Chapter 6 - § 6.3 • WHO MUST BE NAMED

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 6.3 • WHO MUST BE NAMED

Any party to the action below who will be affected by the result of the appellate decision must be before the court; this rule generally is held to be a fundamental question of jurisdiction. See, e.g., Anglum v. USAA Cas. Ins. Co., 166 P.3d 191, 192 (Colo. App. 2007).

An appellate court may suspend literal compliance with this requirement in some circumstances, in particular "[i]f the prevailing party could not be misled as to the intention to appeal or as to the judgment from which the appeal is to be taken, [in which case] any technical defect in the notice of appeal is harmless." Widener v. Dist. Court, 615 P.2d 33, 34 (Colo. 1980). In several cases, appellate courts have found a failure to list the name of a particular party in the notice of appeal to be harmless or have ordered an amended notice of appeal. For example, where the relevant party was not listed in the notice of appeal but signed the notice, Serv. Oil Co. v. Rhodus, 500 P.2d 807, 809-10 (Colo. 1972) (citing C.A.R. 2), overruled in part on other grounds, Hartley v. City of Colo. Springs, 764 P.2d 1216 (Colo. 1988); where the relevant party identified itself in the case caption on appeal only as the "defendant," but where "the prevailing party [at trial] could not be misled as to the intention to appeal . . . [thus making] any technical defect in the notice of appeal . . . harmless," Prefer v. PharmNetRx, LLC, 18 P.3d 844, 848 (Colo. App. 2000); or where the notice of appeal failed to list a third party and its attorneys in the caption, but where the text of the notice named those parties, listed the claims against them, certified that a copy of the notice of appeal was sent to their attorneys, and where those parties submitted...