The Utah Court of Appeals held that sufficient evidence supported a fatal negligent-driving conviction and that any speeding-instruction error was harmless.
The Utah Court of Appeals declined to overrule State v. Heath and affirmed object-rape and sexual-abuse convictions against evidentiary and due-process challenges.
The Utah Court of Appeals held that a court may resolve an ambiguous commercial lease on summary judgment when the admissible extrinsic evidence points only one way.
The Utah Court of Appeals reversed key summary-judgment rulings in a commercial lease dispute while enforcing rule 26 damages-disclosure limits in part.
The Utah Supreme Court affirmed child-sex-abuse convictions after finding waiver, inadequate preservation, and no deficient performance across multiple trial challenges.
The Utah Supreme Court reaffirmed that amended post-conviction claims must satisfy rule 15(c)’s relation-back standard and upheld the PCRA’s one-year deadline.
The Utah Supreme Court held that it could review a post-remand parental-rights judgment but not errors predating the first appeal, then affirmed termination as strictly necessary.
The Utah Supreme Court held that a DUI defendant properly invoked extraordinary-writ review but denied relief because the requested constitutional ruling was unlikely to change his prosecution.
The Utah Supreme Court held that terminating parental rights to facilitate an adoption requires a strictly necessary analysis, while affirming because the district court’s omission was harmless.
Applying Ross v. Kracht, the Utah Supreme Court affirmed that terminating an incarcerated father’s rights was strictly necessary to protect four children’s stability and permit their stepfather’s adoption.
The Utah Supreme Court held that a trial court’s brief sua sponte consideration does not preserve a fact-dependent damages theory when treating it as preserved would undermine judicial economy and fairness.
The Utah Court of Appeals held that negligent charging delay did not violate the Sixth Amendment where claimed parole and plea consequences were speculative.
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed child-sex-abuse and witness-tampering convictions, finding no material Brady violation or prejudicial attorney error.
The Utah Court of Appeals held that retaining stolen property can continue until possession ends, making the prosecution of a stolen skid steer timely.
A divided Utah Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may file a delinquency petition after an ineligible minor received a nonjudicial adjustment from probation.
The Utah Supreme Court held that bars that voluntarily settle a Dramshop Act claim cannot seek contribution under a provision limited to persons against whom an award is made.
The Utah Supreme Court held that violating the rule governing nighttime warrant service does not itself require suppression without a constitutional violation, bad faith, or prejudice.
The Utah Court of Appeals reversed an expert exclusion and attorney fees denial in a high-asset divorce arising from a California-law premarital agreement, holding that a technically deficient expert disclosure was harmless where the disclosing party promptly provided a full report and offered deposition access, and that a premarital agreement’s separate-property clause cannot waive a spouse’s right to attorney fees under Utah Code § 81-1-203(1).
The Utah Court of Appeals held for the first time that the economic loss rule bars fraud claims against corporate officers and agents who negotiated a contract on the company’s behalf, when those claims completely overlap with the corporation’s contractual duties — and reversed summary judgment on breach of contract and declaratory judgment claims because the district court had never determined what the contracts actually required.
The Utah Court of Appeals vacated a DUI conviction and remanded for a new trial, holding that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to move to suppress a breath test after bodycam footage showed the defendant biting his fingernails continuously for over two minutes during the Baker pre-test observation period — a question of first impression establishing that fingernail contact constitutes introduction of a foreign object requiring the Baker clock to restart.
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed a post-decree minivan enforcement order because ordering payment of lost equity fell within the four corners of the divorce decree, but reversed a child support arrearage ruling because the district court refused to hold an evidentiary hearing mandated by Utah R. Civ. P. 108(d)(2) and applied abuse-of-discretion review instead of the independent assessment required by rule 108(f).
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed a conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a child, holding that Utah Rule of Evidence 404(c) requires no similarity between prior child molestation acts and the charged offense for propensity evidence to be admissible, and that trial counsel was not ineffective for retaining a juror whose troubling statements during voir dire were followed by an audible chuckle and an express affirmation of the presumption of innocence.
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress evidence seized in plain view during a traffic stop, holding that an officer’s probable cause determination was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances even though the detective’s body camera was not recording and subsequent field tests on the seized baggie returned negative or inconclusive results.
The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s refusal to instruct the jury under Model Utah Jury Instruction CV212 on “violation of a safety law,” holding that voluntary consensus standards from ANSI, ASTM, and the non-adopted portions of the International Building Code are not “safety laws” within the instruction’s meaning—which, under the noscitur a sociis canon and Restatement (Second) of Torts § 288B, is limited to formally codified statutes, ordinances, and administrative rules with the force of law.