180 results for 'court:"Utah Court Of Appeals"'.
J. Harris finds that defendant's speedy trial rights were not violated because most of the nearly three-year delay before her assault and murder trial was attributable to her and she was late to assert the right. The trial court properly held that defendant's mother could not give alibi testimony because she was not included in defendant's notice of alibi. She opened the door to previously excluded statements when counsel asked a detective detailed questions about his aggressive questioning techniques and defendant's responses. Also, she failed to preserve her sentencing challenge. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: August 3, 2023, Case #: 20210242-CA, Categories: Evidence, Murder, Speedy Trial
J. Orme finds that the trial court failed to allow defendant to address the court prior to sentencing on drug and weapons charges. Trial courts have an affirmative duty to provide criminal defendants an opportunity for allocution, which allows the trial court to evaluate a defendant's sincerity and to ask defendant for clarification of issues a defendant may have raised in writing. It also allows a defendant to confer with counsel during sentencing. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: August 3, 2023, Case #: 20210476-CA, Categories: Drug Offender, Sentencing, Weapons
J. Harris holds that the trial court was within its discretion to rely on out-of-court written statements to bind defendant over for trial on DUI and drug charges. Reliable hearsay includes written statements by declarants, but statute does not require that such statements be written by the declarant as long as the declarant acknowledges the content of the statement with a signature. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: August 3, 2023, Case #: 20210890-CA, Categories: Confrontation, Evidence, Dui
J. Harris finds that the trial court properly held that a trustee breached his fiduciary duties in his handling of trust assets and excluded his expert witnesses, but a $250,000 damages award was unsupported by findings. The trial court also erred when it held the estate liable for the trustee's actions since a claim for vicarious liability was not pleaded or tried. The trial court should have applied extrinsic evidence of interest rates to a loan from the trust instead of default rates and it must revisit the offset determinations used in awarding damages. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: August 3, 2023, Case #: 20200808-CA, Categories: Trusts, Damages, Fiduciary Duty
J. Harris finds that the trial court properly dismissed legal malpractice claims because plaintiffs failed to present expert testimony. Bench trials are not subject to a different standard regarding the expert testimony requirement in legal malpractice cases than jury trials. Judges have extensive legal training and experience, but that experience may be in other areas, and without a standard-of-care expert, the parties are unable to explore the expert's training, assumptions and experience. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: August 3, 2023, Case #: 20210786-CA, Categories: Trusts, Experts, Legal Malpractice
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J. Christiansen Forster finds that the trial court properly tossed a negligence complaint filed by a scooter rider who crashed during a motorcycle licensing test because of hot tar on the test roadway. Immunity applied because the test was part of a government function, yet immunity was waived because her injury were caused by Driver License Division negligence. But immunity is ultimately applicable because her injury satisfies the licensing exception to the waiver of immunity. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 20220046-CA, Categories: Immunity, Negligence
J. Christiansen Forster finds that the trial court's award of sole physical and legal custody of a child to his mother conflicted with its order for joint decision-making, which must be vacated. The child support calculation included a math error and did not include all evidence regarding the father's income. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 20210779-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Tenney holds that a hearing officer must revisit the review of a teacher's firing and apply the proportionality and consistency standard instead of the "shocks the conscience" framework. The appeals court has jurisdiction to make the holding because an amendment to the statute controlling school board decisions was procedural not substantive and may be applied retroactively.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 20210155-CA, Categories: Employment, Jurisdiction
J. Mortensen finds that defendant failed to show that his waiver of a preliminary hearing was not his own decision, rather than the result of a coercive condition placed on him by the trial court in order to enter a plea bargain. His ineffective assistance claim that counsel should have objected to the trial court's comments about waiving a preliminary hearing failed since he rejected the state's best plea offer, voluntarily waived the preliminary hearing and sought to go to trial. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 20220276-CA, Categories: Assault, Plea
