Marriage of Riding

25CA0642 Marriage of Riding 04-09-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0642
El Paso County District Court No. 20DR30576
Honorable Chad Miller, Judge

In re the Marriage of

James Brett Riding,

Appellant,

and

Kelley Kay Riding n/k/a Kelley Kay Jensen,

Appellee.

JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE
REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division VII
Opinion by JUDGE JOHNSON
Pawar and Gomez, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced April 9, 2026

Law Office of Joel M. Pratt, Joel M. Pratt, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for
Appellant

Law Office of Greg Quimby P.C., Greg Quimby, Erica Vasconcellos, Colorado
Springs, Colorado, for Appellee
¶1 James Brett Riding (husband) appeals the district court’s

maintenance and child support rulings entered on remand from In

re Marriage of Riding, (Colo. App. No. 22CA0225, Aug. 3, 2023) (not

published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(e)) (Riding I). We reverse these

portions of the judgment and remand the case to the district court

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

A. Permanent Orders

¶2 Husband and Kelly Kay Riding, now known as Kelly Kay

Jensen (wife), married in 2012, and they have two children.

¶3 The district court later dissolved their marriage in a bifurcated

proceeding. In May 2021, the court allocated parental

responsibilities and ordered the children to reside primarily with

wife, who was moving to Utah.

¶4 In November 2021, the court resolved the remaining financial

matters. When doing so, the court found that husband had not

complied with his financial disclosure and discovery obligations,

and it drew negative inferences against him pursuant to In re

Marriage of Sgarlatti, 801 P.2d 18, 19 (Colo. App. 1990). Then, the

court divided the approximately $575,000 marital estate between

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the parties. The court ordered husband to pay maintenance in the

amount of $1,825 per month for a term of three years and seven

months. It further determined that husband’s child support

obligation was $1,345 per month, and it ordered him to pay

retroactive child support back to May 2021.

B. Riding I

¶5 Husband appealed the district court’s permanent orders. A

division of this court affirmed in part and reversed in part. The

division upheld the district court’s valuation and division of the

marital estate, as well as its decision to draw negative inferences

against husband due to his incomplete financial disclosures and

discovery responses. Riding I, slip op. at ¶¶ 22-23, 30, 36, 42, 60.

¶6 But the division reversed the district court’s maintenance and

child support awards, concluding that the court failed to make

sufficient findings in support of its decisions. Id. at ¶¶ 61, 67, 69-

70. The division remanded the case to the district court to

reconsider those matters. Id. at ¶¶ 67, 69-70, 87. Specifically, it

directed that, “[s]ince maintenance and child support awards are

based on the parties’ and children’s financial circumstances at the

time of the order, the district court must take new evidence on

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remand.” Id. at ¶ 71. It also directed that “[t]he court’s new orders

must be supported by specific factual findings.” Id.

C. Remand Proceedings

¶7 After the mandate, the parties discussed with the district court

the scope of the remand proceedings, and they disputed the extent

of “new evidence” they could present.

¶8 Wife argued that Riding I directed the district court to

determine maintenance and child support based on the parties’

circumstances at the time of the order and that this phrase referred

to the original financial order from 2021. She explained that (1) at

the November 2021 hearing, the district court drew negative

inferences against husband based on his inadequate disclosures

and discovery responses; (2) Riding I affirmed that determination;

and (3) it would be inequitable for the district court to allow

husband to present new evidence of his financial circumstances at

the time of the remand. She thus argued that the district court

must limit the presentation of evidence to the evidence it could have

properly received at the November 2021 hearing and then

supplement its original rulings on maintenance and child support

with the findings it had failed to make in its original order. Wife

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further explained that, in his appeal, husband sought to correct the

court’s original maintenance and child support rulings, and he

should not be permitted to use the result of the appeal to modify

those rulings. In her view, if husband’s circumstances had

changed, he needed to file a motion to modify the maintenance and

child support obligations.

