Case Information
*1
T HE U TAH C OURT OF A PPEALS
M ICHAEL S MITH , Petitioner, v.
T HE H ONORABLE E LIZABETH H RUBY -M ILLS
AND S ALT L AKE C ITY , Respondents.
Opinion No. 20150198-CA Filed July 29, 2016 Original Proceeding in this Court
Jason Schatz, Attorney for Petitioner Brent M. Johnson and Nancy J. Sylvester, Attorneys for Respondent the Honorable Elizabeth Hruby-Mills Padma Veeru-Collings and Brandon E. Simmons, Attorneys for Respondent Salt Lake City J UDGE S TEPHEN L. R OTH authored this Opinion, in which J UDGE J. F REDERIC V OROS J R . and J USTICE J OHN A. P EARCE concurred. [1]
ROTH, Judge: Pursuant to rule 65B of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure,
Michael Smith petitions this court for extraordinary relief following a ruling against him by the Honorable Elizabeth Hruby-Mills on a motion to suppress evidence. Smith filed the 1. Justice John A. Pearce began his work on this case as a member of the Utah Court of Appeals. He became a member of the Utah Supreme Court thereafter and completed his work on the case sitting by special assignment as authorized by law. See generally Utah R. Jud. Admin. 3-108(3).
motion during the course of an appeal to the district court from a misdemeanor criminal conviction in the Salt Lake City Justice Court. Although we conclude that he is eligible for relief, we deny Smith’s petition because he has failed to persuade us that the district court abused its discretion.
BACKGROUND
¶2 Smith was arrested for driving under the influence, see Utah Code Ann. § 41-6a-502 (LexisNexis 2014), and failure to stay in one lane, see id. § 41-6a-710(1). Salt Lake City (the City) subsequently filed corresponding charges against Smith in the justice court. Before trial, Smith successfully moved the justice court to
suppress all evidence obtained following the initial traffic stop on the basis that the police officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop his vehicle. The City “exercise[d] its right to appeal [the justice court’s] pre-trial order suppressing evidence” by filing a notice of appeal seeking a hearing de novo in the district court. See id. § 78A-7-118(6) (LexisNexis Supp. 2015). [2] The City’s appeal was assigned to Third District Court Judge Hruby-Mills. [3] After the de novo hearing, which included briefing, presentation of 2. The Utah Legislature made changes to the wording and numbering of some subsections of section 78A-1-118 by an amendment effective May 10, 2016. See 2016 Utah Laws ch. 33 § 5. Because the amended statute does not differ materially from the version of the statute in effect during the relevant time frame, we cite the most recent version of the Utah Code Annotated. 3. Rule 38 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure requires that “[a] case appealed from a justice court shall be heard in a district courthouse located in the same county as the justice court from which the case is appealed.” Utah R. Crim. P. 38(a).
evidence, and argument, the district court judge denied Smith’s motion to suppress and remanded the case to the justice court for further proceedings. Smith then pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and was sentenced. [4] The day after sentencing, Smith appealed his conviction to the district court under section 78A-7-118(1) of the Utah Code and rule 38 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provide for a trial de novo in the district court on appeal from a judgment of the justice court. Coincidently, Smith’s appeal was again assigned to Judge
Hruby-Mills. [5] On appeal, Smith refiled the same motion to suppress evidence that the justice court had granted and the district court had denied on hearing de novo. In opposing the motion, the City argued that the matter had already been subject to a hearing de novo and that consideration of the motion to suppress a second time in Smith’s trial de novo “would violate the doctrine of res judicata.” The district court acknowledged that Smith was “entitled to a trial de novo . . . pursuant to Utah Code 78A-7-118(1)” and that he was “entitled to have the District Court hear ‘any pretrial evidentiary matters the court deems necessary,’ pursuant to rule 38(e)(2) [of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure],” but ultimately the court concluded that “in this case” it was “not . . . necessary” to hear Smith’s motion to suppress because “the same [motion] . . . ha[d] previously been argued before and decided” by the court. Smith now files this petition for extraordinary relief seeking an order directing the district court to consider his motion to suppress in the 4. The charge for failure to stay in one lane was dismissed. 5. Apparently in the Salt Lake Department of the Third District Court, judges are assigned on a rotating basis to hear appeals from justice courts; at the time of Smith’s appeal, Judge Hruby- Mills was one of the judges assigned to hear appeals from the justice court.
context of a trial de novo and to assign the case to a judge other than Judge Hruby-Mills. Both the City and Judge Hruby-Mills (collectively, Respondents) oppose Smith’s petition, arguing that either res judicata or the law of the case doctrine—or both—bar Smith from relitigating the motion to suppress as part of his trial de novo in the district court.
ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶5 Smith petitions this court for extraordinary relief under rule 65B(d) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. In his petition, Smith challenges the district court’s decision not to hear his motion to suppress on the ground that the court misinterpreted the applicable statute and prior case law. Under rule 65B, Smith’s petition may succeed only if “no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy is available,” Utah R. Civ. P. 65B(a), and upon showing, among other things, that the district court “abused its discretion,” id. R. 65B(d)(2). The first portion of that standard is established. Because
there is no right of appeal from a district court’s de novo review of a justice court decision, Smith has no other “plain, speedy and adequate remedy” from the district court’s decision in these circumstances, and can therefore seek extraordinary relief by petition. [6] Id. R. 65B(a). Our decision to grant relief, however, depends on a number of factors including: 6. Section 78A-7-118 of the Utah Code provides: “The decision of the district court is final and may not be appealed unless the district court rules on the constitutionality of a statute or ordinance.” Utah Code Ann. § 78A-7-118(9) (LexisNexis Supp. 2015). “[T]he Utah Legislature . . . [by enacting section 78A-7- 118] specifically and intentionally limited the issues that may be appealed from a district court’s judgment.” State v. Hinson , 966 P.2d 273, 276 (Utah Ct. App. 1998). Because Smith is not
(continued…) the egregiousness of the alleged error, the significance of the legal issue . . . , the severity of the consequences occasioned by the alleged error, and additional factors. The scope of review is limited to determining whether the respondent [in this case, the district court judge] has regularly pursued its authority.
Salt Lake City v. McCleve , 2008 UT 41, ¶ 5, 190 P.3d 1240 (alteration and omission in original) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
ANALYSIS
¶7 We first discuss section 78A-7-118 of the Utah Code, which provides the processes for both a hearing de novo and trial de novo of an appeal from a decision made in the justice court. Next, we consider the doctrines of res judicata and law of the case and how they may apply in the context of a trial de novo. We conclude that although law of the case is applicable to an appeal from justice court, res judicata is not. We then turn to Smith’s request for extraordinary relief and conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion and we therefore deny Smith the relief he requests.
I. Appeal from a Justice Court Ruling Section 78A-7-118 of the Utah Code establishes two types
of appeal from justice court: a trial de novo and a hearing de novo. See Utah Code Ann. § 78A-7-118 (LexisNexis Supp. 2015). (…continued)
challenging the district court’s ruling on the constitutionality of a statute or ordinance, the matter is before this court on a petition pursuant to Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 65B.
¶9 A defendant has a right to a trial de novo in the district court on appeal from a justice court conviction. Subsections (1) through (3) govern a defendant’s right to appeal a conviction and describe the process a defendant must take to obtain a “trial de novo in the district court.” Id. § 78A-7-118(1)–(3). Subsection (1) states that “a defendant is entitled to a trial de novo in the district court [after] . . . (a) sentencing . . . or (b) a plea of guilty or no contest in the justice court that is held in abeyance,” while subsections (2) and (3) address particular circumstances related to the process that are not at issue here. Id. § 78A-7-118(1)(a)–(b); see also id. § 78A-7-118(2)–(3). Smith has appealed his conviction after his justice court sentencing. A defendant in some circumstances and the prosecution
in other circumstances also have a right to a hearing de novo in the district court after an adverse ruling, generally where important rights are involved that cannot be remedied by the defendant through a trial de novo or would not be remedied at all by the prosecution. Id. § 78A-7-118(4)–(6). For example, under subsection (4) a defendant “is entitled to a hearing de novo in the district court” from a justice court’s decision to revoke probation, to enter “a judgment of guilt” for violation of the terms of a plea in abeyance and any sentence entered after the entry of such a judgment, or to deny “a motion to withdraw a plea.” Id. § 78A-7- 118(4)(a)–(d). Under subsection (5), the prosecution “is entitled to a hearing de novo” from a justice court decision that would halt or seriously impede the prosecution of the case, such as an order “holding invalid any part of a statute or ordinance,” an order allowing the defendant to “withdraw a plea of guilty or no contest,” and certain orders that essentially end the prosecution as a matter of law, including a “final judgment of dismissal,” “an order arresting judgment,” and “an order terminating the prosecution” on the basis of “double jeopardy or denial of a speedy trial.” Id. § 78A-7-118(5)(a)–(d), (g). As relevant to the circumstances here, the prosecution may appeal “a pretrial order excluding evidence.” Id. § 78A-7-118(5)(e). Subsection (5) states that “[t]he prosecutor is entitled to a hearing de novo in the district court on . . . a pretrial order excluding evidence, when the prosecutor certifies that exclusion of that evidence impairs continued prosecution of a class B misdemeanor,” such as the class B misdemeanor DUI charged in this case. Id. § 78A-7- 118(5)(f). [7] The question here is whether under this statutory scheme
Smith is entitled to relitigate, as part of his district court trial de
novo, the motion to suppress evidence that the district court
resolved against him in a hearing de novo originated by the City
in the course of the justice court process. The concept of the trial
de novo as “a complete retrial upon new evidence,”
Pledger v.