The Utah Court of Appeals finds that the trial court was within its discretion to terminate a mother's parental rights to her two children because of drug use and award permanent custody to their maternal grandmother. The mother did not make treatment progress, co-parenting was not possible because the two women could not cooperate, and the children had bonded with the grandmother and her extended family. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: July 13, 2023, Case #: 20230255-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Orme finds that the juvenile court failed to support its adjudication that an infant had been neglected with findings of fact or an analysis of the reasonableness of the medical decisions that his parents made on his behalf. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: July 6, 2023, Case #: 20210657-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Oliver finds that the trial court rightly dismissed derivative and direct claims stemming from the alleged breach of a company operating agreement for failure to prove damages. The determination by an appointed special litigation committee that no interest was due on a conversion claim must stand since the trial court found that the committee had met all statutory requirements. On remand, the trial court must allocate requested attorney fees between successful and unsuccessful claims. Affirmed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: July 6, 2023, Case #: 20210566-CA, Categories: Corporations, Conversion, Attorney Fees
J. Christiansen Forster finds that the trial court erred in dismissing a county commissioner's defamation and invasion of privacy complaint against other commissioners and a county employee who accused him of sexual harassment. Sufficient facts supported the claims and governmental immunity does not shield individuals accused of willful misconduct. However, governmental immunity was properly applied to the dismissal of the same tort claims against the county. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: July 6, 2023, Case #: 20200296-CA, Categories: Immunity, Defamation, Privacy
J. Oliver finds that counsel's failure to investigate a witness prejudiced defendant and requires the reversal of his kidnapping, robbery and firearms convictions. Counsel's strategy would have been much improved with details from defendant's housemate about the circumstances surrounding the alleged kidnapping, particularly statements the housemate made later about the alleged victim not being distressed or restrained in any way. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: July 6, 2023, Case #: 20210167-CA, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Kidnapping, Witnesses
J. Oliver reverses the district court decision to bar evidence of damages on contract, misrepresentation and other claims since defendants failed to brief the issue on appeal. Defendants also failed to create a reviewable brief of their challenge to the district court imposition of terminating sanctions for discovery violations. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: July 6, 2023, Case #: 20210726-CA, Categories: Sanctions, Discovery, Contract
J. Harris finds that it was error for the district court to dismiss a mother's petition arguing that her adult son's incapacitation required his father to continue to pay child support. The son's inability to earn a living means he still qualifies as a statutory "child" for the purposes of child support. Their divorce decree's silence on the son's disability did not require dismissal of the mother's petition. The district court must determine whether the son is incapacitated, and if he is, when he became incapacitated. It must then decide a proper support amount, how it should be paid, and whether it must be applied retroactively. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: June 23, 2023, Case #: 20210513-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Mortensen finds that defendant did not show that counsel was ineffective or that he suffered prejudice in a trial that ended with convictions for multiple offenses. Alleged erroneous jury instructions for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping did not result in prejudice. And counsel was within reason to decide not to challenge the value of a phone that defendant destroyed and was the basis of a theft count. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: June 23, 2023, Case #: 20210286-CA, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Robbery, Kidnapping
J. Mortensen finds that the trial court improperly admitted a witness's preliminary hearing testimony at defendant's child abuse trial. Defendant's motive in questioning the witness shifted from showing at the preliminary hearing that the witness was the likely source of the child's injuries to showing at trial that there was reasonable doubt that defendant caused the injuries, and the admission of the preliminary hearing testimony prejudiced defendant. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mortensen, Filed On: June 15, 2023, Case #: 20210718-CA, Categories: Domestic Violence, Witnesses, Child Victims
J. Oliver finds that the termination of a father's parental rights was not supported by clear and convincing evidence that termination was in his child's best interest. The trial court did not make any findings that the child's current living situation that includes visitation with father is not healthy and stable, or that the situation will change if she is not adopted by her stepfather. Reversed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Oliver, Filed On: June 15, 2023, Case #: 20210942-CA, Categories: Family Law
[Amended.] J. Tenney adds analysis to a previously published opinion with no change in judgment, finding that the district court must revisit the parties' arguments over the attorney fee provision in a promissory note. A lender incurred fees defending the terms of a note secured by real property after the borrower sought to invalidate the debt and the trust deed. The provision is ambiguous about the extent to which the lender is entitled to recoup the costs and expenses of litigation over the debt and the trust deed. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: June 15, 2023, Case #: 20210258-CA, Categories: Property, Banking / Lending, Attorney Fees
