Utah Law Developments
| Publication year | 2021 |
| Pages | 27 |
May, 2021
Appellate Highlights
BY RODNEY R. PARKER, DANI CEPERNICH, ROBERT CUMMINGS, NATHANAEL MITCHELL, ADAM PACE, 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
State v. Malloy
2021 UT 3 (Jan. 21, 2021)
The court of appeals affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss, relying on State v. James which held that because officers can direct a driver to leave a vehicle incident to a traffic stop, there is no “functional” or constitutionally relevant difference if the officer opens the car door. The supreme court repudiated and otherwise limited James, holding that “it can no longer be said that it makes no constitutional difference whether a police officer opens a car door or asks a driver to do so,” based upon Fourth Amendment law developments shifting the focus from one of reasonable expectation of privacy to “an originalist, property-based inquiry.” The court nevertheless affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress based upon the officer’s objectively reasonable reliance on then-valid precedent.
Feldman v. Salt Lake City Corp. 2021 UT 4 (Jan. 28, 2021)
Plaintiffs brought suit against a municipality after a family member was caught in a creek current while walking dogs in a historic nature park. The district court dismissed based on an application of Utah’s Limitations on Landowner Liability Act. Reversing, the supreme court held (a) section 401 of the Act did not violate the Wrongful Death Clause of the Utah Constitution, but (b) the district court erred in granting the motion to dismiss because plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that the drowning was not caused by an inherent risk of the recreational activities at issue. In doing so, the court clarified the test for determining whether a risk was an integral and natural part of a given activity under the Limitations on Landowner Liability Act.
Kamoe v. Ridge
2021 UT 5 (Jan. 28, 2021)
Kamoe entered a negotiated plea and was sentenced in a justice court proceeding. She then appealed to the district court but withdrew her appeal when that court denied her renewed motion to suppress. Back in justice court, Kamoe requested that the original judgment be reinstated. The prosecutor objected, arguing the operation of Utah Code § 78A-7-118(3) had voided the judgment upon Kamoe’s appeal. That statute provides that an appeal of a negotiated plea voids the “negotiation with the prosecutor.” Both the justice court and the district court agreed this language meant that the original judgment was voided by Kamoe’s appeal. On appeal from the district court’s denial of Kamoe’s petition for extraordinary relief, the Utah Supreme Court reversed and remanded with instructions to restore the original judgment, holding the plain language of § 78A-7-118(3) does not void any sentence or judgment entered by the justice court, only the negotiated plea between the defendant and prosecutor.
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. San Juan County Comm’n
2021 UT 6 (Feb. 25, 2021) and
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Kane
County Comm’n...
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