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Plaintiff Reply Brief For Cert To Supreme Court - 2.4.21
Plaintiff Reply Brief For Cert To Supreme Court - 2.4.21
v.
I hereby certify that this Reply in Support of Petition for Writ of Certiorari
complies with the requirements of C.A.R. 25, 32 and 53, including the formatting
The undersigned certifies that this Reply in Support of Petition for writ
Certiorari complies with C.A.R. 53(f)(1) because it contains 2075 words and
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................9
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ..........................................................................................11
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases Page(s)
Barber v. Ritter,
196 P.3d 238 (Colo. 2008) ................................................................................8, 9
Federal Statutes
42 U.S.C. § 1396a ......................................................................................................7
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REPLY IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
I. It was Respondents, not Petitioners, who waived their right to contest the
Trial Court’s decision that Petitioners had standing to bring their second
and third claims and this Court should grant the Petition to correct the
Court of Appeals complete failure to address standing with respect to
those claims.
As the Petition for Writ of Certiorari explained, the Court of Appeals
dismissed Petitioners’ entire case by limiting its standing analysis to the first of
Petitioners’ three claims. Cert. Pet. at 9–11. The Court of Appeals, in other words,
failed to address the separate standing questions relating to Petitioners’ second and
third claims. A grant of the Petition is therefore proper to correct this departure from
this failure because “Petitioners never made this argument to the court of appeals”
and thereby “deprived the court of appeals of the opportunity to address the alternate
theories they raise here for the first time.” Opp’n at 12. That is incorrect and
At summary judgment, the district court upheld Petitioners’ right to bring all
three of their claims and separately addressed each of those claims on the merits.
Petitioners did not appeal the trial court’s decision on standing because they
prevailed on standing; only Respondents appealed that issue. With respect to the
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question of standing on appeal, therefore, it was incumbent upon Respondents to
raise and argue those issues they believed justified dismissal of the entire case on
standing grounds. Yet, in their briefing before the Court of Appeals, Respondents
chose not to contest or even address standing with respect to the second and third
claims. Instead, they confined their entire argument to the proposition that standing
did not exist because only the hospitals, not the Petitioners, paid the Hospital
Financing, et al., No. 2019 CA 621 (Nov. 8, 2019). As the heading to their standing
argument makes clear, Respondents’ argument was that “Neither Foundations nor
their members are fee-paying hospitals, and as such they lack standing to pursue
their claims.” Id. at 6; see also id. at 12 (Petitioners lacked standing because they
“have not, and cannot, demonstrate a clear nexus between their status as taxpayers
Given this framing of the issue on appeal, it is not surprising that the parties’
standing arguments focused on Petitioners’ first claim, which dealt with the question
Colorado law. But Petitioners also made it clear to the Court of Appeals that they
had standing on their second and third claims notwithstanding any decision to the
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contrary on their first claim because neither of those two claims concerned payment
revenues and expenditures under TABOR, the single-subject requirement, and the
excess state revenues cap. See, e.g., CF, pp 445–50, ¶¶ 86–141 (alleging violations
of TABOR); CF, pp 451–53, ¶¶ 159–71 (alleging the state kept and spent monies,
Policy and Financing, et al., No. 2019 CA 621 (Dec. 13, 2019). They also explained
it was “undisputed the Individual Plaintiffs are Colorado taxpayers. CF, p 436, ¶ 6–
7; Summ. J. Hearing Tr. 43:7–9 (“The Court: . . . These folks are taxpayers, there’s
not an issue about that, right? Mr. Kuhn: These people are taxpayers.”).” Id.
Even more directly to the point, Petitioners argued to the Court of Appeals
that they “raise claims beyond challenging the lawfulness of the charges. They raise
constitutional claims under TABOR, the single-subject requirement, and the excess
state revenues cap that involve the unconstitutional expenditure of state funds.
regardless of whether they directly pay the charges.” Id. at 6 (emphasis added).
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Tellingly, Respondents never even tried to answer that argument. In their
final brief to the Court of Appeals, they simply returned to their theme that no
standing existed solely on the basis that Petitioners never paid the charge at issue,
As such, if there was any waiver on the question of standing in this case, it
was Respondents who waived their right to contest standing as to Petitioners’ second
and third claims. See Opp’n at 13 (arguing that “a party can waive an issue—even
Charge was a tax not a fee, Petitioners raised two additional constitutional claims.
They alleged for their second claim that SB 17-267 failed to meet the single-subject
requirement of the Colorado Constitution and that, for their third claim, if SB 17-
267 was deemed valid, it improperly transferred a revenue stream from the
Department to an enterprise without the proper reduction in the excess state revenues
cap required by the Colorado Constitution.1 See Cet. Pet. at 9-11. Because both of
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This third claim on the merits is one of first impression, which, as explained in the
Petition, is another reason why this Court should grant the Petition. See Cert. Pet. at
11 (“Given the claim’s importance, not only in this case but with respect to future
bills the General Assembly may choose to enact, it was a departure from the accepted
and usual course of judicial proceedings that the Court of Appeals failed even to
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these claims involve allegations of unconstitutional state spending that directly
taxpayer standing to maintain those claims regardless of whether they directly paid
the charge at issue in their first claim.” Id. at 11. That the Court of Appeals failed
to address the separate standing questions as to claims two and three, therefore, was
error that departed from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings, which
declare: “What is conspicuously absent in the Petition is, again, any citation to the
record revealing that the court of appeals was wrong.” Id. at 11.
