Utah Law Developments
| Publication year | 2023 |
| Pages | 41 |
May, 2023
Appellate Highlights
by Rodney R. Parker, Dani Cepernich, Robert Cummings, Nathanael Mitchell, and Andrew Roth
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following 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 responsible for their content.
Utah Supreme Court
Utah Sage, Inc. v. Pleasant Grove City
2023 UT 2 (Feb. 23, 2023)
This appeal arose out of a challenge to a municipality's transportation utility fee (TUF). The supreme court held that the municipality acted within its authority under the General Welfare Statute in enacting a TUF to address deteriorating street conditions. Reversing the district court's classification of the TUF as a tax, the supreme court held the TUF, as a specific charge for specific service, was characteristic of a fee and remanded for a determination of reasonableness under the V-1 Oil test.
Utah Court of Appeals
State v. Graydon
2023 UT App 4, 524 P.3d 1034 (Jan. 20, 2023)
Graydon was charged with aggravated assault in connection with a road rage incident. To prove aggravated assault, the prosecution was required to establish, among other things, that Graydon made "a threat" and that the threat was "accompanied by a show of immediate force or violence." At trial, the prosecution told the jury that Graydon's display of a firearm during the incident amounted to both a threat and a show of immediate force. On appeal from his conviction, Graydon argued that the prosecution could not use a single act to prove more than one element of the crime of aggravated assault. The court of appeals disagreed, holding as a matter of first impression that "a single act or single series of acts may be used to prove more than one element of a crime."
Mower v. Mower
2023 UT App 10, 525 P.3d 110 (Jan. 20, 2023)
After the trial court had entered a bifurcated decree of divorce, the husband died. The bifurcated decree had left all financial matters for later resolution. When husband died, the trial court believed the divorce case abated, and dismissed it. The court of appeals reversed, holding that abatement upon death does not apply when a bifurcated divorce decree has been entered, and that the court retained jurisdiction to resolve the reserved...
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