John B. Roesler is an accomplished trial and appellate attorney who has obtained precedent-setting results in federal court litigation. He brings his skills and mature judgment to the following subjects through extensive experience. His trial skills have been honed not only in private practice but by a number of years as a prosecutor, obtaining a first-degree murder conviction, and as a Colorado Special Assistant Attorney General where he obtained decertification of the teacher/coach in the Meeker case.
In the area of School Law, his Garcia v. Miera case established public school children’s Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest protection from excessive punishment, forming the basis for jury instructions in his next winning jury trial. His practice encompasses liability for inappropriate discipline, excessive force in punishment, failure to supervise, failure to provide a safe school environment, and mistreatment of students by isolation, restraints, sexual abuse, and mistreatment and mishandling of Special Education students. His work is published in a treatise for American Jurisprudence.
Mr. Roesler specializes in ADA and Section 504 protections of persons with disabilities in various settings. In education law, his practice covers each educational level, private and public, primary and secondary, as well as higher education, college, university and professional schools, including medical school students. He very recently fought an ADA case against the University of Colorado Medical School all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He notes that intentional discrimination can be shown in these cases by failure to make a reasonable accommodation. Whether an accommodation is reasonable becomes the key issue to prove through use of an expert witness. Mr. Roesler has extensive experience working with forensic Ph.D. psychologists in establishing disability and psychological harm.
Regarding primary and secondary public school education, Mr. Roesler is a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar presenter to other Colorado attorneys on the subject of the IDEA and Alternative Court Remedies. He is a firm believer in direct court action, where appropriate, to reduce costs, delays, and errors of the IDEA administrative hearing process. The administrative procedures, although they have their place, in many instances can present barriers to meaningful, timely justice for students with disabilities. There are judicial means of circumventing the IDEA exhaustion of remedies “requirement” to obtain the child’s guaranteed Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).
Mr. Roesler also specializes in Prisoner Rights Law. He just completed a considerable piece of ADA federal court litigation against the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) for its refusal to make reasonable accommodations in its treatment of a sex offender inmate with mental impairments. In an earlier landmark victory, he also successfully tried a constitutional tort Section 1983 Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process lawsuit in U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, against the DOC that brought about systemic change in the DOC’s procedures establishing the right of incarcerated sex offenders to a hearing before removal from treatment.
In the area of Employment Wrongful Termination involving “Whistle Blower” activity, Mr. Roesler has experience representing employees who have been wrongfully terminated in retaliation for whistleblowing or disclosing unethical or illegal conduct by an employer. While Colorado may be an “At-Will Employment” state in which employers can typically terminate an employee at any time for any reason or for no reason at all, Mr. Roesler emphasizes that significant exceptions, such as Implied Contract and Public Policy, exist to bypass the At-Will Employment doctrine and protect the employee. John likes to pursue “Whistle Blower” cases because they can affect society as to fairness, justice, health and safety.
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