Plaintiffs defaulted on their home construction loan. They sued the appraiser who provided an appraisal to the bank to support their loan for breach of contract under a third party beneficiary theory. Plaintiffs alleged that the appraisal was over-inflated, which…
In 2000, four years after an unsolved sexual assault case, state prosecutors filed information identifying the unknown attacker by his DNA profile only. Two years later, the attacker’s DNA sample was matched with an individual incarcerated in Illinois. Shortly thereafter,…
The Utah Supreme Court addressed whether partial abandonment and partial forfeiture of water rights were available prior to 2002. In 2002, the Legislature amended Utah Code section 73-1-4 to clarify that partial forfeiture was an available remedy by providing “the…
The defendant was convicted on two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of attempted murder and sentenced to life without parole. On appeal, the Utah Supreme Court determined that the trial court erred in refusing to allow a defense…
The Tenth Circuit discussed whether the work-product doctrine contained in Rule 26(b)(3)(A) extends to a party’s expert witness. It concluded that neither the plain language of Rule 26(b)(3)(A) nor traditional understandings of the work-product doctrine supported the respondent’s assertion that…
The Utah Court of Appeals held that a challenge to a municipal land use ordinance is timely when filed within thirty days after the ordinance becomes effective. The Municipal Land Use, Development, and Management Act provides that a challenge to…
In answering a certified question from the Tenth Circuit, the Utah Supreme Court held that when an intervening change in law “extinguishes a previously timely cause of action,” the doctrine of equitable tolling will “afford the plaintiff a reasonable period…
