Background
Donna Boreck and her husband, Dean Stansbury, purchased a home in Jefferson County in 1983. In 2017, Boreck quitclaimed the property to Stansbury, making him the sole record owner. In 2021, Stansbury separately challenged the county assessor’s property valuation through administrative channels; that appeal was ultimately affirmed by a prior division of the Court of Appeals.
In October 2023, Boreck and Stansbury jointly filed a new complaint in Jefferson County District Court alleging that the county’s Board of Equalization had fraudulently overvalued their property, creating a “false public record” that caused them to overpay property taxes. They sought $300,000 in damages, including $2,485 for alleged overpayments from 1983 to 2022. Boreck proceeded pro se on appeal after Stansbury separately appealed the same district court order.
Jefferson County moved to dismiss on three grounds: (1) sovereign immunity under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (CGIA) barred the claims; (2) Boreck and Stansbury failed to exhaust statutory remedies; and (3) Boreck lacked standing as a non-record owner. The district court granted dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to failure to comply with the CGIA’s notice requirements, and also awarded the county attorney fees under section 13-17-201, C.R.S. 2025.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on all grounds. First, it held that Boreck lacked standing to challenge tax valuations for any period after 2017, because Colorado law restricts the right to protest and appeal property tax assessments to record owners of the property. Boreck’s argument that the property was marital property under the Uniform Marriage and Dissolution Act did not confer standing, as the specific statutory provisions governing tax valuation appeals take precedence over general marital property principles.
To the extent Boreck had arguable standing for the period when she was a record owner (1983–2017), her claims still failed under the CGIA. The court rejected her contention that the CGIA applies only to physical injury claims, holding instead that sovereign immunity broadly bars “all claims for injury that lie in tort or could lie in tort.” Because Boreck’s fraud and negligence allegations sounded in tort, she was required to demonstrate both a waiver of immunity and timely notice of her claims under section 24-10-109(1). She did neither, depriving the district court of subject matter jurisdiction.
The court also affirmed the trial court’s award of attorney fees to the county under section 13-17-201, which mandates a fee award to defendants when an action is dismissed under C.R.C.P. 12(b). The court further found the county entitled to appellate attorney fees and remanded to the district court to determine the reasonable amount of those fees.
Key Takeaways
- Only the record owner of a property has standing to protest or appeal a property tax valuation in Colorado; a non-titled spouse cannot invoke marital property principles to overcome this statutory limitation.
- The CGIA’s sovereign immunity bar extends to all claims sounding in tort against public entities — including allegations of fraudulent or negligent property overvaluation — and is not limited to physical injury or property damage claims.
- Failure to file the CGIA’s mandatory written notice of claim within 182 days of discovering the alleged injury is a jurisdictional defect that requires dismissal, regardless of the merits of the underlying claim.
- A dismissal under C.R.C.P. 12(b) triggers a mandatory attorney fee award for the defendant under section 13-17-201, including fees incurred on appeal.
Why It Matters
This unpublished decision reinforces two significant barriers facing Colorado plaintiffs who bring tort-based challenges against county governments over property tax assessments. Courts will strictly enforce both the CGIA’s notice requirement and the record-ownership limitation on who may protest a tax valuation — and litigants who bypass the established administrative process in favor of direct court action face dismissal and a mandatory fee award.
For practitioners advising property owners in Colorado, the case is a cautionary reminder to verify record title before filing tax-related claims and to comply scrupulously with CGIA notice deadlines. The decision also signals that creative reframing of valuation disputes as fraud or false-records claims will not avoid sovereign immunity where the underlying grievance is, at its core, a tax assessment challenge.