Marriage of Hunter

25CA0014 Marriage of Hunter 12-18-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0014
El Paso County District Court No. 20DR30799
Honorable Monica J. Gomez, Judge

In re the Marriage of

Daemon J. Hunter,

Appellee,

and

Bella N. Hunter,

Appellant.

ORDERS AFFIRMED

Division I
Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES
Grove and Schutz, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced December 18, 2025

Marrison Family Law, LLC, M. Patricia Marrison, David Koppa, Carrie E. Mohr,
Benjamin Smart, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Appellee

Bella N. Hunter, Pro Se
¶1 In this post-dissolution of marriage case between Bella N.

Hunter (wife) and Daemon J. Hunter (husband), wife appeals the

district court’s order denying her request to reconsider the court’s

prior order regarding the marital home. We affirm.

I. Relevant Facts

¶2 The district court issued permanent orders regarding property

and financial matters in April 2021 and dissolved the parties’

marriage in June 2021. With respect to the marital home, the court

entered the following order:

The home was recently refinanced for an
amount equal to its current value. The home
has no equity. Respondent shall refinance the
mortgage or otherwise remove Petitioner’s
name from responsibility toward the mortgage
within 27 months. If Respondent is unable to
refinance the mortgage within that time, the
home shall be placed on the market for sale.
The parties shall equally share in any equity.

¶3 A year after the decree was entered, wife unilaterally

contracted to have solar panels installed on the marital home,

incurring a debt that husband later asserted was nearly $49,000.

Thereafter, husband moved for contempt, alleging that wife hadn’t

complied with the permanent orders and that the home had been in

forbearance for several months. The parties resolved these issues

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in mediation and agreed to have the contempt citation dismissed.

In their memorandum of understanding, later made an order of the

court, the parties agreed as follows:

The home is currently listed for sale at
$495,000. The parties will follow the listing
price recommendations of the Realtor,
regarding any potential listing price alteration.
Until it sells[, wife] will remain current on all
household bills (i.e. mortgage, insurance,
taxes, etc.). The parties intend that any
potential buyer would be assuming all of the
solar panel obligation.

¶4 Subsequently, the court denied husband’s request to order

wife to pay for the solar panels out of her home sale proceeds but

(according to a minute order) ordered the parties to “share in [the]

cost of solar.” Husband filed a motion for reconsideration. Before

addressing the motion, the court reviewed the transcript of the

hearing (presided over by a different judge) that resulted in the

modification order. The court noted,

According to the transcript of the status
conference, [W]ife indicated that she had a
buyer for the property, but the buyer could not
assume the solar panel obligation for various
reasons. Based on this representation, the
presiding judge then ordered that Husband
pay for half of the solar panels and that he pay
for it from his share of the equity in the home.

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¶5 Based on this record, the court granted husband’s motion for

reconsideration, reasoning as follows:

The debt that Wife acquired post decree, as a
matter of equity, should not be attributed in
any way to Husband. Wife unilaterally
contracted with the solar company to install
panels on the house one year after the decree
of dissolution entered, and Husband should
not be encumbered with Wife’s debt. The
Court’s Status Conference decision was
manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair,
and no findings of fact were articulated to
support that decision.

¶6 Based on these findings, the court granted husband’s motion

for reconsideration and, pursuant to the final orders, concluded

that “‘[wife] is responsible for the mortgage, taxes, and all expenses

related to the home.’ Expenses related to the home include solar

panels purchased post decree by Wife.”

¶7 Husband later moved for an order providing that the “solar

panel lien not be included as assumable in [any] contract for the

home [sale].” In addition, husband alleged that the mortgage on the

home was once again in forbearance and requested that he be

allowed to take over the mortgage payments, with wife paying half of

the obligation directly to him.

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¶8 At a hearing on the motion, husband’s licensed legal

paraprofessional (LLP) asserted that, to sell the home, husband

“has had to reduce the sale price from what the house [wa]s

worth . . . down by over $50,000.” The LLP also said that the

marital home was “worth close to or above $470,000,” but that “no

one [would] even offer at that price because of the solar panels that

[wife] put on post-decree.”

