Parental Resp Conc JLM

25CA1108 Parental Resp Conc JLM 04-23-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA1108
Weld County District Court No. 19DR1035
Honorable Allison J. Esser, Judge

In re the Parental Responsibilities Concerning J.L.M. and J.J.L.M., Children,

and Concerning Kyrsten Anne Jellico,

Appellant,

and

Brandan Miller,

Appellee.

ORDERS AFFIRMED

Division A
Opinion by JUDGE TOW
Román, C.J., and Yun, J., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced April 23, 2026

Kyrsten Anne Jellico, Pro Se

Cordell Law, LLP, Keri E. McCallister, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Appellee
¶1 In this post-decree parental responsibilities proceeding

involving Kyrsten Anne Jellico (mother), Brandan Miller (father),

and their two children, J.L.M. and J.J.L.M., mother appeals the

district court’s orders modifying the summer parenting time

schedule and denying her request to modify the decision-making

allocation. We affirm both orders.

I. Background

¶2 Mother and father have two children together. In September

2022, when the district court entered permanent orders allocating

parental responsibilities, the children were seven and almost four

years old. The permanent orders adopted an agreement regarding

parenting time and decision-making that the parties had placed on

the record several months earlier.1 Under that agreement, the

children would live primarily with mother in Nebraska, while father

would have parenting time two weekends per month — one in

Colorado and one in Nebraska. As for summer parenting time,

father began with four weeks spread over the summer but then

1 After the agreement was read into the record, the parties litigated

its enforceability for several months. The district court eventually
concluded it was enforceable and adopted it as the permanent
orders in the case.

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shifted to a two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off schedule in 2023. The

parties also agreed to share joint decision-making responsibility.

¶3 In March 2025, father moved to modify summer parenting

time so that the children would live with him for the summer except

for the two weeks before the start of the next school year. Mother

countered with a motion to reduce father’s summer parenting time.

She also filed a motion to modify decision-making responsibility,

requesting sole decision-making authority. In conjunction with that

motion, mother requested the appointment of a child and family

investigator (CFI).

¶4 At a status conference held a few weeks before the hearing, the

district court declined to appoint a CFI for the parenting time

motions but held the request in abeyance for other purposes. The

court also indicated that the upcoming hearing would be limited to

the parenting time issues, and not the motion to modify decision-

making responsibility.

¶5 During the evidentiary hearing, mother renewed her earlier

request — held in abeyance until the hearing — that the court

conduct an in camera interview with the children. The court

declined. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court denied

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mother’s request for a CFI to address decision-making

responsibility and set the matter for an oral ruling the following

week on the parenting time modification.

¶6 During its oral ruling, the court made findings on the record

and announced a new summer parenting plan: one schedule for the

summer of 2025 and another for the summers thereafter. The

court later reduced the parenting time schedule to writing without

reiterating its findings; instead, the written order simply says, “For

the reasons stated verbally on the record[,] . . . the court modifies

parenting time as follows” before laying out the new schedule.

¶7 That same day, the court entered another written order

denying mother’s motion to modify decision-making responsibility,

noting, “[T]here is nothing in the motion that alleges facts have

arisen since the prior order for joint decision making that were

unknown to the court at the time of the prior order and there is no

evidence that the status quo endangers the children.” As a result,

it did “not find that an evidentiary hearing is necessary to resolve

disputed questions of fact or law or reach a fair resolution of the

issues raised.”

¶8 Mother appeals both orders.

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II. The Appellate Record

¶9 As a threshold issue, we address the state of the appellate

record. Mother did not initially designate the transcripts of the

pretrial hearing, the evidentiary hearing, or the court’s oral ruling.

Two weeks after filing her opening brief, however, mother moved to

supplement the record with those transcripts, representing that she

had previously been unable to obtain them “due to financial

limitations” but had “since arranged to obtain these transcripts.”

This court granted the motion.

¶ 10 Shortly thereafter, mother filed two more motions: one stating

that she would file a “Statement of the Evidence or Proceedings” in

accordance with C.A.R. 10(e) “due to financial hardship and the

prohibitive cost of obtaining certified transcripts,” and the other

purporting to provide a unilateral summary of the three hearings in

lieu of the transcripts. This court denied both requests, noting that

C.A.R. 10(e) requires the parties to agree to such statements of

evidence and the district court to approve that agreement. In light

of mother’s representations about her inability to obtain the

transcripts, this court also vacated the earlier order granting the

request to supplement the record. Notwithstanding that ruling, the

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district court provided a supplemental record containing the pretrial

hearing transcript — the only transcript mother was able to pay for,

according to the district court appeals clerk.

¶ 11 Thus, the appellate record contains the pretrial hearing

transcript but no others.2

¶ 12 As the appellant, mother is responsible for providing an

adequate record for us to review, including “transcripts of all

proceedings necessary for considering and deciding the issues on

appeal.” C.A.R. 10(d)(3). We recognize that the unavailability of

free transcripts can create real difficulty for some appellants in civil

cases. But C.A.R. 10 provides a mechanism to address those

difficulties. Unfortunately, mother’s efforts to provide the record in

an alternative form did not comply with that rule. And when the

appellant fails to provide transcripts, “the reviewing court must

presume that the record supports the judgment.” In re Marriage of

Dean, 2017 COA 51, ¶ 13.

