A person involved in litigation with a public entity has the right to use the Colorado Open Records Act to obtain documents from that public entity, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed Thursday.

A three-judge panel of the appellate court rejected arguments made by the clerk of Archuleta County that CORA cannot be used to supplant the discovery process in civil litigation. The judges upheld a district court order in favor of Pagosa Springs attorney Matt Roane, who requested the recording of an Archuleta County Commission meeting while suing the board.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s 1980 ruling in Martinelli v. District Court “stands for the proposition that CORA does not bar production of documents otherwise producible in civil litigation,” wrote Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov in a published opinion. “It does not support Archuleta’s contention that individuals litigating against public entities are precluded from obtaining documents from those entities through CORA during the pendency of the litigation.”