180 results for 'court:"Utah Court Of Appeals"'.
J. Harris holds that the trial court properly found that a homeowner's backyard improvements did not interfere with a water district's easement for an underground pipeline. A bright-line rule barring any permanent construction within an easement is outweighed by the potential loss of otherwise reasonable uses of land under the rule of mutual reasonableness. Also, jury instructions about the law of easements and the mutual obligation not to unreasonably interfere with the other's use were accurate and complete. And testimony from the State Engineer properly addressed the reasonableness of both the homeowner's and the water district's existing and possible uses. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: December 7, 2023, Case #: 20220025-CA, Categories: Property
J. Christiansen Forster finds that the trial court's parental termination order was based on a valid determination that it was strictly necessary and placement options other than termination and adoption were not feasible. The father was not prejudiced by delays in the completion of paperwork required by the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: November 24, 2023, Case #: 20220635-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Christiansen Forster holds that the district court must revisit its $20,000 restitution order to establish if a homeowner's damages resulted from defendant's theft of his possessions. Defendant agreed to pay restitution for the burglary he pleaded guilty to, but he never admitted responsibility for property damages or losses. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: November 24, 2023, Case #: 20220275-CA, Categories: Burglary, Theft, Restitution
J. Luthy finds that defendant's motion to have his appeal of a murder conviction reinstated was timely. On remand, the trial court must make findings about whether the trial court and counsel properly informed him of his right to appeal before determining if his appeal may proceed. Vacated in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: November 24, 2023, Case #: 20210181-CA, Categories: Murder, Plea
J. Harris finds that the trial court was within its discretion to draw a reasonable inference that the store whose manager called police owned the parking lot where defendant was arrested for criminal trespass. Both direct testimony and circumstantial evidence indicated that the store owned the lot. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: November 24, 2023, Case #: 20220599-CA, Categories: Trespass
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J. Mortensen finds that the trial court did not impermissibly broaden the jury instructions in defendant's communications fraud trial to charge him with a different offense than those charged through the state's information. The removal of the phrase "to defraud another" narrowed, not broadened, the charge, so the change was not a constructive amendment to the instructions. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: November 24, 2023, Case #: 20210838-CA, Categories: Fraud, Restitution, Jury Instructions
J. Tenney finds that ample evidence supported the conclusion that a minor caused the injuries and subsequent death of an infant in his care. The infant died from a violent brain injury that would have been apparent very quickly and the minor was the only person alone with the infant just before the symptoms appeared. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: November 16, 2023, Case #: 20210291-CA, Categories: Evidence, Juvenile Law, Murder
J. Orme finds that the trial court properly held that defendant was not entitled to a Miranda warning because he was not in custody when police questioned him. He was bedridden in a hospital room but police repeatedly said he was not detained, charged or under arrest, and he understood that he could end the conversation. Also, his Tiedemann claim over destroyed or lost evidence failed since evidence did not exist as police did not activate their body cameras until after they shot him. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: November 16, 2023, Case #: 20210544-CA, Categories: Evidence, Miranda, Assault
J. Christiansen Forster finds that evidence showing that relocating a father's children back to Utah from Washington would not be in their best interest. The trial court did not err in denying his petition to modify a divorce decree, even if some evidence could support relocation. Also, the trial court was within its discretion to reject an evaluator's recommendations and testimony. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: November 16, 2023, Case #: 20210278-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Luthy finds that the trial court properly determined that a nurse practitioner had agreed to pay for injectable products. She ordered the products from a cosmetic facility where she sometimes worked to use elsewhere as an independent contractor. There was nothing ambiguous about the oral contract that obligated her to pay for any products that she retained. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: November 16, 2023, Case #: 20210719-CA, Categories: Contract
J. Mortensen finds that the district court properly held that an irrevocable trust had not been modified to give the settlor's second wife a role as the "Settlor's wife." Her interest in a trust property was not established by estoppel. She failed to present admissible evidence that a second trust had been established, which she asserted due to spelling errors in the the settlor's references to the trust. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: November 9, 2023, Case #: 20210636-CA, Categories: Family Law, Trusts
J. Orme finds that the trial court properly ruled that an insurer had canceled an automotive policy prior to an accident. The insured failed to timely or fully pay the premium before the accident, the insurer mailed a notice of cancellation within 10 days of the cancellation date, and the insurer's acceptance of a timely partial payment did not serve to waive its right to cancel. The trial court was also right that the insurer's duty to defend was not extinguished until the trial court determined the policy had been properly canceled. However, because of the failure to take on the insured's defense, the insurer must pay the original damages award. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: November 9, 2023, Case #: 20180699-CA, Categories: Insurance, Damages
J. Oliver finds that substantial evidence supported the lower courts' award of medical expenses to an injured worker, along with temporary total disability compensation. The worker's claim that the medical panel was biased is too late, and the administrative law judge's evidentiary rulings were not an abuse of discretion.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: November 2, 2023, Case #: 20220342-CA, Categories: Workers' Compensation