J. Christiansen Forster finds that the jury received potentially confusing instructions before it determined that a doctor did not breach his duty to obtain a patient's informed consent about the risks posed by an antibiotic he prescribed. The consent instruction given by the trial court was inadequate for jurors to establish that the patient's consent to receiving the drug was informed, and the doctor's repeated references to a "consent form" the patient had signed made it likely the jury was confused. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: 20220027-CA, Categories: Jury, Medical Malpractice
J. Tenney finds that the trial court must revisit several of its rulings in a divorce case. It must enter more detailed findings to support its conclusions regarding the values of real property assets, the wife's income and earning capacity, the wife's financial condition and needs, and the nature of the couple's marital debts. Vacated in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Tenney, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: 20210455-CA, Categories: Family Law
The appeals court denies a petition for permission to appeal a trial court order that denied petitioner's "motion to clarify." The petition was filed 46 days after the order was entered, far past the 21-day limit on appeals for interlocutory orders.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: 20230235-CA, Categories: Civil Procedure
J. Christiansen Forster finds that defendant failed to meet her burden to show that the trial court's admission of other-acts evidence resulted in any prejudice in the jury's conclusion that she violated a civil stalking injunction. However, her waiver of counsel at sentencing was not knowingly and intelligently made, as the trial court failed to hold an adequate colloquy. Vacated in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Christiansen Forster, Filed On: June 2, 2023, Case #: 20210335-CA, Categories: Evidence, Harassment
J. Harris finds that the trial court did not make adequate findings of substantial and material change to support its modification of a child custody arrangement that would change the primary physical custody of two children from their mother to their father. Vacated.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Harris, Filed On: June 2, 2023, Case #: 20210829-CA, Categories: Family Law
J. Orme finds the Standings and Training Council properly suspended the corrections officer’s certification for 3.5 years due to his admission that he masturbated in a staff restroom while on duty at a Utah Department of Corrections prison. Case law guiding on questions of right to privacy, as cited by the officer, does not provide constitutional protection for private masturbation by a public employee at work. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: 20210217-CA, Categories: Administrative Law, Civil Rights, Police Misconduct
J. Luthy finds the district court improperly dismissed this suit brought by the purchaser of a defaulted loan. The district court denied the purchaser’s motion for summary judgment and invoked the loan’s original arbitration provision, concluded that it divested the court of jurisdiction. The existence of an arbitration provision does not divest a court of jurisdiction. Reversed and remanded.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Luthy, Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: 20210581-CA, Categories: Arbitration, Jurisdiction, Banking / Lending
J. Orme finds the trial court properly found defendant guilty of protective order violations. The judgments were not against the clear weight of the evidence regarding these convictions. But the state did not present evidence of any act specified in the relevant charging documents as constituting stalking, apart from the protective order violation. Because stalking is predicated on a course of conduct comprising two or more acts, the evidence was necessarily insufficient. Affirmed in part. Reversed in part.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme , Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: 20190339-CA, Categories: Evidence, Restraining Order
Per curiam, the Utah Court of Appeals finds the juvenile court properly terminated the mother’s parental rights. The record supports the statutory grounds and best interest findings for termination, and the mother does not challenge this. Instead, she says the court improperly found that she waived her right to counsel. Based on her lack of contact with counsel and her failure to meaningfully participate, the court permitted counsel to withdraw, then reappointed at the termination hearing at the mother's request. After several failures to appear and continued lack of participation, the court determined that mother waived her right to counsel. The record does not support the mother’s claim that counsel was deficient or that her right to counsel was improperly waived. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: 20221129-CA, Categories: Family Law, Due Process, Guardianship
J. Orme finds the department properly issued a final order affirming permit modification approval for the landfill operator’s relocation of a landfill cell which the lake advocacy group says its groundwater monitoring system would be insufficient to detect leakage to the Great Salt Lake. After the advocacy group requested review, the department appointed an administrative law judge, who held that the department “did not err in determining that the bedrock beneath the landfill is cemented and [that] there is no hydraulic connection between the shallow aquifer and bedrock.” The advocacy group has not demonstrated that its alleged errors resulted in prejudice. Affirmed.
Court: Utah Court Of Appeals, Judge: Orme, Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: 20210589-CA, Categories: Administrative Law, Environment