Chapter 2 - § 2.9 • CIVIL ACCESS PILOT PROJECT

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 2.9 • CIVIL ACCESS PILOT PROJECT

Effective January 1, 2012, new rules of civil procedure went into effect for certain business civil cases filed on and after that date in the following counties: Jefferson, Gilpin, Denver, Adams, and Arapahoe. Those rules were known as the Civil Access Pilot Project (CAPP). CAPP was an experiment to determine whether rules controlling the discovery process would reduce the expense of civil litigation in certain business cases.¹²⁶ CAPP proved to be short lived. Cases filed on and after July 1, 2015 throughout the state are now subject to the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure.¹²⁷

Generally, the CAPP rules were meant to speed up civil litigation and limit discovery to what is "proportional" to the case given the complexity and the importance of the issues at stake.¹²⁸ Continuances and extensions were strongly disfavored.¹²⁹ The CAPP rules generally required early disclosures.¹³⁰ Depositions of expert witnesses were not allowed.¹³¹ The 2015 amendments to the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure incorporated some, but not all of the unique features of CAPP.

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Notes:

^[126] Directive of Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael L. Bender, Chief Justice Directive 11-02 (Oct. 7, 2011).

^[127] Chief Justice Directive 11-02, Civil Access Pilot Program (reenacted and amended Nov. 2015).

^[128] Pilot Project Rule 1.3.

^[129] Pilot Project Rule 1.4.

^[130] Pilot Project Rule 3.

^[131] Pilot Project Rule 10.1(d).