J. Mortensen finds that evidence that defendant ignored a police officer who was obviously signaling for him to stop, and that he tried to break through a parking lot fence, supported his failure to stop conviction. Evidence of methamphetamine in baggies he threw from his car and the presence of his identification in a bag containing other meth contraband supported his drug conviction. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: November 2, 2023, Case #: 20210865-CA, Categories: Drug Offender, Resisting Arrest
J. Luthy finds that the trial court erred in arresting judgment following a jury verdict that defendant was guilty of witness tampering. Defendant's version of events was incompatible with the witness's version, which the jury believed and to which the trial court should have deferred. And the jury's finding that defendant's emails asking the witness to recount her story of intimidation at a conference amounted to tampering. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: November 2, 2023, Case #: 20210366-CA, Categories: Witnesses
J. Mortensen upholds the trial court's grant of guardianship to two children's maternal grandparents based on evidence that their mother neglected them. But it must make further findings to determine the mother's allocation of parenting time. Affirmed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: November 2, 2023, Case #: 20220920-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Luthy finds that the trial court properly revoked defendant's pretrial release, and it properly refused to grant a continuance based on his failure to present evidence contesting the revocation. A medical report that he was exaggerating a health condition and that he was malingering in order to avoid trial indicated he had become a flight risk. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: November 2, 2023, Case #: 20230534-CA, Categories: Sex Offender, Bail
J. Luthy finds that the lower court improperly dismissed a charge of domestic violence against defendant after he called his adoptive brother, who is married to his ex-wife, and said "you and that f***ing whore have it coming." This statement can reasonably be interpreted as a threat of violence, which violated the protective order forbidding defendant from communicating, directly or indirectly, with his ex-wife. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: October 26, 2023, Case #: 20220073-CA, Categories: Domestic Violence
J. Harris finds that the trial court properly granted summary judgment to a university that was sued by a research partner that claimed the university had breached a shareholder agreement. No issue of fact was presented that would indicate that the university ever signed an agreement, that it had agreed to its terms or that the agreement was enforceable. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 20210654-CA, Categories: Securities, Contract
J. Orme finds that the trial court properly dismissed a debtor's deceptive trade practices suit against a Wisconsin debt collection firm. The debtors failed to show that the foreign debt collector engaged in an affirmative misrepresentation beyond a failure to register that would be considered deceptive or unconscionable under the Consumer Sales Practices Act. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 20210394-CA, Categories: Debt Collection, Consumer Law
J. Harris finds that the trial court properly refused to extend reunification services beyond the 15 months already provided to a mother, as well as removed a child from her custody and placed the child in the father's permanent custody and guardianship. She failed to show she achieved any of the plan's goals and continued to make multiple unsupported allegations that the father was abusing the child, which resulted in invasive, traumatic and unnecessary examinations of the child. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 20220645-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Harris upholds the trial court finding that a driver who was arrested for drunk driving had refused to submit to a chemical test. The implied consent law requires a driver to immediately and unequivocally request a test once an officer warns the driver that a refusal may result in license revocation, and anything other than immediate consent is a refusal. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 20220557-CA, Categories: Licensing
J. Tenney upholds the trial court's termination of a mother's parental rights based on evidence that she made false allegations of abuse against her children's father and twice kept them when she lacked custody. Termination was in the children's present-tense best interest, and supervised visitation was not viable. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: October 13, 2023, Case #: 20220774-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Luthy finds that defendant was entitled to an adverse inference jury instruction highlighting an officer's failure to activate his body-worn camera before arresting defendant for failure to stop. The evidence that he was driving before the vehicle was abandoned was relatively weak while the Adverse Instruction Statute's factors weigh in favor of an instruction. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: October 13, 2023, Case #: 20210416-CA, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Jury Instructions
J. Oliver finds that the lower court should not have granted partial summary judgment to the owners of lots in a subdivision who are unhappy with their allotted water usage and say they are owed a secondary water system in addition to private wells. The county code does not require this. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: October 5, 2023, Case #: 20220556-CA, Categories: Property, Water
J. Tenney finds that the district court was within the discretion provided by the supreme court on remand to determine the scope of a prescriptive easement and to limit the servient estate to "reasonable" and "minor" changes to the location of the road it provided. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: October 5, 2023, Case #: 20220195-CA, Categories: Property
J. Mortensen finds that the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to file a direct appeal of his sentence for attempted child kidnapping. He expressly waived his right to appeal his conviction and sentence when he signed his plea agreement, and there is no evidence that he has been prejudiced since he never tried to appeal the sentence, which was handed down in 2003. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 20220104-CA, Categories: Sentencing, Plea, Kidnapping
J. Christiansen Forster finds that a mother did not receive ineffective assistance at a parental rights termination proceeding. The family court refused to grant mother's counsel's motion to withdraw, and the mother was not required to attend the proceeding, so her absence, which may have hurt her case, was not evidence of ineffective counsel. Her failure to communicate with counsel prior to the proceeding was solely her fault. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 20220629-CA, Categories: Family Law