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COLORADO RESEARCH
Colorado Case Law Search: Find Colorado Court of Appeals Opinions and Supreme Court Decisions in Plain English
Ask a Colorado question the way you would ask a colleague and get back decisions of the Colorado Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, with the citation you actually file and the holding in plain language.
Last updated August 2026 · US firms · Research tool, not legal advice
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Plain-English answer
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- Question
- Short answer
- Authorities
Casesearch shows you the sources. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before you rely on them.
The short answer
Colorado case law search means finding the decisions of the Colorado Supreme Court and the Colorado Court of Appeals that control your issue. The structural fact that surprises researchers from other states is that a division of the Colorado Court of Appeals does not bind the next division. The court has twenty-two judges who sit in rotating three-judge divisions, and it is not authorized to sit en banc, so there is no mechanism for the court to speak with one voice. A published opinion binds every trial court in Colorado, but the division that hears the same question next year is free to disagree, and sometimes does. Only the Colorado Supreme Court can settle the conflict.
22
judges on the Colorado Court of Appeals, sitting in three-judge divisions
No en banc
the Court of Appeals is not authorized to sit en banc, so one division does not bind another
4 months
how long three judges sit together as a division before assignments rotate
Jan 1, 2012
opinions announced on or after this date carry a public domain citation such as 2012 COA 35
Side by side
The Colorado court structure and what actually binds your court
Colorado is unusual in that the same court can hold both ways on the same question without either opinion being wrong. Published Court of Appeals opinions bind the trial courts below, but they do not bind the next division of the Court of Appeals. Reading a Colorado result means checking publication status first, then checking whether another division has gone the other way.
| Court | What it decides | How it is cited | Precedential weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado Supreme Court | Discretionary review, water appeals, and original jurisdiction matters, with seven justices serving ten-year terms | 2019 CO 45, and P.3d | Binding on every court in Colorado |
| Court of Appeals (published opinion) | Appeals from the district courts and review of many state agency decisions, heard by a rotating three-judge division | 2023 COA 106, and P.3d | Binding on all Colorado trial courts, but not on another division |
| Court of Appeals (unpublished opinion) | The same appeals, resolved without publication under C.A.R. 35(e) | Case name, docket number, and date, marked unpublished, with no public domain citation | No precedential value, and citable to the Court of Appeals only under C.A.R. 35(f) |
| Water courts (seven divisions) | Water rights matters under the Water Right Determination and Administration Act of 1969, one court per major river basin | Decrees and rulings, not a precedential reporter series | Appeals go straight to the Supreme Court, skipping the Court of Appeals |
| District courts | Felonies, larger civil claims, domestic relations, probate, and appeals from county court | Not published as precedent | No precedential value |
| County courts | Misdemeanors, traffic offenses, small claims, evictions, and civil claims under the statutory cap | Not published as precedent | No precedential value |
| Tenth Circuit and the District of Colorado | Federal questions and diversity cases applying Colorado law | F.4th, F. Supp. 3d | Persuasive only in state court on questions of Colorado law |
Casesearch is a research accelerator, not legal advice. Confirm the current citation, publication status, and subsequent history before you file.
How do I search Colorado case law?
Describe the issue as a full question rather than a keyword string, then read the results with two Colorado filters in mind. First, check whether the decision was selected for official publication, because an unpublished Colorado Court of Appeals opinion has no value as precedent and cannot be cited to that court except in a few narrow situations. The quickest tell is the citation itself: published opinions announced on or after January 1, 2012 carry a public domain citation such as 2023 COA 106, and unpublished opinions are never assigned one.
Second, and this is the step researchers trained in other states skip, do not stop at the first published opinion that answers your question. Colorado divisions are free to disagree with each other, so a single favorable opinion tells you what one three-judge division thought, not what the Colorado Court of Appeals as an institution has settled. Search for the contrary line as deliberately as you searched for the helpful one. If you find a genuine split and the Supreme Court has not resolved it, that is your answer, and it is a materially different answer from "the law is settled in our favor."
