The Utah Supreme Court attacked a local attorney and the state's Court of Appeals this week in an unusually harsh opinion.
But two Supreme Court justices issued an equally pointed dissent.In a split decision released Wednesday, justices reversed a Court of Appeals ruling that reversed the dismissal of a personal injury lawsuit brought against Continental Baking Co. by Vernal resident William W. Morton.
Morton was driving a semi-trailer truck on a state road between Nephi and Delta on April 29, 1989, when he collided head-on with a large Continental van. The driver of the van died instantly and Morton suffered severe leg injuries.
Morton and his attorney, Denver C. Snuffer Jr., claim the Continental van was traveling in the wrong lane; Continental attorneys say the opposite.
But the case never made it to trial because 4th District Judge Ray M. Harding dismissed it with prejudice after Snuffer failed to meet a deadline for filing responses to Continental questions - a deadline Snuffer steadfastly maintains he knew nothing about.
The judge relied on a civil procedure known as Rule 37. It allows jurists to impose fines or take other action against attorneys who don't meet deadlines.
Dismissing a case for failure to meet a deadline is rare and considered the harshest penalty available to a judge under the rule. Appeals judges have repeatedly ruled that it should be reserved for the most egregious misconduct by lawyers.
Harding said Snuffer had been given several chances to meet the "discovery" deadline and emphasized the lawyer could have contacted Continental attorneys or the court after receiving earlier notices about the need to respond.
Snuffer said he did not know about Harding's final order demanding a response in 10 days. He said the order was prepared by Continental attorney Terry M. Plant, signed by the judge and filed on the same day and without his knowledge - an exception to the practice of notifying all parties in a case.
And at any rate, his response was only one day late, Snuffer said.
Snuffer appealed the dismissal to the Court of Appeals, which agreed it was too severe a punishment, especially for Morton, who had no control over the legal battles that led to the dismissal.
Continental appealed the decision to the high court.
There, it was an easy target for Justice Leonard Russon, Chief Justice Michael D. Zimmerman and Justice Richard C. Howe.
"Morton had plenty of warning that his case was in trouble, considering he admitted to having received the motion to compel, which specifically requested a court order requiring compliance and threatening dismissal of Morton's case," Russon wrote for the majority. "There comes a time when a trial judge is justified in saying that enough is enough."
The majority went on to criticize the Court of Appeals reversal, writing that appeals judges "undertook to rewrite Rule 37 and ignored prior decisions of this court."
Justices I. Daniel Stewart and Christine M. Durham responded to the majority ruling with a heated dissent.
"I think it utterly indefensible for this court to hold that a client whose case is ready for trial can be thrown out of court because his attorney was one day late in complying with a discovery deadline," Stewart wrote. "Punishing a hapless, innocent client for his attorney's "crime" of being a day late in answering interrogatories will, I believe, evoke a sense of utter disillusionment with our sense of judicial fairness."
Stewart later called reasoning underlying the decision "pure sophistry" and compared the ruling's effect to killing an ant with a sledgehammer.
"If a sledgehammer is to be used to kill an ant, at least the right ant ought to be smashed," he wrote.
Snuffer said Wednesday that he planned to file a response to the ruling by Thursday. It will detail several "factual errors" reached by the majority, and he hopes it convinces the court to reconsider the ruling, he said.
"Eight appeals judges have looked at this case, and five agreed with my position," he said, referring to the two dissenting justices and the three Court of Appeals judges.