delivered the Opinion of the Court.
I. Introduction
This case has been appealed to the court of appeals twice. In its first opinion, the court held that plaintiffs, three police officers who challenged a portion of a promotional examination given by the City and County of Denver, were entitled to relief under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) and remanded the case for the award of costs to them under section 13-16-111, 5 C.R.S. (2003). Carney v. Civil Serv. Comm’n,
We hold, as a matter of law, thаt a party cannot amend its complaint to add a new claim after all of the issues have been resolved on appeal and the case is remanded for the award of costs to the prevailing party. When the only issue remaining for a trial court to decide is costs, there is a final judgment and the case is effectively over. Once there is a final judgment, the partiеs may pursue appellate review, but a motion to amend a complaint can no longer be entertained by the trial court.
This court’s liberal policy of amendment is intended to effectuate the just and speedy determination of claims. Permitting the plaintiffs to add a new claim after a remand for costs, effectively starting the litigation anew, does not serve these purposes. To the contrary, allowing a new claim to be asserted under these circumstances perpetuates litigation and unfairly penalizes the defendants for pursuing the initial appeal. Therefore, we reverse the court of appeals’ decision in Carney II, and remand the case to be returned to the trial court for the narrow purpose of awarding costs to the plaintiffs who prevailed in their Rule 106(a)(4) action.
II. Facts and Prior Proceedings
Plaintiffs, who are the respondents before us, Clifford Carney, Gregory Cook, and Donna Starr-Gimeno, are police officers who took the 1998 police promotional lieutenants’ examination administered by the City and County of Denver’s Civil Service Commission. There were five components to the examination, including a review of the police officers’ personnel files, called the Personnel Record Evaluation (“PRE”) component. Based on the examination results, a rank order list of candidates was established. As vacant positions became available in the Denver Police Department, lieutenants were appointed from the list.
Carney, Cook, and Starr-Gimeno challenged thе scoring of the PRE component by filing a civil action against the Civil Service Commission and other officials of the City and County of Denver (collectively “the City”) pursuant to C.R.C.P. 57 and C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4). In their complaint, the police officers alleged the scoring of the PRE component was arbitrary and capricious, and violated the Denver City Charter, which requires promotional examinations tо be “open and competitive.”
The trial court ruled that the PRE component of the examination was arbitrary and capricious under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) because the scoring method prescribed was not sufficiently specific or definite to guarantee an objective result. As a remedy, the trial court ruled that candidates who had already been promoted would remain in their positions, but it required creation of a new eligibility register with the PRE scores equalized for the remaining candidates. In addition, the trial court denied the police officers’ request for costs.
The City appealed the judgment and the police officers cross-appealed the trial court’s denial of costs. Carney I affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court’s decision.
Seven weeks after the mandаte issued, and approximately three years after the litigation was initiated, the three police officers filed a motion in the trial court to amend their complaint to add two new claims. The police officers sought to add a breach of contract claim and a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, seeking both damages and attorney fees. The police officers predicated their section 1983 claim on the court of appeals’ decision in Montoya v. City of Colorado Springs, claiming their substantive due process right to a fair promotional examination had been violated.
The trial court initially granted the motion to amend, ruling that the amendment was timely, the claim might be valid under controlling case law, and that amendment was permissible after remand because it did not attempt to relitigate an issue already decided by Carney I. The City filed a motion for reconsideration. The trial court, with another judge presiding, granted the motion and vacated the previous order allowing amendment. In its order, the trial court determined that amending the complaint was inappropriate because the court of appeals had remanded the ease for the narrow purpose of awarding costs to the plaintiffs. The court reasoned that amending the complaint to include “an entirely new cause of action thus requiring another trial” ran contrary to the appellate court’s mandate.
The police officers subsequently filed a second appeal, contending that the court of appeals’ mandate did not preclude amendment and that the trial court erred when it vacated its previous order. In Carney II, the court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court’s order in an unpublished opinion. No. 02CA0846 at *1. The Carney II court held that the remand order and appellate mandate of Carney I did not expressly or impliedly preclude amendment to assert new claims. Id. at 7. The court of аppeals concluded that the police officers could amend their complaint to add the section 1983 substantive due process claim because it raised issues not addressed by Carney I and was not necessarily futile. Id. at 12. However, because the breach of contract claim could contravene the holding of Carney I, the court of appeals held the plaintiffs could not amend their complaint to add this claim. Id. at 9. Carney II concluded by remanding the case for further proceedings on the substantive due process claim. Id. at 15.
