34 results for 'court:"Utah Supreme Court"'.
J. Durrant finds that defendant took sufficiently substantial steps toward meeting a police officer he believed was a 13-year-old girl for a magistrate court to bind him over on charges of attempted rape, sodomy and kidnapping of a child. Also, he was not entrapped since police did not persistently solicit him over time, but went from first contact to rendezvous in four hours, and they did not appeal to his sympathy or pity. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Durrant, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: 20220768, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Sex Offender, Entrapment
J. Kuhar finds that the appeals court erroneously held that a products liability claim over a failed safety harness had not been resolved in a New Jersey federal court and could be tried in Utah. The New Jersey case ended in summary judgment for the manufacturer when that court ruled that consumers failed to produce an admissible expert report and testimony. The appeals court took this to mean the case had not been resolved on its merits, but a determination that the consumers failed to meet their initial burden of proof by providing necessary expert testimony is tantamount to a decision on the merits under the doctrine of issue preclusion. Reversed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Petersen, Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 20220282, Categories: Product Liability, Experts
J. Tenney finds that the trial court properly dismissed a negligent hiring complaint against a university that hired a nurse who had a sexual assault conviction and went on to abuse several patients. The patients failed to provide the university with the notice of claim as required for a waiver of statutory governmental immunity. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: April 18, 2024, Case #: 20230197-CA, Categories: Civil Procedure, Immunity, Negligence
[Amended.] J. Hagen modifies a previously published opinion to hold that the Aircraft Valuation Law's valuation method does unconstitutionally intrude on the county's assessment authority. A county failed to show that state taxing authorities unconstitutionally applied the statute in taxing aircraft owned by Delta Air Lines. The state used a unitary approach to determine the property value of the aircraft and the county did not present evidence that the method was inadequate or that it violated the fair market value provision of the state constitution. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: April 18, 2024, Case #: 20210938, Categories: Property, Tax
J. Petersen finds that the trial court properly conducted a pretrial justification hearing at which defendant made a prima facie showing that he fired seven shots in self defense after a snowplow repeatedly rammed his SUV. He showed both a subjective and an objective belief that the snowplow was turning to strike his vehicle again and endanger him and his passenger.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Petersen, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: 20220325, Categories: Firearms, Self Defense
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J. Pearce finds that the trial court properly applied Utah's postjudgment interest rate to a Hawaii court's award once the judgment was domesticated in Utah. Also, the parties' underlying contract did not call for the application of Hawaii's postjudgment interest rate and principles of comity do not overried the requirements of the Foreign Judgment Act. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: 20230285, Categories: Damages, Enforcement Of Judgments
J. Pohlman finds that the State Tax Commission properly rejected taxpayers' argument that the Covid-19 pandemic entitled them to an adjustment to the fair market value of their properties for the tax year 2020 under the Access Interruption Statute. The pandemic was not a qualifying event under the law, and the list of qualifying events may only be expanded through promulgation by the Commission after it determines an additional event is similar to the 13 legislatively enumerated events. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: 20220345, Categories: Property, Tax, Covid-19
J. Pohlman finds that the trial court properly applied the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment to deny defendant's motion to suppress murder evidence police found during a warrantless search of his home. Police were acting on an objectively reasonable belief based on circumstantial and visual evidence that an adult and an infant required emergency aid when they entered. And defendant's state constitutional claim that the subjective intent of the police should be scrutinized also fails because police had an objectively reasonable basis to think there was an emergency. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: 20220560, Categories: Murder, Search
J. Pearce finds that the district court improperly denied an adoptee’s petition to unseal her birth parents’ records. The adoptee argues knowing the identity of her parents was necessary so the child could know health, genetic or social information about her family. The district court concluded she had failed to establish good cause for the records, but focused solely on the mother’s privacy. This case is remanded to evaluate the motion and correctly balance the weight of the mother’s privacy with why the adoptee wants the records. Reversed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: February 22, 2024, Case #: 20221097, Categories: Family Law, Public Record, Privacy
J. Hagen holds that the trial court properly instructed the jury on the patient's loved one's burden to prove the standard of care for a medical malpractice claim. However, insufficient evidence of pain, suffering or inconvenience supported a damages award on a survival claim. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 20220815, Categories: Jury, Damages, Medical Malpractice
