Background
Brittany and Ryan Schmidt married in December 2020, had two children, and began dissolution proceedings in June 2023. After a magistrate ordered Ryan to make corresponding payments toward Brittany’s attorney fees whenever he paid his own lawyer, Ryan requested that his counsel withdraw. At the permanent-orders hearing, after Brittany had presented her case, Ryan questioned the fairness of proceeding without counsel. The district court treated his statement as a request for a continuance and denied it.
The district court entered permanent orders addressing parenting time, decision-making responsibility, property and debt, tax matters, maintenance, child support, income, and attorney fees. Ryan’s first appeal was dismissed without prejudice because the attorney-fee award had not been reduced to a sum certain. A magistrate later fixed the award at $8,869, and Ryan appealed both the permanent orders and that post-dissolution fee order.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the permanent orders. It held that denying the continuance was not an abuse of discretion because Ryan could have sought relief earlier, missed two prehearing proceedings, made his request only after Brittany presented her case, and failed to show actual prejudice. The district court assisted him during the hearing, and he did not identify evidence or arguments counsel would have presented that likely would have changed the outcome.
The court also upheld the district court’s unspecified adverse inference arising from Ryan’s failure to provide required financial disclosures. The record supported the income and monetary findings, and self-representation did not excuse compliance with procedural rules. Although the district court did not expressly recite the statutory best-interests factors, the record supported its implicit findings awarding Ryan parenting time every other weekend and giving Brittany tie-breaking decision-making authority. The court declined to review Ryan’s remaining challenges because they were not preserved.
The court dismissed the challenge to the magistrate’s August 2025 attorney-fee order for lack of appellate jurisdiction. Because the order was entered without requiring the parties’ consent, Ryan first had to seek district court review under the magistrate rules then in effect. He did not do so. The court declined Brittany’s request for appellate attorney fees because Ryan’s appeal was not frivolous.
Key Takeaways
- A late request to continue a permanent-orders hearing may be denied when the party had earlier opportunities to seek relief and cannot demonstrate actual prejudice.
- A self-represented party remains subject to disclosure and procedural requirements, and deficient financial disclosures may support an adverse inference.
- Express findings on every statutory best-interests factor are unnecessary when the record shows that the pertinent factors were considered and supports implicit findings.
- An appellate court lacks jurisdiction to review a nonconsensual magistrate order under the applicable 2025 rules unless the party first timely seeks district court review.
Why It Matters
The decision emphasizes the practical consequences of failing to preserve objections, comply with financial-disclosure duties, or timely request a continuance in dissolution proceedings. A party’s lack of counsel does not, by itself, excuse procedural defaults or establish prejudice.
It also highlights an appellate-jurisdiction trap for magistrate orders issued under Colorado’s pre-2026 rules: allowing such an order to become a district court order without filing a petition for review does not permit direct appellate review.