Leonard Higdon | Denver Family Law Lawyer

Shtutman v. Dareuskaya (In re Estate of Yudkin), 478 P.3d 732 (Colo. 2021)

When Viacheslav Yudkin died intestate, his ex-wife, Petitioner Svetlana Shtutman, was appointed personal representative of his estate. Respondent Tatsiana Dareuskaya sought Shtutman’s removal, asserting that she (Dareuskaya) should have had priority for that appointment as Yudkin’s common law wife. After many days of trial, the probate court found that although Yudkin and Dareuskaya cohabitated and held themselves out to their community as married, other factors weighed against a finding of common law marriage, including that the couple did not file joint tax returns, own joint property or accounts, or share a last name. The court of appeals reversed the magistrate’s order, concluding that the magistrate abused his discretion by misapplying the test for a common law marriage set out in Colorado v. Lucero, 747 P.2d 660 (Colo. 1987). Shtutman petitioned the Colorado Supreme Court for certiorari review. The Supreme Court concluded the trial court was unclear whether the magistrate found Yudkin and Dareuskaya mutually agreed to enter into a marital relationship. Further, the magistrate’s treatment of certain evidence, such as the fact that the parties maintained separate finances and property, and that Dareuskaya never took Yudkin’s name, may have been appropriate under Lucero, but did not necessarily account for the legal and social changes to marriage acknowledged in In re Marriage of Hogsett & Neale, 2021 CO 1 __ P.3d ___. The Court of Appeals' judgment was reversed and the matter ordered remanded to the probate court to reconsider whether the parties entered into a common law marriage under Hogsett.

Aurora Pub. Schs. v. A.S., 2023 CO 39 (Colo. 2023)

In January 2022, plaintiffs A.S. and her husband B.S. brought a claim under the Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act (CSAAA or “Act”) against a former high school athletic coach and a school district, alleging that the coach sexually abused A.S. between 2001 and 2005 when she was a minor. At the time plaintiffs filed suit, any previously available claims for this alleged abuse was time-barred. The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court’s review was whether the CSAAA was unconstitutionally retrospective to the extent it created a new cause of action for conduct that predated the Act, and for which any previously available claims would be time-barred. The Supreme Court concluded that because the CSAAA created a new cause of action for child sexual abuse, the Act created a new obligation and attached a new disability with respect to past transactions or considerations to the extent it permitted victims to bring claims for which any available cause of action would have been time-barred. Therefore, the CSAAA amounted to unconstitutional retrospective legislation as applied to the plaintiffs’ claim under the Act. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s order granting defendants’ motions to dismiss.

In Re: Marriage of Gwilliam

Case remanded for new trial on relocation. Prevailed at hearing.