Salt Lake attorney Dan Bushnell died Monday of an apparent heart attack. He was 79.
Mr. Bushnell practiced law for 54 years. Early in his career he took on the federal government, maintaining that nuclear fallout was killing sheep that were ranging downwind from the government's Nevada test site in 1953, during its atomic detonation campaign.
Mr. Bushnell represented ranchers from the Cedar City area but lost in Utah's federal court in 1955 before winning what many legal experts consider a landmark reversal on appeal in 1979, some 25 years after the original case was filed.
Another high point of Mr. Bushnell's career was helping secure land for the Madrid LDS Temple, said wife Miriam Bushnell.
After retiring as a partner at the Salt Lake-based law firm Kirton and McConkie in 1987, he returned to work in Frankfurt, Germany, representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe from 1992 through 1998.
Mr. Bushnell was born in Meadow, Millard County, on Nov. 15, 1923. He moved to Salt Lake City as a teenager and graduated from West High School in 1941. He was a member of Salt Lake City's 1st Ward and remained friends with members of that ward.
During World War II, Mr. Bushnell was a pilot instructor in U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war Bushnell received undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University.
Mr. Bushnell served in the LDS Church as a branch president for the married stake at the University of Utah and as a bishop's counselor in Salt Lake City. He also worked at the Salt Lake Temple.
In his spare time Mr. Bushnell enjoyed the company of his family and traveling with his wife.
Mr. Bushnell is survived by his wife, Miriam, five children, 18 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Audrey Huffaker.
The funeral service will be Monday at noon at the Federal Heights LDS Ward, 1300 E. Fairfax Road, Salt Lake City.