Cox
, 626 P.2d 415, 417 (Utah 1981) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted), where the defendant has “a new
opportunity to have a trier of fact review the case unfettered by
prior factual findings,”
Taylorsville City v. Adkins
, 2006 UT App
374, ¶ 6,
preclude such a result. We first determine that res judicata does not apply under the circumstances of a trial de novo from a justice court conviction. We then conclude that a district court considering an appeal on trial de novo from a justice court conviction is neither irretrievably bound by a prior decision on a hearing de novo, as the City argues, nor required to rehear the matter over again, as Smith contends. Rather, we conclude that the second branch of the law of the case doctrine applies, which gives the district court judge some discretion to rehear or reconsider prior decisions made on hearing de novo in the course of the trial de novo process but does not require the court to do so.
II. Res Judicata Respondents argue that the doctrine of res judicata bars
Smith from relitigating his motion to suppress—specifically, the doctrine’s issue preclusion branch. See generally Macris & Assocs., Inc. v. Neways, Inc. , 2000 UT 93, ¶¶ 19–20, 16 P.3d 1214 (recognizing that “[t]he doctrine of res judicata embraces two distinct branches: claim preclusion and issue preclusion,” and explaining the difference between the two branches). We conclude that the doctrine of res judicata does not apply in the context of this case. Issue preclusion applies only when the following four elements are met:
(i) the party against whom issue preclusion is asserted must have been a party to or in privity with a party to the prior adjudication; (ii) the issue decided in the prior adjudication must be identical to the one presented in the instant action; (iii) the issue in the first action must have been completely, fully, and fairly litigated; and (iv) the first suit must have resulted in a final judgment on the merits.
Collins v. Sandy City Board of Adjustment
, 2002 UT 77, ¶ 12, 52
P.3d 1267 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶13 The elements of res judicata assume that there has been a
“prior adjudication,” a “first action,” or a “first suit”; in other
words, by implication, the prior decision sought to be applied
must have occurred in a case other than the one in which a party
seeks to give it effect. However, as we discuss more fully in the
next section, “a trial de novo before a district court is more
properly regarded ‘as but an enlarged, fact-sensitive part of a
single, continuous course of
judicial proceedings during
which . . . a defendant receives more—rather than less—of the
process normally extended to criminal defendants in this
nation.’”
Bernat
,
¶14 As a result, decisions made in hearings de novo do not meet the requirements for application of the issue preclusion branch of res judicata.
III. Law of the Case Doctrine “Law of the case is a legal doctrine courts apply when
refusing to readdress an issue previously decided in the same case.” State v. O’Neil , 848 P.2d 694, 697 (Utah Ct. App. 1993), abrogated on different grounds by State v. Doporto , 935 P.2d 484 (Utah 1997). “The policy behind the doctrine is that in the interest of economy of time and efficiency of procedure, it is desirable to avoid the delays and the difficulties involved in repetitious contentions and rulings upon the same proposition in the same case.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also IHC Health Services, Inc. v. D & K Mgmt., Inc. , 2008 UT 73, ¶ 26, 196 P.3d 588 (“[U]nder the law of the case doctrine, a decision made on an issue during one stage of a case is binding in successive stages of the same litigation.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). We explained further:
The doctrine of law of the case has two branches. The first branch requires an issue decided by an appellate court be followed in all subsequent proceedings in the same case . . . unless . . . the decision was clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice. This serves the dual purpose of protecting against the reargument of settled issues and assuring the adherence of lower courts to the decision of higher courts. The second branch advises that a court should not reconsider and overrule a decision made by a co-equal court . The second branch neither mandates blind adherence to earlier rulings nor does it rise to the dignity of res judicata or stare decisis. In short, a trial court has significantly more discretion to reconsider an issue decided by a co- equal court.
