Appellate Highlights

• Citation: Vol. 38 No. 4 Pg. 29
• Year: 2025
• Pages: 29

Appellate Highlights No. Vol. 38 4 Pg. 29 Utah Bar Journal July, 2025

Utah Law Developments

by Rodney R. Parker, Dani Cepemich, Robert Cummings, and Andrew Roth

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thefollowing appellate cases of interest were recently decided by the Utah Supreme Court, Utah Court of Appeals, and United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The following summaries have been prepared by the authoring attorneys listed above, who are solely responsiblefor their content.

Utah Supreme Court

State v. Mullins

2025 UT 2 (March 13,2025)

Mullins pled guilty to aggravated murder committed when he was seventeen years old, and was sentenced to life without parole. Years later, he asked the court to review the constitutionality of his sentence after the US. Supreme Court held that mandatory life without parole sentencing of juvenile offenders was unconstitutional. While Mullins had not faced a mandatory sentence, he argued that the sentencing court had not properly considered his age and circumstances - and specifically the possibility that he could change and reform - when it imposed the sentence. While the record did not contain an affirmative factual finding that Mullins was capable of change, which would have rendered the sentence unconstitutional as a matter of law, the trial judge's comments that Mullins might have a chance to change and make a productive contribution "raise real concerns that Mullins may fall into that category. Given that 'a lifetime in prison is a disproportionate sentence for all but the rarest of children,' the judge's statements midermine our confidence that Juvenile Life Without Parole was an appropriate and constitutional sentence."

Hinton v. Midwest Family Mutual Insurance 2025 UT 4 (March 20,2025)

Tiffs case involves what constitutes "benefits paid or payable" under the Worker's Compensation Act such that those damages cannot be recovered in a separate action. Hinton settled a car wreck with the tortfeasor's insurance in a WCA proceeding, then claimed against her insurer for underinsured motorist coverage. The trial court interpreted Utah Code § 3lA-22-305.3 (4) (c) (i) to mean that past and future medical expenses and two-thirds of lost wages were payable under workers' compensation. The supreme court reversed. It held "that to be payable, benefits need only be capable of being paid to a claimant hi a particular case." This means that there is not a categorical bar to damages categories, as the district court found. "A claimant may not recover those underinsured motorist benefits that are hypothetically available from workers' compensation until she gets a determination allowing her to know for certain what workers' compensation will - and will not - cover. In light of this, we conclude that benefits remain 'payable' under the Workers' Compensation Act until a claimant in a particular case finds out otherwise. But once a workers' compensation claim is adjudicated, 'payable' means the amounts that have been awarded or are owed, but not yet paid."

State v. Cooke

2025 UT 6 (March 20,2025)

Defendant was charged with negligently driving with measurable amount of controlled substance in his body and causing death or serious bodily injury to another. Before trial, the statute under which he was charged was repealed and replaced with an amended statute. The supreme court held that the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss, because "Utah's general saving statute permits a prosecution to proceed unabated when the statutory basis for the charge is repealed before trial."

In re E.M.

2025 UT 8 (April 3,2025)

Juvenile action where 15-year-old was charged with four racially motivated murders that occurred during a drive-by. The juvenile court found it appropriate to try E.M. as an adult, and

Case summaries for Appellate Highlights are authored by members of the Appellate Practice Group of Spencer Fane Snow Christensen & Martineau.

E.M. appealed. "E.M. argue[d] the juvenile court...