A group of investors formed Camel Point Ranch, Inc. (Camel) to purchase acreage for hunting and recreation. Years of discord ended in a corporate management deadlock and failure to elect officers at two consecutive annual meetings. Plaintiffs, three of the nine shareholders, filed a claim for judicial dissolution under CRS § 7-114-301(2). Following a bench trial, the trial court entered a merits order dissolving Camel and stating that it would appoint a receiver. The trial court subsequently entered an order appointing a receiver to exercise and manage all the business and affairs of Camel and wind up and liquidate its assets.

Camel did not appeal the order appointing the receiver, but the attorneys working on behalf of one or more of Camel’s officers timely filed a notice of appeal of the district court’s final order on the merits. However, the notice of appeal was filed without the approval of either the receiver or the trial court.

Plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss the appeal due to the receiver’s lack of involvement and the officers’ lack of authority to act on behalf of the dissolved corporation. Upon the receiver’s appointment, Camel’s corporate officers and directors lost all authority to control the corporation, and the receiver was vested with title to all  corporate property and the power to represent the interests of Camel’s shareholders, including the right to appeal. Any shareholders who wanted to appeal the dissolution order on Camel’s behalf were first required to make a demand on the receiver to appeal, which appellants failed to do.

            The appeal was dismissed.

The Mesa County Department of Human Services (the Department) filed a petition in dependency or neglect alleging that R.J., M.J., and A.J. (the children) lacked proper parental care and their environment was injurious to their welfare. After a three-day trial, the jury returned a special verdict finding the children dependent and neglected. A magistrate later entered dispositional orders as to both father and mother that continued out-of-home placement for the children and adopted treatment plans for both parents. Father asked for more time to file a petition for review of the magistrate’s dispositional order with the district court. The district court granted the request, but no petition for review is in the record.

            Father subsequently filed a request with the Court of Appeals to file his notice of appeal of the adjudicatory order out of time. He observed that C.A.R. 3.4(b)(1) and CRS § 19-1-109(2)(c), read together, require a party to file a notice of appeal of an adjudicatory order and designation of transcripts within 21 days after entry of the dispositional order, but C.R.M. 7(a)(11) requires a party to seek district court review of a magistrate’s dispositional order before seeking appellate review. Father asked the Court to resolve this uncertainty and decide whether it has jurisdiction to review an adjudicatory order when a magistrate later enters the dispositional order but no one seeks district court review of that order. Mother also filed a notice of appeal and asked that she be allowed to join father’s briefs.

            The plain language of CRS § 19-1-109(2)(c) provides that an adjudicatory order is  final and appealable after entry of the disposition, but the statute does not require that the dispositional order also be final. Nor does the statute require district court review of a dispositional order before a parent may appeal the adjudicatory order. Further, if no one asserts error, requiring the district court to review dispositional findings as a prerequisite to a parent’s appeal of the adjudication would unnecessarily expend judicial resources and hinder the state’s interest in expeditiously resolving dependency and neglect proceedings. Thus, a parent may appeal a juvenile court’s order adjudicating a child dependent and neglected without first seeking district court review of a magistrate’s subsequent dispositional order.

           On the merits, father argued that the juvenile court’s active participation in jury selection, by exercising peremptory challenges allocated to but unused by one of the parties, violated his due process rights and rendered the jury trial fundamentally unfair. Following voir dire, no one challenged any prospective juror for cause, and the parties began using their peremptory challenges. The Department’s counsel asked the court if all parties were required to use all their peremptory challenges. The court responded that if the parties waived and accepted, the court would exercise their unused challenges to get the number of jurors down to six. The parties didn’t object to this procedure. The Department and the parents used all their peremptory challenges, and the court then apparently used the guardian ad litem’s (GAL) remaining challenges to excuse two potential jurors.

Here, while the trial court may have erred by using the GAL’s two peremptory strikes, any error was harmless because (1) the court was required by C.R.J.P. 4.3(a) to pare the jury to six; (2) the court’s reasons for dismissing the two jurors were pragmatic and didn’t suggest court bias; (3) neither parent objected to the dismissal of the jurors; and (4) neither parent articulated how the court’s strikes resulted in a proceeding that was fundamentally unfair, or how they were otherwise prejudiced.

            The judgment was affirmed.

R.F. was charged with second degree assault. Following a competency evaluation, he was diagnosed with psychosis and found incompetent to stand trial. After other restoration efforts proved unsuccessful, the People petitioned the district court for permission to involuntarily administer antipsychotic medications to R.F. and to monitor any side effects. Following an evidentiary hearing, the court found that the People had met their burden to show that administration of the medication was necessary to advance the state’s interest in restoring R.F. to competency and granted the People’s petition.

            On appeal, R.F. argued that the People failed to prove that the involuntary administration of drugs will significantly further the important governmental interest at stake and that involuntary medication is necessary to further those interests. R.F.’s argument is based on People in the Interest of Hardesty, 2014 COA 138, which adopted an eight-factor test for determining the propriety of the involuntary administration of medication. The Due Process Clause recognizes an interest in avoiding involuntary administration of antipsychotic drugs. Thus, the government may only administer such medication to a defendant to render him or her competent to stand trial in cases that are sufficiently exceptional to warrant such extraordinary measure. To satisfy this “sufficiently exceptional” test, rather than meeting the eight-factor Hardesty test, the People must satisfy the four-part test articulated in Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003). Under Sell, the state must prove by clear and convincing evidence that (1) important governmental interests are at stake; (2) involuntary medication will significantly further those interests; (3) involuntary medication is necessary to further the governmental interests; and (4) administration of the drugs is medically appropriate. Here, R.F. conceded that all four Sell factors were proved by clear and convincing evidence.

            The order was affirmed.