abuse

the judicial process by driving up the cost to defend this suit

without advancing any cognizable legal claim. In doing so, he also

has improperly used the [c]ourt’s time and resources and that of

7 [d]efendants to their great prejudice.” Put simply, the court found

that Settle’s filings, presumably including his supplemental

pleading, were filed in bad faith with a dilatory motive and had

unduly prejudiced defendants. In arguing for relief from the court’s

supplemental pleading ruling, Settle does not challenge these

findings.2 And because these findings establish a proper and

reasonable ground on which to have rejected the supplemental

pleading, we must conclude that the district court did not abuse its

discretion by doing just that. See Marin Metro. Dist. v. Landmark

Towers Ass’n, 2014 COA 40, ¶ 32 (perceiving no abuse of discretion

because evidence supported the court’s final determination).

2 In a separate section of his brief not pertaining to the

supplemental pleading ruling, Settle argues that some of these findings were clearly erroneous. But he does not explain how these allegedly erroneous factual findings affected the court’s ultimate rulings. Although we liberally construe filings from pro se parties, those parties are ultimately subject to the same rules as represented ones. Cornelius v. River Ridge Ranch Landowners Ass’n, 202 P.3d 564, 573 (Colo. 2009). C.A.R. subsections 28(a)(7)(B) and (a)(8) require the appellant to clearly explain what relief is sought based on the alleged errors. It is not our function to (1) speculate about what a party’s argument might be or (2) make or develop a party’s argument when the party has not done so themselves. Gravina Siding & Windows Co. v. Gravina, 2022 COA 50, ¶ 71.

8 V. Dismissal of the Original Complaint

¶ 21 Settle also argues that the court erred by dismissing his

original complaint for failure to state a claim under C.R.C.P.

12(b)(5). Crucially, Settle does not argue that the complaint did

state a claim for relief. Instead, he presents a series of collateral

arguments that ultimately fail.

¶ 22 First, he argues that whether the original complaint did or did

not state a claim was moot because the original complaint was

supplanted by his amended complaint. But as explained above, the

court rejected his amended complaint, thereby leaving his original

complaint in place as the operative pleading.

¶ 23 Second, he makes a similar argument about the supplemental

pleading. He points out that dismissing the original complaint

should not have resulted in the dismissal of the entire action

because the supplemental pleading properly asserted a separate

claim. But the district court rejected the supplemental pleading,

and we have already ruled against Settle’s appellate challenge to

that rejection.

¶ 24 Third, Settle argues that he should have been given leave to

cure any deficiencies in his original complaint before the district

9 court dismissed it because those deficiencies were “to the form and

not the substance of the claims.” Problematically, Settle neither

identifies those deficiencies nor explains why they were to form and

not substance. We do not address this contention because it is

conclusory and unsupported by substantial argument. See Barnett

v. Elite Props. of Am., Inc., 252 P.3d 14, 19 (Colo. App. 2010)

(declining to review conclusory arguments presented without

substantial argument or development).

VI. Challenges to Various Factual Findings

¶ 25 Settle argues that at least three of the court’s factual findings

in its order dismissing the original complaint were unsupported by

the record. But as mentioned above, he does not say anything

about how these allegedly erroneous factual findings affected the

court’s ultimate rulings on any of his motions or pleadings.

Consequently, this argument is also undeveloped, and we will not

address it. See Gravina Siding & Windows Co. v. Gravina, 2022

COA 50, ¶ 71.

VII. Defendants Are Not in Default

¶ 26 Settle finally argues that defendants have defaulted by failing

to timely respond to his amended complaint. Because the district

10 court rejected the amended complaint, defendants were not obliged

to respond to it.

VIII. Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 27 Defendants request their appellate attorney fees under section

13-17-201(1), C.R.S. 2025, which authorizes appellate fees for the

successful appellate defense of a C.R.C.P. 12(b) dismissal of claims

allegedly “occasioned by the tort” of another. Defendants

adequately presented the legal and factual basis for this request in

their answer brief. And because defendants have successfully

defended the district court’s C.R.C.P. 12(b) dismissal of the original

complaint, they are entitled to their reasonable appellate attorney

fees.

IX. Disposition

¶ 28 The judgment is affirmed, and the case is remanded to the

district court with directions to award defendants their reasonable

attorney fees incurred on appeal.

JUDGE SULLIVAN and JUDGE MEIRINK concur.