The state’s highest court should reaffirm that people who sue

state and local government entities are still entitled to obtain public records from those entities by using the Colorado Open Records Act, the ACLU of Colorado and the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition say in a new court filing.

The proposed friend-of-the-court brief, submitted by the organizations this week, urges the Colorado Supreme Court to uphold a 2022 appellate court opinion and “make clear that a party’s ability to use CORA to access public records is independent from and not constrained by discovery in civil litigation.”

“The fundamental question before the Court is whether a member of the public loses access to public records under CORA when she sues the government. Under the plain terms of CORA, the answer must be no,” says the brief, drafted by attorneys Laura Moraff, Anna Kurtz and Timothy Macdonald of the American Civil Liberties Union.