¶9 Husband believed the division’s remand language directed the

court differently. He argued that Riding I directed the district court

to (1) redetermine maintenance and child support based on the

parties’ financial circumstances at the time of the new orders the

court would enter on remand; and (2) take “new evidence” of the

parties’ present circumstances. He noted that, while the district

court may consider the circumstances from the November 2021

hearing, almost three years had passed since that hearing, and the

court needed to base its redetermination of maintenance and child

support on the parties’ circumstances at the time that the court

was entering its new orders.

¶ 10 The court determined that “[t]he scope of the remand will be to

issue new maintenance and child support orders retroactive to the

original hearing date.” It then ruled that “[f]or purposes of entering

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these orders, [the] parties may introduce any exhibit that was”

either “admitted” or “available and properly discovered prior to the

initial hearing.”

¶ 11 Accordingly, the evidence at the remand hearing was limited to

the parties’ financial circumstances at the time of the November

2021 hearing. Based on that evidence, the court made the findings

that it had omitted from its original permanent orders and then

reimposed the maintenance award and child support obligation it

had issued in 2021.

II. Standard of Review

¶ 12 We review de novo whether the district court correctly followed

the law of the case. See Owners Ins. Co. v. Dakota Station II Condo.

Ass’n, 2021 COA 114, ¶ 21; Thompson v. Catlin Ins. Co. (UK) Ltd.,

2018 CO 95, ¶ 22.

¶ 13 Under the mandate rule, a district court must follow the

remand directions and law of the case established by an appellate

court. Owners Ins., ¶ 24; see also Thompson, ¶ 21 (“There is no

dispute that a lower court must follow the law of the case as laid

out by an appellate tribunal.”). The district court has no discretion

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to disregard binding appellate rulings. Hardesty v. Pino, 222 P.3d

336, 340 (Colo. App. 2009).

III. Analysis

¶ 14 Husband contends that the district court’s maintenance and

child support rulings must be reversed. He argues that by limiting

the presentation of evidence on remand to the exhibits that were

either admitted or available and properly disclosed at the November

2021 hearing, the court failed to adhere to Riding I’s remand

directions and the law on which it rested. We agree.

¶ 15 Riding I directed the district court to “take new evidence on

remand,” “reconsider” maintenance and child support, enter “new

orders,” and base its determination “on the parties’ and children’s

financial circumstances at the time of the order.” Riding I, slip op.

¶¶ 71, 87. Based on the plain language of these directions, and the

context in which they were written, Riding I directed the district

court to redetermine maintenance and child support based on the

parties’ present circumstances at the time of the remand. Id.; cf. Ad

Two, Inc. v. City & County of Denver, 9 P.3d 373, 376 (Colo. 2000)

(noting that we look at the plain language in the writing and

construe it in harmony with the generally accepted meaning of the

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words used); Blecker v. Kofoed, 672 P.2d 526, 528 (Colo. 1983)

(recognizing that the same rules of interpretation apply to

interpreting court orders as apply to interpreting other writings).

¶ 16 While the division’s remand language generally referred to the

“circumstances at the time of the order,” it immediately clarified

that the “court must take new evidence” and enter “new orders”

supported by specific factual findings, meaning the court must take

new evidence before entry of the new orders that would be issued

on remand. Riding I, slip op. ¶ 71. If, as the district court

determined, Riding I had instructed the court to merely redetermine

maintenance and child support at the time of the court’s original

“order,” there would have been no need for the court to “take new

evidence on remand.” Id. The parties already had the opportunity

to present that evidence at the November 2021 hearing, and the

court considered it when issuing the original permanent orders.

Riding I thus instructed the district court to take new evidence on

the parties’ circumstances at the time of the remand hearing and

the court’s new orders.

¶ 17 The cases cited in Riding I’s remand directions and the legal

standard a remand court must apply when reconsidering

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maintenance and child support confirms this interpretation.

