Background
Alejandra Arteaga-Torres and Maria Alcazar were coworkers who had a brief encounter in a supply closet. Alcazar reported that Arteaga-Torres had assaulted her, prompting Alcazar to seek a civil protection order. A court granted a temporary protection order (TPO), which forced Arteaga-Torres out of her workplace temporarily and disrupted her professional relationships. The court ultimately denied Alcazar’s request for a permanent protection order.
Arteaga-Torres then filed suit against Alcazar for malicious prosecution and abuse of process. After answering the complaint, Alcazar’s counsel went entirely silent for eight months — failing to serve initial disclosures, ignoring repeated communications from opposing counsel, and disregarding multiple court orders to show cause. In November 2024, the district court entered a clerk’s default against Alcazar. Alcazar did not move to set aside the default until February 2025, more than three months later, citing her counsel’s belief that disclosures had been served, an office move, loss of paralegals, and a recent hospitalization.
The district court denied the motion to set aside the default, finding no excusable neglect and noting prejudice to Arteaga-Torres. Following a damages hearing, the court awarded Arteaga-Torres $5,000 in legal fees incurred defending the protection order proceedings and $20,000 in noneconomic damages for stress, sleep deprivation, physical symptoms, and harm to her professional relationships — a total judgment of $25,000 plus prejudgment interest.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full. On the motion to set aside the default, the court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding no excusable neglect. None of Alcazar’s offered explanations — counsel’s mistaken belief that disclosures had been served, an office move, staff turnover, or a recent hospitalization — could excuse eight months of total inaction in the face of repeated notices from opposing counsel and multiple court orders. The court emphasized that attorney carelessness, poor office procedures, and blaming staff are categorically insufficient under Colorado law, and that counsel’s medical issues were not raised in the motion and were described as a recent development at a hearing held four months after the default was entered.
The court also rejected Alcazar’s argument that the district court acted inconsistently by granting Arteaga-Torres’s motion to set aside a brief dismissal while denying Alcazar’s motion. The court found the circumstances materially different: Arteaga-Torres had actively litigated the case, sought a timely extension of time when she fell behind, and moved to set aside the dismissal the very next day. Alcazar’s counsel, by contrast, had taken no action in the case for more than eight months and then waited three more months to seek relief from the default.
On damages, the court reviewed the $20,000 noneconomic award for clear error and affirmed. Arteaga-Torres’s testimony — describing disrupted professional relationships, severe sleep loss, headaches, inability to eat, and over fifty pounds of weight loss more than a year after the protection order case ended — provided sufficient record support. The court rejected Alcazar’s argument that the absence of medical treatment or medication made the award excessive, noting that such treatment is not a prerequisite for noneconomic damages under Colorado law.
Key Takeaways
- Under Colorado law, excusable neglect requires circumstances that would cause a reasonably careful person to neglect a duty; common carelessness, poor office procedures, staff turnover, and an office move do not qualify, even when combined.
- An attorney’s health issues may support setting aside a default only if they were a “significant contributing cause” for the neglect — a showing that must appear in the motion and be supported by the record, not raised for the first time at a hearing four months after the default.
- A court may deny a motion to set aside a default on any one of the three Buckmiller factors (excusable neglect, meritorious defense, equity); here both the neglect and equity factors independently supported denial.
- Noneconomic damages for malicious prosecution — including stress, sleep deprivation, and harm to professional relationships — do not require proof of medical treatment or medication to be compensable under § 13-21-102.5(2)(b), C.R.S.
- Arguments not raised in the district court, including challenges to the propriety of the default sanction itself, are forfeited on appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision is a cautionary tale for litigants and their counsel about the consequences of disengaging from active litigation. The court’s methodical rejection of every excuse Alcazar’s counsel offered — office move, staff loss, a mistaken belief about disclosures, and a late-raised hospitalization — underscores how demanding Colorado’s excusable neglect standard is in practice. Attorneys managing high caseloads, undergoing office transitions, or dealing with staffing changes cannot point to those circumstances as a shield against default; the obligation to monitor court orders and respond to opposing counsel remains squarely on the attorney of record.
The damages ruling is also notable for plaintiffs pursuing malicious prosecution claims. The court affirmed a $20,000 noneconomic award based entirely on lay testimony about stress symptoms, without any medical records, treatment history, or expert testimony. For victims of wrongful litigation who suffer real but undocumented harm, this decision reinforces that credible personal testimony about emotional distress, lost sleep, and disrupted work life can support a meaningful damages award in Colorado courts.