After that the usual checks apply. Confirm the Supreme Court has not granted certiorari since the opinion issued, and look at the citation for a modification or withdrawal marker, which Colorado builds directly into the cite rather than hiding in subsequent history.
Ask in a full sentence
Include the C.R.S. section, the parties, and the procedural posture so the search has real facts to match.
Check publication status
Only published opinions are precedent, and only published opinions get a public domain citation.
Look for the contrary division
Another division may have decided the same question the other way, and neither opinion controls the other.
Check for certiorari
A grant of certiorari by the Colorado Supreme Court changes what the opinion is worth.
Are Colorado Court of Appeals decisions binding?
On the trial courts, yes. A published Colorado Court of Appeals opinion must be followed by every district and county court in the state. On the Court of Appeals itself, no. The Colorado Judicial Branch says so in its own protocols for the court: "the court is not authorized to sit en banc," and "each division may view the law differently and may issue a decision that conflicts with an earlier decision by another division." That is not a quirk of practice, it is the published position of the court about itself.
The reason sits in the court's structure. A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals is not a permanent geographic unit the way it is in Washington or Ohio. It is three of the court's twenty-two judges who serve together for four months and are then reassigned, with the rotation designed so that every judge sits with every other judge over roughly two and a half to three years. There is no standing body that could overrule a prior division, and no en banc procedure through which the full court could speak. So each new division decides the case in light of its own reading of the authorities.
The practical consequence for research is that conflicting published Colorado opinions are a normal condition rather than an anomaly, and finding one does not mean you have found the rule. Colorado takes the problem seriously enough that it routed an entire subject matter around the court: appeals from the seven water courts go directly to the Colorado Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeals altogether, precisely to avoid conflicting appellate opinions in an area where certainty about water rights matters more than the usual appellate filtering. Everywhere else, resolving a division split is one of the main reasons the Supreme Court grants certiorari.
Binding downward
Published opinions must be followed by every Colorado district and county court.
Not binding sideways
A division may decide the same question differently from an earlier division.
No en banc mechanism
The Court of Appeals cannot convene as a full court to resolve its own splits.
Splits go up
Only the Colorado Supreme Court can settle a conflict between divisions.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Colorado?
To the Court of Appeals, almost never. Under C.A.R. 35(f), an opinion not selected for official publication may be cited to the Colorado Court of Appeals only to explain the case history, to identify the law of the case, or to assert issue preclusion or claim preclusion. No other citation of an unpublished opinion is permitted in proceedings before that court, and the Colorado Supreme Court has been direct that an unpublished decision has no value as precedent.
Trial courts are a different matter, and this is the distinction most summaries get wrong. C.A.R. 35(f) governs briefs filed with and arguments presented to the Court of Appeals. It does not bar a party from citing an unpublished decision to a district or county court, and a division of the Court of Appeals said as much in Patterson v. James, 454 P.3d 345 (Colo. App. 2018). A trial judge may consider such an opinion for whatever persuasive value it has, and is under no obligation to give it any, provided every party gets a copy.
Access has changed even though the citation rule has not. In March 2024 the Colorado Judicial Branch put unpublished Court of Appeals opinions into its public research database, going beyond what the Justice Gregory Hobbs Public Access to Case Law Act, House Bill 22-1091, codified at C.R.S. 13-2-122, actually required. So unpublished Colorado opinions that were genuinely hard to obtain a few years ago are now searchable by anyone. Being able to find one is not the same as being able to use it, and the gap between those two things is exactly where a careless brief gets into trouble. Our guide on <a href="/blog/can-you-cite-an-unpublished-opinion">when you can cite an unpublished opinion</a> compares the federal rule and other states, and <a href="/blog/published-vs-unpublished-opinions">published versus unpublished opinions</a> explains why courts designate them at all.
