Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Horne

• Decision Date: 02 October 2012
• Docket Number: No. 20120158.,20120158.
• Parties: The FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER–DAY SAINTS, an Association of Individuals, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Thomas C. HORNE, Bruce R. Wisan, Mark L. Shurtleff, and the Honorable Denise Posse Lindberg, Defendants and Appellants, and Richard Jessop Ream, Thomas Samuel Steed, Don Ronald Fischer, Deal Joseph Barlow, Walter Scott Fischer, Richard Gilbert, and Brent Jeffs, Intervenors and Appellants.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

289 P.3d 502

718 Utah Adv. Rep. 39

2012 UT 66

The FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER–DAY SAINTS, an Association of Individuals, Plaintiff and Appellee,

v. Thomas C. HORNE, Bruce R. Wisan, Mark L. Shurtleff, and the Honorable Denise Posse Lindberg, Defendants and Appellants,andRichard Jessop Ream, Thomas Samuel Steed, Don Ronald Fischer, Deal Joseph Barlow, Walter Scott Fischer, Richard Gilbert, and Brent Jeffs, Intervenors and Appellants.

No. 20120158.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Oct. 2, 2012.

Rodney R. Parker, Richard A. Van Wagoner, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Kenneth A. Okazaki, Stephen C. Clark, Salt Lake City, for appellee.

Mark P. Bookholder, Asst. Att'y Gen., Phoenix, AZ, for appellant Thomas C. Horne.

Jeffrey L. Shields, Mark L. Callister, Zachary T. Shields, Michael D. Stanger, Salt Lake City, for appellant Bruce R. Wisan.

Bridget K. Romano, Solicitor Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellant Mark L. Shurtleff.

C. Frederick Beckner III, Kathleen Moriarty Mueller, Amy Markopoulos, Washington, D.C., Brent M. Johnson, Salt Lake City for appellant the Honorable Denise Posse Lindberg.

Roger H. Hoole, Gregory N. Hoole, Salt Lake City, for intervenors.

Justice LEE

, opinion of the Court:

¶ 1 In this case we are asked to answer a certified question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit concerning the preclusive effect of a decision like that in Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, 238 P.3d 1054.

The state law question presented focuses specifically on whether our “discretionary review of a petition for extraordinary writ and subsequent dismissal on laches grounds” is a “decision ‘on the merits' when it is accompanied by a written opinion, such that later adjudication of the same claim is barred.” We answer the certified question in the affirmative: A decision like the one we reached in Lindberg is a decision “on the merits” for res judicata purposes that would thus preclude a subsequent action on the same claims between the same parties.

I

¶ 2 The certified question presented stems from litigation surrounding a Utah probate court's 2005 reformation and subsequent administration of a charitable religious trust formed by the predecessor to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day Saints. At the time of the initial proceedings culminating in the reformation of the trust, plaintiff, an association of individual members of the FLDS church and beneficiaries of the trust (the FLDSA), declined to intervene or participate in the litigation. When the FLDSA eventually sought to attack the reformation years later, it did so on two fronts.

¶ 3 First, in October 2008, the FLDSA filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Utah, asserting various state and federal constitutional challenges to the trust reformation and administration and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Eventually, the FLDSA moved for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against court administration of the trust. At that point, the federal court, upon agreement from the parties, stayed its proceedings “until the parties either reached a settlement or resumed the matter in court.” Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day Saints v. Wisan, 773 F.Supp.2d 1217, 1225 (D.Utah 2011)

. Meanwhile, in October 2009, the FLDSA filed an extraordinary writ petition with this court under Utah Rules of Civil Procedure 65B, asserting claims substantially similar to those in the federal case. Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, 238 P.3d 1054. This court held that all but one of the FLDSA's claims (one we deemed unripe) were barred by the equitable doctrine of laches and dismissed the petition. Id. ¶ 36. In so doing, we cited the FLDSA's unexplained but conscious delay in waiting nearly three years to challenge the reformation and also noted the resulting injury “to those who relied on the Trust's modification.” Id. ¶¶ 30–36.

¶ 4 The federal court then lifted its stay and invited further briefing on the motions pending there. After that briefing, the federal district court issued a memorandum opinion and order in February 2011 granting the FLDSA's preliminary injunction. Wisan, 773 F.Supp.2d at 1244.

