Legislative Update

• Jurisdiction: Utah,United States
• Citation: Vol. 36 No. 1 Pg. 13
• Pages: 13
• Publication year: 2023

Legislative Update Vol. 36 No. 1 Pg. 13 Utah Bar Journal January, 2023

January, 2023

Legislative Update or "Big Changes are a Comin"

by Frank Pignanelli, Stephen Foxley, and Stephen Styler

The 2023 Utah legislative session, which commences January 17, promises to be significant for Utah's legal community. Since the adjournment of the last session, lawyer legislators from both parties have been actively developing proposals that increase access to justice, remove complications in the judicial process, and otherwise make thoughtful improvements.

Business and Chancery Court

Representative Brady Brammer is leading the effort to establish a new "Business and Chancery Court." An experienced litigator, Representative Brammer developed a work group that toiled throughout the summer to construct the details for this new judicial arena. Attorney Wade Budge, of Snell & Wilmer, developed a white paper that served as a comprehensive guide for these deliberations, especially in examining and analyzing such courts in other jurisdictions.^[1]

The details and advantages of the Business and Chancery Court include the following:

• Judges will be appointed in a manner similar to District Court judges, but through a designated committee;

• Venue will be statewide;

• A case will be eligible for the court if it meets a list of criteria including:

- internal affairs of business organization;

- claims between or among owners of the same business organization;

- arises out of claims among owners;

- sell/merger/dissolution of a business organization; and

- matters relating to intellectual property, derivative actions, commercial real estate transactions, franchise disputes, securities fraud allegations, anti-trust allegations, Uniform Commercial Code transactions, or any other such business-related disputes;

• Any request for monetary damages must be more than $300,000;

• Evictions, condemnations, civil rights, personal injury disputes, administrative appeals, domestic relations, employment termination, and other such matters are excluded from jurisdiction of the Business and Chancery Court. Further, if a party requests a jury trial the matter will be reassigned to District Court; and

• Of importance, all final rulings and orders on motions and cases will be published and reported publicly. The court will provide a tentative ruling on each motion to the parties at least forty-eight hours before oral argument.

This court will provide experienced and educated judicial determination of complex business issues. Furthermore, the public relations benefit is important in that it will further solidify Utah as the place to do business.

Representative Brammer encourages input from his colleagues and others, as well as responses to his legislation as it progresses through the legislative process. Feel free to reach out to him directly: bbrammer@le.utah.gov.

New Statewide Division Court

In 2018, the Supreme Court Advisory Committee expressed interest in exploring procedural reforms for cases initiated in the Justice Courts. It concluded that small claims procedures could benefit from streamlining and refinement. In response, the Justice Court Reform Task Force published the following recommendations in August 2021:

FRANK PIGNANELLI, STEPHEN FOXLEY, and STEVEN STYLER are licensed attorneys and lobbyists for the Utah State Bar.

• Eliminating de novo appeals without requiring a constitutional amendment;

• Creating a new division of the District Court (Magistrate Division) where all misdemeanor and small claims cases would be heard on-the-record by full-time judges who are members of the Bar; and

• Increasing judicial independence by eliminating conflicts of interest, setting fixed judicial salaries, and standardizing practices.

To implement these recommendations, Senator Kirk Cullimore, also an experienced litigator, will be proposing legislation to advance Justice Court reform through a new statewide Division Court. Expected actions include:

• Legislation to recognize Justice Courts as part of the state judiciary subject...