¶9 The court orally granted husband’s requests, noting that it

was relying on the existing permanent orders in making its

decision. The court then denied wife’s request to reconsider this

decision in a written ruling issued in December 2024.

II. Preliminary Matters

¶ 10 Before turning to wife’s contentions, we note that she

represents herself on appeal, and certain arguments she raises are

difficult to decipher. We will do our best to accurately characterize

them. See Cikraji v. Snowberger, 2015 COA 66, ¶ 10. But we won’t

develop wife’s arguments for her or search the record for supporting

facts that aren’t cited in her briefs. See id.

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III. Discussion

¶ 11 Wife raises several contentions on appeal. She contends that

the district court improperly granted injunctive relief and, thus,

violated her procedural due process rights; failed to “enforce” a

contract for the sale of the marital home; “retroactively imposed

financial penalties without statutory authority”; and modified the

final property orders without “any legal basis.” Wife also argues

that husband “[w]aived” his right to challenge the final property

orders because he “failed to appeal or file a motion under C.R.C.P.

60(b) within 182 days.”

¶ 12 However, these arguments are unpreserved and undeveloped

and, accordingly, we won’t address them. See In re Marriage of

Turilli, 2021 COA 151, ¶ 12 (an issue is preserved for appeal when it

is brought to the district court’s attention and the court ruled on it);

Woodbridge Condo. Ass’n v. Lo Viento Blanco, LLC, 2020 COA 34, ¶

41 n.12 (an appellate court doesn’t consider undeveloped and

unsupported arguments), aff’d, 2021 CO 56. And we won’t

consider wife’s attempts in her reply brief to further develop her

arguments. See In re Marriage of Dean, 2017 COA 51, ¶ 31 (an

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appellate court doesn’t consider arguments in a reply brief that seek

to expand on contentions raised in an opening brief).

¶ 13 In her reply brief, wife asserts that the court “acted without

jurisdiction” by “reallocating obligations and altering the [marital

home] proceeds split.” While a party may raise a challenge to

subject matter jurisdiction for the first time on appeal, see In re

C.E.S.K., 2025 COA 51, ¶ 17, none of wife’s contentions implicate

the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction. To the extent wife

reiterates her assertion that the court acted without statutory

authority, we do not address that issue because, as discussed, it is

unpreserved and undeveloped. See Wood v. People, 255 P.3d 1136,

1140 (Colo. 2011) (noting the distinction between “the general term

‘jurisdiction,’ meaning ‘authority or lack thereof,’ and the concept of

‘subject matter jurisdiction,’” which “concerns a court’s authority to

deal with the class of cases in which it renders judgment” (quoting

People v. McMurtry, 122 P.3d 237, 241 (Colo. 2005))).

¶ 14 Lastly, wife appears to ask us to divide the equity from the

marital home. Wife hasn’t sufficiently developed this request for

our review, and, at any rate, the division of marital property falls

within the district court’s province. See LaFleur v. Pyfer, 2021 CO

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3, ¶ 61 (the division of marital property is left to the district court’s

discretion). Thus, we decline to further address this issue.

IV. Husband’s Attorney Fee Request

¶ 15 Husband requests attorney fees under section 13-17-102,

C.R.S. 2025, asserting that wife’s appeal lacks substantial

justification because she failed to follow C.A.R. 28 and seemingly

because she raised unpreserved issues. But under C.A.R. 39.1,

appellate attorney fees may be awarded only when a moving party

explains the legal and factual basis for the request. Husband

doesn’t elaborate on the grounds he cites and doesn’t explain why

wife’s appeal was substantially frivolous, substantially groundless,

or substantially vexatious. See § 13-17-102(2), (6). Nor does

husband demonstrate that wife “clearly knew or reasonably should

have known” that her appeal was substantially frivolous,

substantially groundless, or substantially vexatious, which is

required for an award of fees against a self-represented person. See

§ 13-17-102(6). Therefore, we deny husband’s request.

V. Disposition

¶ 16 The orders are affirmed.

JUDGE GROVE and JUDGE SCHUTZ concur.

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