J. Pohlman finds that the appeals court properly held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear defendant's appeal of a conviction for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle. Though appellate review is available even without an explicit district court ruling on a statute's constitutionality, he did not adequately raise his due process argument at trial such that the appeals court could find that the district court had made an implicit ruling on the statute's constitutionality. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 20230112, Categories: Vehicle, Jurisdiction, Due Process
J. Hagen finds that the trial court properly rejected a doctor's claim that he was entitled to a formal review process before the clinical privileges that came with his employment were withdrawn. A valid release in his employment contract barred any claims about his appointment, clinical privileges or qualifications. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 20220638, Categories: Employment, Health Care, Contract
J. Durrant the trial court properly refused to dismiss defendant's obstruction charge. A jury found his shooting death of his friend was self-defense. But an acquittal on underlying murder and other charges did not insulate him from an obstruction of justice charge. In hiding the shotgun he used to shoot the friend, he had the specific intent to hinder an investigation into an act he believed would be seen as a separate crime, even if he lacked the intent to commit the separate crime. The appeals court should have considered the jury instructions on obstruction but the error was harmless, and it correctly concluded that the verdicts were not legally impossible. Trial counsel was not ineffective for deciding not to pursue further relief at trial. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Durrant, Filed On: February 1, 2024, Case #: 20220039, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Murder, Obstruction
J. Pohlman holds that the district court must reconsider its denial of attorney fees to a reporter who intervened in a county commissioner's challenge to a release of public records. On remand, the district court should broaden its reading of the attorney fee provision of the Government Records Access and Management Act, which does not necessarily bar fee awards to third-party intervenors, and address whether the reporter substantially prevailed and whether her fees and costs were reasonable. Also, the reporter's court filing satisfied the Act's requirement that a records requester provide a statement of position to the records holder 20 days before incurring the attorney fees the reporter seeks to recover. Reversed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: January 11, 2024, Case #: 20220738, Categories: Public Record, Attorney Fees
J. Durrant finds that the district court properly dismissed defendant's petition for post-conviction relief on a murder conviction for killing a fellow inmate. Evidence of improper communications between the judge and jurors during sentencing was newly discovered in 2012 but he did not file his petition until more than five years later in 2018. The failure of his initial post-conviction counsel to interview jurors does not excuse his failure to file his petition within one year of discovering the improper communications. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Durrant, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: 20180788, Categories: Death Penalty, Jury, Murder
J. Petersen finds the court of appeals properly reversed the trial court's conviction of defendant for kidnapping and assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Defendant refused to provide the passcode to his phone after his arrest and the state argued his refusal undermined his defenses. Defendant had a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to provide his passcode, which the state violated when it used his refusal against him at trial. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Petersen , Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: 2023 UT 26, Categories: Constitution, Evidence, Kidnapping
J. Pohlman finds that the trial court properly denied defendant's challenge to the constitutionality of his sentence on convictions for aggravated murder and child abuse. His ineffective assistance and suppression of evidence claims are not cognizable under the resentencing rule he invoked. And the trial court was right to treat his challenge as a motion for resentencing relief due to its title and its contents, and not a petition for post-conviction relief. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: December 7, 2023, Case #: 20210293, Categories: Murder, Sentencing
J. Hagen finds that a county failed to show that state taxing authorities unconstitutionally applied the Aircraft Valuation Law in taxing aircraft owned by Delta Air Lines. The state used a unitary approach to determine the property value of the aircraft and the county did not present evidence that the method was inadequate or that it violated the fair market value provision of the state constitution. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: November 9, 2023, Case #: 20210938, Categories: Property, Tax
J. Hagen finds that the lower court properly denied defendant’s motion for relief from his conviction for attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a minor. He could have brought his ineffective assistance claim during his plea and sentencing, but did not, and because this claim falls under Utah’s Post-Conviction Remedies Act, it is not properly brought before the court as a Rule 60(b)(6) motion. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: October 12, 2023, Case #: 2023 UT 23, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Sex Offender, Child Victims