The City subsequently appealed to this court, contending that the trial court correct
III. Standard of Review
C.R.C.P. 15(a) governs the amendment of plеadings, and provides that where leave of court is required to amend a pleading, “leave shall be freely given when justice so requires.” The rule explicitly reflects a liberal policy toward amendment, the purpose of which is “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.” Varner v. Dist. Court,
In deciding whether to grant a motion to amend, the trial court must consider the totality of the circumstances, balancing the policy favoring, amendment against the burden the amendment imposes on the other party.
However, when the ruling is based on a legal conclusion, our review is de novo. Benton v. Adams,
IY. Analysis
We hold that when all claims for relief have been decided on appeal and the case is remanded for the sole purpose of awarding costs to the prevailing party, that party cannot amend its complaint to add a new claim for relief. When the only issue remaining for a trial court to decide is the amount of costs, the case is effectively over. This is so because the award of costs is always ancillary to the award of judgment on the merits. Specifically, costs under section 13-16-111 can be awarded only to a plaintiff who obtains a judgment or award of execution in a case brought under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4). In reaching the conclusion that the plaintiffs may not amend their complaint, we consider Colorado case law on the subject of amendment after remand, and discuss when litigation may be deemed “final.”
This court has long recognized that trial courts may permit parties to amend pleadings in proceedings conducted after an appellаte court’s order of remand. Super Valu Stores, Inc. v. Dist. Court,
In other Colorado eases involving amendment of complaints subsequent to remand, the court’s inquiry is similarly focused on whether amendment will involve relitigation of matters already expressly or impliedly settled by the appellate court. See Nelson v. Elway,
In Super Valu, Elway, Kjeldgaard, and Schlink, amendment of the claim after remand consolidated the litigation, and served to secure an efficient determinatiоn of the actions. All of these cases are distinguishable from the present ease because the litigation was ongoing, with substantive issues that still had not been decided by the trial court. For instance, in Elway, the plaintiffs appealed judgment entered in favor of the defendant on less than all of the claims asserted pursuant to C.R.C.P. 54(b).
To determine whether the plaintiff-officers could amend their claims on remand, we examine when litigation may be considered to have terminated and whether the pending issue of determining costs stays the finality of the litigation. Generally, judgment in a case is deemed final when it ends the particular action in which it is entered, leaving nothing further for the сourt pronouncing it to do except to execute the judgment. Baldwin v. Bright Mortgage Co.,
Under the Rules of Civil Procedure, costs are handled as a post-judgment matter. C.R.C.P. 58(a) specifically provides that the “[e]ntry of the judgment shall not be delayed
Our holding is consistent with the purposes of C.R.C.P. 15, and promotes courts’ responsibility to ensure the fair, expeditious, and final resolution of claims for relief. Because we hold that, as a matter of law, a party may not amend its complaint to add a new claim for relief after a remand for costs, we do not reach the merits of the respondents’ substantive due process claim.
V. Conclusion
When a casе is remanded for an award of costs, as it was here, the prevailing party may not amend its complaint to add a new claim for relief. We therefore reverse the court of appeals’ decision in Carney II, and remand the case with directions to return it to the trial court for the narrow purpose of awarding costs to the police officers.
Notes
. The PRE accounted for ten percent of the examination points and consisted of four sections with a maximum possible score of five points per section. The sections were: 1) supervisory related education and experience; 2) reliability as it related to attendance; 3) commendations; and 4) disciplinary record. In their original complaint, the officers alleged that "[ajlthоugh any number of points from 0.1 to a maximum of 5 points were assessed on each section, the assessors were given no guidelines from which a reviewing authority could review to see how the individual scores were arrived at.”
. Costs may not be awarded against governmental entities in the absence of express legislative authorization. Cent. Colo. Water Conservancy Dist. v. Simpson,
. Section 1983 does not contain a statute of limitations itself. See Riel v. Reed,
. We granted certiorari on two issues:
1) Whether the court of appeals properly reversed the trial court’s order denying the respondents' motion to аmend their complaint by adding a substantive due process claim in a case that was remanded for the award of costs.
2) Whether the court of appeals erred in finding that it was not futile to allow respondents to assert a federal substantive due process claim (as opposed to a procedural due process claim) based on a challenge to a police promotional examination process.
. The grounds upon which a court may deny a motion to amend include unfair prejudice, futility, and undue delay. Polk,
.In Super Valu, we upheld amendment after remand as a proper exercise of the trial court’s discretion.
. C.R.C.P. 54(b) provides that when more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, "the court may direct the entry of a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the claims ....” The rule provides an exceрtion to the general requirement that an entire case must be resolved by a final judgment before an appeal is brought. Elway,
. Amendment was particularly appropriate under the circumstances of Elway, because while the case was pending on appeal, the claim at issue, aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty, was first recognized by a Colorado appellate court.