2 Technically, the transcript of the December 2021 hearing at which

the parties read their initial agreement into the record is also part of
the appellate record, as it was filed as an exhibit to a motion during
the pre-permanent-orders litigation. But that transcript is not
relevant to this appeal except to the extent it contains the orders
the parties later sought to modify.

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III. Mother’s Appellate Claims

¶ 13 We turn, then, to mother’s challenges to the order modifying

summer parenting time and the denial of her request to modify

decision-making responsibility.

A. Standard of Review

¶ 14 “The trial court has broad discretion when modifying an

existing parenting time order, taking into consideration the child’s

best interests and the policy of encouraging parent-child

relationships.” In re Marriage of Barker, 251 P.3d 591, 592 (Colo.

App. 2010). The same standard applies to modifications of

decision-making responsibility. In re Marriage of Hatton, 160 P.3d

326, 335 (Colo. App. 2007). We will therefore disturb such an order

only if the court abused that discretion, meaning its decision

misapplied the law or was manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or

unfair. In re Marriage of Collins, 2023 COA 116M, ¶ 8.

B. Modification of Summer Parenting Time

¶ 15 Mother makes several arguments as to why, in her view, the

modification of summer parenting time is not in the children’s best

interests. In support, she frequently cites matters outside the

appellate record, which we cannot consider. More fundamentally,

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as noted, the absence of the transcripts requires us to presume that

the record supports the district court’s decision. See Dean, ¶ 13.

¶ 16 In short, while mother clearly disagrees with the district

court’s decision, she points to nothing in the appellate record that

demonstrates that the decision was manifestly arbitrary,

unreasonable, or unfair. Nor has she shown that the court

misapplied the law. And she directs us to nothing in the record

that would overcome the presumption that the missing transcripts

support the district court’s decision. We thus discern no error.

C. Denial of the Motion to Modify Decision-Making

¶ 17 Mother contends that, notwithstanding the district court’s

unequivocal statement at the pretrial hearing that it would not

address the motion to modify decision-making at the evidentiary

hearing, the court nevertheless denied the motion at the same time

it issued its written order modifying the summer parenting time

schedule. And, mother argues, the court did so “without a

reasoned evidentiary basis.” Thus, mother contends, the district

court abused its discretion by ruling on the motion despite limiting

the hearing to the parenting time issues.

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¶ 18 Mother misapprehends the basis for the district court’s order.

The court denied the motion not on the basis of the evidentiary

hearing, but on the face of the motion itself — specifically, because

the motion failed to allege facts arising after the prior order, or

unknown to the court at the time of that order, sufficient to meet

the threshold for modifying decision-making. See § 14-10-131(2),

C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 19 To the extent mother addresses the legal sufficiency of her

motion, she argues that modification is permitted “where one parent

consistently defers decision-making to the other or where mutual

decision-making has failed.” She is partially correct. The statute

does not permit modification simply because joint decision-making

“has failed,” but section 14-10-131(2)(b.7) does permit modification

where one parent has consistently consented to the other party

exercising sole decision-making.

¶ 20 Nevertheless, mother’s appellate briefing does not identify any

specific allegations in her motion showing that she sufficiently

alleged that father consistently consented to her exercising sole

decision-making. She does not even challenge the district court’s

determination that the motion was legally insufficient to warrant a

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hearing. Instead, mother devotes her entire argument on this issue

to the merits of her request for the modification.

¶ 21 Under what is known as the party presentation principle, we

rely on the parties to frame the issues to be decided and, as neutral

arbiters of the matters raised, refrain from making arguments for

the parties. Brubaker v. Colo. Sun, 2026 CO 18, ¶ 52. And while

we “must interpret pro se . . . motions liberally, liberal construction

does not include inventing arguments not made by the pro se

party.” Minshall v. Johnston, 2018 COA 44, ¶ 21.

¶ 22 Mother has not demonstrated that the district court abused its

discretion. Thus, we will not disturb the order denying her motion

to modify decision-making responsibility.

IV. Father’s Request for Appellate Attorney Fees

¶ 23 Father requests an award of his appellate attorney fees,

asserting that mother’s appeal was frivolous as filed with respect to

the order modifying the summer parenting time schedule and

frivolous as argued with respect to the order denying modification of

decision-making responsibility.

¶ 24 “A party who is appearing without an attorney . . . shall not be

assessed attorney fees . . . unless the court finds that the party

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clearly knew or reasonably should have known that the party’s

action or defense, or any part of the action or defense, was

substantially frivolous . . . .” § 13-17-102(6), C.R.S. 2025. Even

assuming mother’s arguments were frivolous, father has not shown

that she knew or should have known that her appeal was frivolous.

We therefore deny his request for appellate attorney fees.

V. Disposition

¶ 25 The orders are affirmed.

CHIEF JUDGE ROMÁN and JUDGE YUN concur.

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