Though it acknowledged that Utah's preclusion law was unsettled, id. at 1238, the federal district court determined that our laches decision in Lindberg was not a judgment “on the merits for the purposes of res judicata,” id. at 1242. In the absence of clear Utah precedent on the matter, the court reached this result by extrapolating “one common element” from approaches used elsewhere to determine whether laches dismissals warrant preclusive effect: “whether the underlying case in which laches was found included a fair examination of the circumstances and merits of the suit.” Id. at 1239–40. The court then opined that a proper laches analysis under Utah law requires consideration of the “relative harm to the [plaintiff],” which necessarily includes “an assessment of the merits of the plaintiffs' [constitutional claims].” Id. at 1240–41.

¶ 5 Unable to find any such analysis in the Lindberg

opinion, the federal district court then determined that “the [FLDSA] ha[d] not yet had a forum in which their claims of serious constitutional violations have been entertained or addressed sufficiently to earn a finding that they were on the merits.” Id. at 1241. In addition, the court concluded that the FLDSA was substantially likely to succeed on its constitutional claims, id. at 1233–34, and that those claims were not time-barred under its independent laches analysis, id. at 1236–38. The court accordingly granted the FLDSA's request for a preliminary injunction on those grounds, id. at 1244, and Defendants/Appellants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

¶ 6 The Tenth Circuit, recognizing that “the proper course in Utah is not well marked,” formally certified to us its question about the state of Utah preclusion law. We now respond to that query.

II

[1]

¶ 7 The posture of a matter certified to us by a federal court is unusual. “[T]raditional standards of review do not apply” because we are not asked “to affirm or reverse a lower court's decision.” ^FN1

U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. U.S. Sports Specialty Ass'n, 2012 UT 3, ¶ 9, 270 P.3d 464 (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet although our role in a certified case is in that respect a step removed from a particular case or controversy, our function in such matters nonetheless involves the exercise of judicial power.

¶ 8 Thus, we disagree at least in part with the FLDSA's request that we answer the certified question abstractly and without reference to the circumstances of the Lindberg

case. Our function in a certified case is not to issue abstract, advisory opinions on general matters of interest to the federal courts. It is to resolve disputed questions of state law in a context and manner useful to the resolution of a pending federal case.

¶ 9 The certified question presented undoubtedly implicates our decision in Lindberg.

And our resolution of that question can fulfill its purpose of facilitating the disposition of the underlying federal case only if our analysis is informed by and addresses the particular context in which the question arises.^FN2 That is confirmed by our appellate rule 41(c)(2), which requires that a certifying court's order “set forth all facts which are relevant to the determination of the question certified and which show the nature of the controversy, the context in which the question arose, and the procedural steps by which the question was framed.” Utah R. App. P. 41(c)(2). If facts are necessary to frame a certified question, surely they may also be relevant to our answer. Our opinions in certified cases corroborate that conclusion. We routinely refer to surrounding facts and circumstances not just to set the stage for our resolution of questions certified by federal courts, but also to illustrate the application of our answer in the context of the case.^FN3

[2]

¶ 10 That is not to say that our opinion on certification will itself resolve the underlying federal case. The resolution of the parties' competing claims and arguments will be up to the federal courts, which of course retain jurisdiction to decide this case under the law as they see it. That decision will be informed by our resolution of the state law issues presented, as the preclusive effect of a state court judgment is generally a matter of state law.^FN4 But except to clarify our law, we do not pretend to possess or exercise the authority to dictate the preclusive effect of our decision to the courts of a separate sovereign.^FN5 Those courts retain the independent authority to decide whether and to what extent to apply our law or to recognize limitations on or caveats to it. See infra ¶ 23 n.14.

¶ 11 With this in mind, our discussion below evaluates the preclusive effect of a decision like Lindberg

in a purely state law context—as in a case similar to the current one but filed in a district court of the State of Utah. We do so, however, not in the abstract but in consideration of the facts and circumstances of Lindberg.

III

[3]

¶ 12 Claim preclusion is one of two branches of the judicially created doctrine known as res judicata. Mack v. Utah State Dep't of Commerce, Div. of Secs., 2009 UT 47, ¶ 29, 221 P.3d 194. It “is premised on the principle that a controversy should be adjudicated only once.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The law of preclusion promotes this principle by barring parties from relitigating claims that have already been litigated in a previous suit. See id.

[4]

[5]

¶ 13 This doctrine serves three important purposes: First, it “preserv [es] the integrity of the judicial system by preventing inconsistent judicial outcomes; [second, it] promot[es] judicial economy by preventing previously litigated issues from being...