Colorado AG moves to dismiss Colorado River lawsuit

The Colorado Attorney General’s (AG’s) Office has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit to declare the Colorado River a legal “person.” The case, Colorado River Ecosystem/Deep Green Resistance v. the State of Colorado, was filed in September by the environmental group, Deep Green Resistance. (See WLJ, Oct. 2, 2017) In the motion to dismiss, the AG’s office said, “The complaint alleges hypothetical future injuries that are neither fairly traceable to actions of the state of Colorado, nor redressable by a declaration that the ecosystem is a ‘person’ capable of possessing rights.” Colorado said the questions of “whether the ecosystem should have the same rights as people, and who should be allowed to assert those rights in federal courts, are matters reserved to Congress by the Constitution.” The case is being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint prompting a status conference set for Nov. 14 to be vacated. That conference will be reset after the court has an opportunity to review the defendant’s response to an amended complaint, and is expected on or before Dec. 1, 2017.