“[W]here a new support order is to be made, both parties must be

allowed to show their current circumstances,” In re Marriage of

Foss, 30 P.3d 850, 853 (Colo. App. 2001), and “shall be given a full

opportunity to present all relevant evidence affecting these financial

issues,” In re Marriage of Salby, 126 P.3d 291, 301 (Colo. App.

2005).

¶ 18 When Riding I remanded this case to the district court, it relied

on In re Marriage of Wright, 2020 COA 11, ¶ 24. See Riding I, ¶ 71.

Wright, which similarly reversed a district court’s maintenance

determination due to insufficient findings, instructed the district

court on remand to “consider the parties’ current circumstances on

remand” because maintenance is based on the parties’ financial

circumstances at that time. Id. at ¶ 24 (emphasis added); accord In

re Marriage of Kann, 2017 COA 94, ¶ 79 (“[B]ecause maintenance

awards are based on the parties’ financial situations when such

orders are entered, the trial court may take additional evidence of

changed financial circumstances as it deems appropriate.”); In re

Marriage of Nevil, 809 P.2d 1122, 1123 (Colo. App. 1991) (“Awards

of maintenance . . . must be based upon the parties’ needs and

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their circumstances at the time of the hearing rather than upon

their past or future conditions.”). Likewise, a district court’s

reconsideration of child support on remand must be based on “the

parties’ present circumstances.” In re Parental Responsibilities

Concerning M.G.C.-G., 228 P.3d 271, 273 (Colo. App. 2010).

¶ 19 Wife attempts to save the district court’s remand rulings by

arguing that if, as we interpret Riding I’s remand language, the

court had to base its decision “on the facts as they existed at the

remand hearing[,] the court would be making orders to modify an

existing order rather than to justify [its] original order.” But Riding

I reversed the court’s original order on maintenance and child

support, and it directed the court to enter new orders based on the

parties’ present circumstances. See Wright, ¶ 24; M.G.C.-G., 228

P.3d at 273. By doing so, the district court does not modify

husband’s maintenance and child support obligations; it enters

valid obligations in the first instance.

¶ 20 Thus, we agree with husband that the district court erred by

limiting the evidence on remand to the exhibits from the November

2021 hearing. The court’s decision was contrary to the remand

directions from Riding I and improperly reimposed maintenance and

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child support based solely on evidence of the parties’ 2021 financial

circumstances.

¶ 21 We therefore reverse the court’s rulings concerning

maintenance and child support. On remand, the district court

must take new evidence on the parties’ circumstances at the time of

the remand proceedings and make new maintenance and child

support determinations based on those present circumstances. See

Wright, ¶ 24; M.G.C.-G., 228 P.3d at 273.

IV. Remaining Issues

¶ 22 Given our disposition, we need not address husband’s

remaining contentions, including his argument that the district

court “stretched the adverse inference [under Sgarlatti, 801 P.2d at

19] well beyond its intended legal purpose” to preclude him from

presenting evidence on his current circumstances. But we clarify

that to the extent husband’s nondisclosure of financial information

prior to entry of the 2021 order becomes relevant to the court’s

reconsideration of maintenance and child support on remand in

light of any new evidence presented by the parties, the court may

consider husband’s conduct along with any relevant evidence of the

parties’ present circumstances at the time of the remand.

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V. Conclusion

¶ 23 The district court’s judgment concerning maintenance and

child support is reversed. We remand the case to the district court

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and Riding I.

The district court must allow the parties to present evidence on

their financial circumstances at the time of the remand hearing,

and it must make new maintenance and child support

determinations based on the parties’ and the children’s present

circumstances at the time it enters its rulings on remand. See

Wright, ¶ 24; M.G.C.-G., 228 P.3d at 273. The court also must

follow the procedures of sections 14-10-114 and 14-10-115, C.R.S.

2025, make the necessary factual findings, and provide a clear

understanding of the basis of its determinations. See In re Marriage

of Evans, 2021 COA 141, ¶ 62; Wright, ¶ 23.

JUDGE PAWAR and JUDGE GOMEZ concur.

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