DENVER — Three years after a trial judge concluded Denver breached its agreement with Adams County to use a monitoring system for reporting excessive noise levels at Denver International Airport, the Colorado Supreme Court is weighing whether Adams County actually missed its opportunity to sue — by 20 years.
The airport opened in 1995 after Denver annexed 55 square miles of land in Adams County. The intergovernmental agreement between the two entities stipulated that Denver would be responsible for paying Adams County for noise violations, which have amounted to tens of millions of dollars over the years.
In 2018, Adams County sued for breach of contract after it discovered the modeling system Denver had long used to report violations was undercounting the number of excess noise incidents. It sought to force Denver to rely on a noise monitoring system instead. A judge agreed with Adams County and the state's Court of Appeals upheld her decision.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, however, Denver insisted that Adams County knew since the mid-1990s that Denver was using a noise modeling system. The city maintained that if Denver breached its contract, it happened more than two decades ago — meaning the statute of limitations has long expired for Adams County to do anything about it.
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