The following are a few highlighted Case Law Updates from the past year:
Rutherford v. Talisker Canyons Finance Co., 2019 UT 27 (June 27, 2019)
After reviewing the denial of summary judgment for the owners of Canyons Ski Resort, the Court took the opportunity to affirm two previous cases that dealt with personal injury liability arising from recreational activities:
First, absent some type of specific legislative enactment that says otherwise, preinjury releases signed by parents on behalf of minors are unenforceable as a matter of law. Hawkins ex rel. Hawkins v. Peart, 2001 UT 94, 37 P.3d 1062. Preinjury releases of this sort are frequently encountered at ski resorts, bounce houses, and rock-climbing arenas. In reaching its decision, the Court focused emphasized that these releases are often ambiguous, and also that they frequently run contrary to public policy.
Second, as illustrated in Clover v. Snowbird Ski Resort, 808 P.2d 1037 (Utah 1991), the Inherent Risks of Skiing statute does not per se foreclose claims of injury that are based on the resort’s negligent design and maintenance. In other words, to determine whether a risk is an integral part of the sport of skiing, courts will ask whether the skier could reasonably expect to encounter that risk while skiing. For example, if an unforeseen injury arose from a lift operator who negligently operated the lift, that would not be covered under the Inherent Risks of Skiing Statute because the injury was not a risk the skier could have reasonably expected to encounter.
Gardner v. Gardner, 2019 UT 28 (June 27, 2019)
In this case, although there were other potential causes of divorce, the Utah Supreme Court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by reducing the amount of alimony afforded to the wife where her fault “substantially contributed” to the demise of the marriage. Therefore, if one party’s conduct was an important or significant factor in the decision to seek divorce, courts may weigh that action in their determination of an appropriate remedy. Such conduct need not even be the first cause or the only cause, and extrinsic evidence may be brought in to support any such finding of contribution.
Lodge at Westgate Park City Resort and Spa Condominium Ass. Inc. v. Westgate Resorts Ltd., 2019 UT App 36 (March 14, 2019)
The court interprets provisions of a declaration or a set of CCR’s as it would a contract. If the language is not ambiguous, it is interpreted according to its plain language; this is often referred to as the looking to the “four corners” of a contract. However, if the court determines that the language is ambiguous, the court looks for extrinsic evidence that might provide understanding as to the meaning and intent of the drafters of the document.
In this case, there was a dispute about the contractual meaning of a section titled “Common Areas and Facilities.” Because the court agreed that the provision was ambiguous, and because there was some evidence that the original plat included a note which indicated the common areas were limited to the foundation of the building, the court concluded that the district court had not erred in determining that the provision “Common Areas and Facilities” under the declaration was limited to the foundation.
Salt Lake Tribune v. State Records Committee and Brigham Young University, 2019 UT 68 (December 4, 2019)
The Utah Supreme Court declined to enter a highly publicized dispute between the Salt Lake Tribune and Brigham Young University. In 2016, the newspaper began investigating allegations that BYU’s honor code office was mishandling victims’ reports of sexual abuse. Specifically, the Tribune alleged that the BYU police department was aiding the office in order to facilitate the discipline of offending students. The Tribune accordingly sent a GRAMA request to University Police requesting all emails between the police department and certain officials at the honor code office, seeking evidence of such misconduct. After the district court concluded that the University Police constitute a “governmental entity” under GRAMA, thus requiring disclosure, BYU petitioned to appeal the district court’s interlocutory order. After certification by the court of appeals, oral arguments were offered in front of a fractured portion of the Court (Justices Lee, Himonas, and Pearce recused themselves).
Because the legislature recently amended GRAMA to include University Police as a “governmental entity,” subject to the statute’s disclosure provisions, this issue became moot and the Court declined to address the appeal. Despite many accusing the Supreme Court of “punting” on the issue, this likely paves the way for the Tribune to file a new GRAMA request for documents which, under the amended code, will likely require disclosure.
Sprague v. Avalon Care Center, 2019 UT App 107 (June 20, 2019)
In this case, the Utah Court of Appeals provided guidance regarding the reliability of expert witness testimony in the context of a medical malpractice suit. Contrary to prior consensus, an expert witness is not required to explicitly state whether each opinion he or she provides is given within “a reasonable degree of medical certainty.” Instead, the court should view the testimony as a whole and analyze the substance of what is offered in order to determine whether the testimony is sufficiently reliable. Thus, even when a medical expert only implies a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the court may infer reliability based on the totality of the testimony.
Hamer v. City of Trinidad, 924 F.3d 1093 (10th Cir. 2019)
Here, the 10th Circuit resolved ambiguity between the ‘continuing violation doctrine’ and the ‘repeated violations doctrine.’ The court held that when a government entity violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the latter applies. In other words, when violative conduct occurs, the violation occurs repeatedly until the government affirmatively acts to remedy its non-compliant service or activity, as opposed to only initially when the entity constructed or created the non-compliant service. This is significant because under this doctrine, the statute of limitations would bar recovery only for injuries the plaintiff incurred outside of the limitations period immediately preceding the day of the suit; it would not bar recovery for injuries the plaintiff suffered within the limitations period of after the plaintiff filed suit.