No precedential value
An unpublished Colorado opinion is not authority, even when you are allowed to cite it.
Three narrow exceptions
Case history, law of the case, and issue or claim preclusion, under C.A.R. 35(f).
Trial courts are not covered
Patterson v. James, 454 P.3d 345 (Colo. App. 2018), leaves persuasive use in the district court open.
Searchable since March 2024
The judicial branch database now includes unpublished opinions, which does not make them citable.
How do I cite a Colorado case?
Colorado runs a public domain citation format alongside the Pacific Reporter, and it carries more information than most researchers realize. Chief Justice Directive 12-01, signed on January 3, 2012, provides that beginning January 1, 2012 every published opinion is assigned a citation made of the year, the court designator, and a consecutive number: 2012 CO 1 for the first published Colorado Supreme Court opinion of that year, 2012 COA 1 for the first from the Court of Appeals. Pinpoints run to numbered paragraphs rather than pages, so a cite reads Jones v. Smith, 2012 COA 35, paragraphs 44 to 45.
Two details are worth knowing because they are unusual. First, the format is permitted but not required, and the directive is explicit that a parallel citation to the other format is not required either. You can cite Colorado opinions purely in P.3d, purely in the public domain format, or both. That is a softer rule than Illinois or Ohio impose, so do not assume a Colorado brief is defective because it cites only the reporter.
Second, and far more useful, Colorado encodes subsequent history into the citation itself. An opinion that is modified, revised, or substantively amended keeps its original number with an M appended, so a modified opinion is 2012 CO 1M, and a second modification is 2012 CO 1M-2. An opinion that is withdrawn or vacated gets a W, as in 2012 COA 1W, and the withdrawn opinion is removed from the Supreme Court's electronic database entirely. A letter at the end of a Colorado citation is therefore a warning you can read without running a citator, which is rare. Our walkthrough on <a href="/blog/how-to-read-a-legal-citation">how to read a legal citation</a> covers reporters, pinpoints, and parentheticals in more depth.
Year, court, number
2019 CO 45 for the Supreme Court, 2023 COA 106 for the Court of Appeals.
Paragraphs, not pages
Every published opinion is numbered by paragraph, continuing through concurrences and dissents.
Optional, not mandatory
CJD 12-01 permits the format and does not require a parallel citation either way.
M and W tell you something
M means the opinion was modified, W means it was withdrawn or vacated.
Where can I find Colorado Court of Appeals opinions online?
The official opinions are free, and Colorado is genuinely better at this than most states. The judicial branch publishes Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions as they are announced, and since March 2024 its research database has included unpublished Court of Appeals opinions as well, an expansion that went past what the Hobbs Act required. Google Scholar and CourtListener carry the same decisions with stronger full text search than the official site offers, and the Colorado Revised Statutes are free from the General Assembly.
What none of them give you is a citator, a plain-language holding, or a signal that the opinion has been modified, withdrawn, or contradicted by another division. That last gap is the specifically Colorado-shaped one. A free database will serve you a published opinion that squarely supports your position and say nothing about the division that reached the opposite conclusion eighteen months later, and in a state with no en banc procedure, that second opinion is not an error to be ignored. The enterprise platforms close the gap with editorial treatment flags and the KeyCite and Shepard's citators, at a per seat price a three-lawyer firm in Denver or Grand Junction has a hard time justifying. A self-serve tool that returns the cited holding, names the deciding court, and flags subsequent treatment covers the everyday work for a fraction of that. We lay out the category in the <a href="/legal-research-software">legal research software</a> guide and the real numbers in the <a href="/legal-research-software-pricing">legal research software pricing</a> breakdown.
One habit closes most of the remaining risk. Whatever tool you use, run the treatment check as a separate step rather than assuming the search surfaced it, and run it again before you file rather than only when you first found the case. Colorado opinions can be modified or withdrawn in the weeks between research and filing, and because the citation itself changes when that happens, the check is unusually cheap here. Our walkthrough on <a href="/blog/how-to-check-if-a-case-is-still-good-law">checking whether a case is still good law</a> covers what the signals actually mean.