That is incorrect and misreads the Petition. As explained therein, the decision
of the Court of Appeals depended upon a determination that Petitioners did not pay
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the Hospital Provider/Healthcare Charge and therefore their status as taxpayers did
of that charge. See Cert. Pet. at 7 (citing Court of Appeals decision, App. A to the
Petition). Yet that decision was contrary to the evidence in the record, to which the
Petition pointed, and federal statutory law applicable to state Medicaid programs, to
As the Petition explained, there never was a dispute about, and it never was
argued otherwise, that the only reason the Hospital Provider/Healthcare Charge
existed in the first instance was to increase the amount of federal funds allocated to
Colorado’s Medicaid program. That is, the charge served and supported the larger
state Medicaid program, it did exist to serve itself. And it could not serve itself,
because the only legal reason why the charge attracted a greater portion of federal
funds was because Colorado had created a state Medicaid program to which general
To explain this point, the Petition cited the record. It pointed to Petitioners’
states that have adopted the program.” Cert. Pet. at 8 (citing Pls.’ Mot. for Summ.
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J., 2, TABOR Found., et al. v. Colo. Dep’t of Health Care Policy &Fin., et al., No.
2015 CV 32305 (July 16, 2018)). That quote also included a citation to the relevant
federal law, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a. Id. And directly on point to the question of nexus,
the Petition further quoted the Statement of Undisputed Material Facts to explain
that “the federal government pays states participating in Medicaid matching funds
equal to a percentage of the total amount spent by a state on its Medicaid program.”
The Court of Appeals never addressed the context in which the Hospital
that ignored the structure of the state Medicaid program of which the charge formed
a part. But the fact remains, and is supported by the record, that the charge at issue
operates to draw down an increased level of federal funding only because Colorado
created a state Medicaid program funded by money allocated from general state
establishes any nexus needed to support Petitioners’ standing for their first claim.
the case by the Court of Appeals, which undermines its entire decision. This Court
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III. The uncertainty in whether and what kind of a “nexus” is required to
establish taxpayer standing in a constitutional challenge to state spending
is sufficient reason for this Court to grant the Petition.
this case regardless of the nexus the Court of Appeals deemed not to exist, Petitioners
pointed to a selection of Colorado Supreme Court cases that support their position,
including Barber v. Ritter, a case that is closely analogous to the instant case on the
facts and that, if applied here, would uphold Petitioners’ standing. See Cert. Pet. at
5–7. Respondents counter by previewing the arguments they will assert should this
Court grant the Petition, citing and discussing case law that, they allege, “put Barber
in context” and support their position that no standing exists in this case. Opp’n at
4–8.
The Petition explained that Barber contradicts the Court of Appeals position
that a “clear nexus” is required to establish taxpayer standing under the facts
established in this case. Cet. Pet. at 7–8. Barber holds instead that both injury-in-
fact and injury to a legally protected interest are met when (1) a taxpayer
Colorado Constitution, such as TABOR. See id. And Respondents appear to agree
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quote Barber.” Opp’n at 8. Thus, instead of putting Barber in context, Respondents
The fact that Respondents were required to spend five pages of their
Opposition Brief detailing the results of cases that are distinguishable on the facts
from the instant case in order to argue that Barber doesn’t actually mean what it
expressly says it means illustrates why this Court should grant the Petition. Barber
is still good law; it has not been overruled and it continues to be relied upon as
standing to bring their first claim, and there is no other case in the history of Colorado
jurisprudence that is more similar to the instant case, the Court of Appeals chose not
to apply it. The current state of the law accordingly is uncertain with respect to the
landmark Barber authority and the requirements for taxpayers to bring constitutional
challenges for claims of unlawful state spending. It is not only appropriate but
necessary for this Court to grant the Petition to resolve that uncertainty.
CONCLUSION
For all of the above reasons and those supplied in the Petition for Writ of
Certiorari, Petitioners respectfully request the Colorado Supreme Court to grant their
Petition.
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Date: February 4, 2021 Respectfully submitted,
Local Counsel
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Certificate of Service
I certify that on this 4th day of February 2021, the foregoing document was
served on the following counsel of record via the Integrated Colorado Courts E-
Filing System:
SEAN R. GALLAGHER
GERALD A. NIEDERMAN
BENNETT L. COHEN
POLSINELLI PC
1401 Lawrence Street, Suite 2300
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 572-9300
sgallagher@polsinelli.com
gniederman@polsinelli.com
bcohen@polsinelli.com
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