Utah Law Developments
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 31 |
Utah Law Developments
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
Smith v. Volkswagen Southtowne, Inc. 2022 UT 29 (June 30, 2022)
Granting the defendant’s post-trial motion for a directed verdict, the trial court concluded the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence of causation to support a claim of carbon monoxide exposure in the passenger compartment of a moving vehicle. The supreme court reversed, holding that expert testimony, when taken in conjunction with the non-expert testimony and circumstantial evidence, was sufficient to support a non-speculative finding of causation, even if the expert did not quantify the concentration of carbon monoxide in the passenger compartment. The decision also contains discussions on the standard of care, admission of expert testimony, and rule 60(b) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure.
ICS Corrections, Inc. v. Utah Procurement Policy Board 2022 UT 24 (June 23, 2022)
Utah Code section 63G-6a-1702(2)(b) requires that a notice of appeal from a decision of the Utah Procurement Policy Board’s “shall … be accompanied by a copy of any written protest decision.” In this case, ICS Corrections’ predecessor, CenturyLink, appealed a decision the Utah Division of Purchasing and General Services to the Division’s Procurement Board, but the Board dismissed the appeal because CenturyLink failed to attach the Division’s written decision to its appeal. The supreme court affirmed dismissal of the appeal because the statute’s plain language makes it clear and “controls and strict compliance with the statutory term, or the resulting consequence for non-compliance, is required.”
UMIA Insurance, Inc. v. Saltz 2022 UT 21 (June 9, 2022)
The appellant in this case, a medical malpractice liability Insurer, sued its Insured for declaratory relief, arguing that a factually unusual claim against the Insured was not covered under the terms of his insurance policy. The Insured counter-claimed that he was entitled to coverage under a theory of waiver and sought damages for bad faith. On appeal from a jury verdict in favor of the Insured and the lower court’s...
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