J. Pohlman upholds the convictions of a man who drunkenly and angrily raped his girlfriend after choking her to unconsciousness in front of their two-year-old daughter. There was no abuse of discretion from the trial court when it withheld video of defendant’s police interview and denied his motions for mistrial and new trial. Neither was his counsel’s assistance ineffective to the extent that it prejudiced him. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pohlman, Filed On: October 5, 2023, Case #: 2023 UT 22, Categories: Evidence, Sex Offender, Assault
J. Pearce finds that the trial court properly held that the Labor Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over this workers' compensation reimbursement dispute. While trial courts have jurisdiction over some reimbursement claims, this dispute involves questions that only the Commission can resolve, such as the extent to which workplace injuries caused claimant's medical conditions. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 20220471, Categories: Debt Collection, Jurisdiction, Workers' Compensation
J. Pearce finds that the district court did not err in holding that the state constitution gave it the discretion to grant defendant bail even though he was charged with a felony while on probation. The constitution guarantees bail to all those charged with a crime except for individuals in three circumstances, including defendant's. Because he is a double felony defendant he is not guaranteed the right to post bail. But the voters who passed a 1988 constitutional amendment changing the bail provision understood that judges would maintain discretion to grant bail to double felony defendants. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: September 21, 2023, Case #: 20220636, Categories: Constitution, Bail
J. Hagen finds that the trial court improperly rejected defendant's petition of factual innocence. Her conviction was based on her son's uncorroborated testimony of sexual abuse. The trial court must examine the relevant circumstances of the recantation to determine if it is complete and unequivocal and whether the son is credible. If credible, it is sufficient to prove factual innocence under the clear and convincing standard of evidence.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Hagen, Filed On: September 14, 2023, Case #: 20210330, Categories: Evidence, Sex Offender
J. Pearce finds that the appeals court properly concluded that trial counsel did not err in deciding not to seek a directed verdict in an aggravated arson case. Counsel did not have controlling precedent to assure he would succeed with an argument that the structure defendant burned was not an habitable structure. And counsel's decision to cross-examine a state witness instead of objecting to improper testimony was reasonable. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: August 17, 2023, Case #: 20220297, Categories: Evidence, Ineffective Assistance, Arson
J. Petersen holds that the district court must revisit a motion by the Office of Professional Conduct for the interim suspension of an attorney convicted of felony discharge of a firearm. The district court must look to the legal elements of an offense, not the particular facts of the criminal conduct, to determine whether a crime of conviction reflects adversely on an attorney's fitness to practice law and merits interim suspension.
Attorney discipline is based on the fact of a conviction, so an attorney facing discipline for a conviction is entitled to make legal but not factual challenges. Reversed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Petersen, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 20220116, Categories: Due Process, Attorney Discipline
J. Petersen finds that the trial court properly refused to suppress recordings of jailhouse phone calls that defendant made to his wife. He gave implied consent under the Interception Act's consent exception. An inmate handbook, a placard next to the phone and a pre-call message notified him that his calls might be monitored or recorded. Though he did not have an alternative to the jail's phone, the surveillance policy is a reasonable security measure. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Petersen, Filed On: June 29, 2023, Case #: 20210470, Categories: Evidence, Domestic Violence, Kidnapping
J. Pearce finds that the trial court properly dismissed a patient's respondeat superior claim against the medical practice that employed a physician assistant she said sexually assaulted her, as the medical practice did not hire him to perform sexual acts. Also, the Physician Assistant Act does not create vicarious employer liability for acts outside the scope of employment any more than a claim based on respondeat superior liability would. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: June 29, 2023, Case #: 20210873, Categories: Medical Malpractice, Assault
J. Pearce finds that the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to review non-final decisions by the Public Service Commission about how to calculate the export credit rate it applies to the excess power generated by utility customers' solar panels. However, the Commission's decision to have the credits expire annually is final and reviewable. Utility customers who generate more electricity than they consume may be treated differently than other ratepayers, and the annual expiration of credits is supported by substantial evidence that allowing the credits to roll over each year would encourage customers to buy excess generating capacity in order to sell more power to the utilities. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: June 22, 2023, Case #: 20210041, Categories: Administrative Law, Energy
J. Pearce finds that a mother's appeal of a parental rights termination was timely. Under statute, any party that files a timely appeal starts a new five-day period for any other party, so the father's timely appeal of the termination of his rights extended the 15-day deadline by five days. Reversed.
Court: Utah Supreme Court, Judge: Pearce, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: 20220580, Categories: Civil Procedure, Family Law