Colorado Vocational and Life Care Expert Witnesses

In Colorado, vocational and life care evidence is offered in the District Court, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado and, in workers' compensation claims, before the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts. The Colorado Judicial Branch's Trial Courts by County page states that the District Court hears civil cases in any amount, as well as domestic relations, criminal, juvenile, probate and mental health cases, so the personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death actions in which that evidence is offered can be heard there whatever the amount claimed. The Judicial Branch's form petition for divorce or legal separation is captioned for the District Court, asks for orders on the division of property and debts and, where it applies, child support, and lets the petitioner ask for spousal support, which the form calls maintenance or alimony. Federal civil actions are heard by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, whose district court locations page lists courthouses in Denver, Colorado Springs, Grand Junction and Durango.

Workers' compensation claims take another path. The Colorado Office of Administrative Courts conducts hearings in Colorado workers' compensation cases, and its administrative law judges hear them at its offices in Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction; either party to a dispute over benefits can ask that office for a hearing. Under Colorado's Workers' Compensation Act, the director of the Division of Workers' Compensation and those administrative law judges have original jurisdiction to hear and decide the matters arising under the Act; a party dissatisfied with an administrative law judge's order on compensability or benefits may petition for review by the Industrial Claim Appeals Office, whose panel does not alter findings of fact that substantial evidence supports, and the panel's final order may be taken to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which the Judicial Branch describes as having specific appellate jurisdiction over that office's decisions.

The Workers' Compensation Act defines permanent total disability as the employee being unable to earn any wages in the same or other employment and, outside a rebuttable presumption it creates for the total loss, or total loss of use, of two hands, arms, feet, legs or eyes, puts the burden of proving it on the employee; a vocational evaluation addresses that question with an opinion on the occupations the worker can perform and the wages they pay where the worker lives.

In a divorce or legal separation, Colorado's maintenance statute provides that maintenance must be calculated on a determination of potential income when a party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, unless the party is one the statute exempts, among them a party who is physically or mentally incapacitated, and the child support guidelines apply the same rule to a parent. A vocational evaluation addresses that determination with an opinion on the party's employability and earning capacity, prepared the same way for either spouse's counsel.

Wages in a Colorado earning capacity analysis come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics series of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes estimates for Colorado's metropolitan areas, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver-Aurora-Centennial, Fort Collins-Loveland, Grand Junction, Greeley and Pueblo, and for the nonmetropolitan areas it titles Eastern and Southern Colorado, Northwest Colorado and Southwest Colorado; unemployment rates come from the Bureau's Local Area Unemployment Statistics series, and the analysis uses the data of the area where the person lives and works. Plaintiff and defense counsel retain KWVRS for Colorado matters, and each report is prepared with the same method whichever side retains it and to the disclosure requirements of the forum in which the matter is pending, whether the District Court, the federal court or the Office of Administrative Courts. KWVRS works with attorneys nationwide from its New Jersey, Virginia and Rhode Island offices. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case.