Frequently asked
Questions buyers ask about colorado case law search
How do I search Colorado case law?
Describe your issue as a full question and search decisions of the Colorado Supreme Court and the Colorado Court of Appeals. Check whether each result was selected for publication, since unpublished opinions are not precedent, and then look specifically for a contrary published opinion from a different division, because Colorado divisions do not bind one another.
Are Colorado Court of Appeals decisions binding?
On trial courts, yes: a published opinion must be followed by every Colorado district and county court. On the Court of Appeals itself, no. The court is not authorized to sit en banc, and its own protocols state that each division may view the law differently and may issue a decision conflicting with an earlier division. Only the Colorado Supreme Court resolves such a split.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion in Colorado?
To the Court of Appeals, only to explain case history, identify the law of the case, or assert issue or claim preclusion, under C.A.R. 35(f). That rule governs proceedings before the Court of Appeals, so citing an unpublished decision to a district court for persuasive value is not barred, as Patterson v. James, 454 P.3d 345 (Colo. App. 2018), recognized. It is never precedent.
How many judges are on the Colorado Court of Appeals?
Twenty-two, including the Chief Judge. They sit in three-judge divisions that serve together for four months before assignments rotate, with the rotation designed so each judge sits with every other judge within about two and a half to three years. The Colorado Supreme Court has seven justices serving ten-year terms.
How do I cite a Colorado case?
Colorado opinions announced on or after January 1, 2012 carry a public domain citation under Chief Justice Directive 12-01: 2019 CO 45 for the Supreme Court, 2023 COA 106 for the Court of Appeals, with pinpoints to numbered paragraphs. The format is permitted rather than required, and no parallel P.3d citation is required either.
What does an M or W at the end of a Colorado citation mean?
M means the opinion was modified, revised, or substantively amended, so 2012 CO 1M is a modified version of 2012 CO 1, and 2012 CO 1M-2 is the second modification. W means the opinion was withdrawn or vacated, and the withdrawn opinion is removed from the Supreme Court's electronic opinion database.
When does the Colorado Court of Appeals publish an opinion?
Under C.A.R. 35(e), a case should be published when the opinion establishes a new rule of law, alters or modifies an existing rule, or applies an established rule to novel facts; involves a legal issue of continuing public interest; directs attention to shortcomings in existing common law or statutes; or resolves an apparent conflict of authority.
Why do Colorado water cases skip the Court of Appeals?
Appeals from Colorado's seven water courts, created by the Water Right Determination and Administration Act of 1969, go directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. Routing them around the intermediate court avoids the conflicting divisional opinions that are structurally possible in the Court of Appeals, in an area where certainty about water rights is especially valuable.
Keep reading
Federal case law search
Tenth Circuit authority, F.4th, and what binds a federal court in Colorado.
Arizona case law search
Two divisions that are one court by statute, the mirror image of Colorado.
Washington case law search
Also no horizontal stare decisis, but with permanent geographic divisions.
Michigan case law search
Statewide-binding published opinions and a first-out rule between panels.
What decisions are binding in my state
How binding authority works court by court, state by state.
Can you cite an unpublished opinion
The citation rules for unpublished decisions, state by state and federally.
How to read a legal citation
Reporters, pinpoints, parentheticals, and subsequent history.
Check if a case is still good law
The treatment check that catches reversals, withdrawals, and superseding statutes.
Legal research software
The four kinds of research tool and how to choose between them.
Casesearch is a legal research tool, not legal advice. Always read the full opinion and verify citations before relying on them.
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Search Colorado case law in plain English
Ask your Colorado question and read the controlling opinions, whether they were published, and the treatment signal for yourself. A research tool, not legal advice.