Eagle Mountain City v. Parsons, Kinghorn & Harris, P.C., 2017 UT 31 (June 7, 2017)

The Utah Supreme Court announced a “strong presumption that legal malpractice claims are voluntarily assignable.”  It explained that the public policy rationales relied on in other jurisdictions to support non-assignability are largely inapplicable or are not persuasive in this state given developments to Utah’s Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Professional Conduct.  The Court did not foreclose the possibility that certain assignments of malpractice claims would present such public policy concerns such that they would not be valid.  However, this case did not present any circumstances to rebut the strong presumption in favor of validity.