O’Neil
,
hearing de novo process seems analogous to the usual context in
which the first branch of the law of the case doctrine applies,
also known as the mandate rule.
See Thurston v. Box Elder County
,
¶17 Relying on this analogy, Respondents essentially argue that, like an appellate decision, the district court’s decision on a hearing de novo must “be followed in all subsequent proceedings in the same case,” see O’Neil , 848 P.2d at 697 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), including any trial de novo in the district court. But the Utah Supreme Court has recognized that “[l]aw of the case terminology has been applied to a number of distinct sets of problems, each with a separate analysis.” Thurston , 892 P.2d at 1037. So although one set of problems involves judicial review by an appellate court and the subsequent application of the mandate rule, see id. at 1037–38, another “set of problems involves the respect that one judge or panel owes to the rulings of another judge or panel in a co-equal or coordinate court in the same or a closely related case,” id. at 1037 n.2. This passage describes the second branch of the law of the case doctrine that we identified in O’Neil . And we view the circumstances of a trial de novo as more akin to the “set of problems” involved in the second branch of our law of the case doctrine, where a coequal or coordinate court is reviewing a prior ruling of another coequal or coordinate court, not further proceedings on remand following a true appeal, where the mandate rule applies. See id. In this regard, the role of the district court changes once
the defendant appeals from a conviction in the justice court. At
that point, the matter passes completely out of the realm of the
justice court, and the district court is no longer making decisions
that govern the proceedings of a lower court as it was in the
context of the hearing de novo where its decisions amounted to a
mandate to the justice court. In other words, a district court in a
trial de novo does not stand in the same position with respect to
its own prior ruling in a hearing de novo that a court does in a
proceeding following a remand from an appellate court. Rather,
in the context of a trial de novo, the district court is acting on the
same level as the district court who conducted the earlier
hearing de novo. Both courts conduct a plenary reconsideration
of a proceeding from the same lower court, and the relationship
between the two courts is more accurately characterized as
horizontal rather than vertical.
See Bernat v. Allphin
, 2005 UT 1,
¶ 26,
not analogous to an interlocutory appeal, as Respondents argue, but is instead much more like a prior proceeding in the district court on the same case. As a consequence, once the case moves from the justice court to the district court, the first branch of the law of the case doctrine no longer applies; rather, the second branch, which imposes less constraint on a district court judge’s ability to change a prior ruling than does the first, comes into play. At that point, the law of the case only “ advises that a court should not reconsider and overrule a decision made by a co- equal court,” because “a trial court has significantly more discretion to reconsider an issue decided by a co-equal court.” O’Neil , 848 P.2d at 697 (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). For example, a judge may revisit decisions already made in a case if “there has been an intervening change of controlling authority[,] . . . when new evidence has become available[,] or . . . when the court is convinced that its prior decision was clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.” Thurston , 892 P.2d at 1039 (citations omitted); see also 21 C.J.S. Courts § 238 (2016) (“The law of the case does not have the inexorable effect of res judicata, and does not preclude a court from reconsidering an earlier ruling, if the court believes that the ruling was probably erroneous and that more harm would be done by adhering to the earlier rule than from the delay incident to reconsideration.” (footnotes omitted)). As a consequence, we reject both Smith’s argument that
the fresh start inherent in a trial de novo nullifies any earlier
decision of the district court in a hearing de novo and
Respondents’ argument that such decisions can never be
reconsidered. The Utah Supreme Court has recognized “that the
term de novo means literally anew, afresh, a second time.”
Bernat
, 2005 UT 1, ¶ 30 (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). The court has also described a trial de novo on appeal
from justice court as a “complete retrial upon new evidence . . .
wherein the case is tried in the district court as if it originated
there.”
Id.
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). But
Bernat
also describes “a trial de novo before a district court” as
“more properly regarded ‘as but an enlarged, fact-sensitive part
of a single, continuous course of judicial proceedings.’”
Id.
¶ 26
(quoting
Lydon
, 466 U.S. at 309). And that makes sense. As we
have explained, the hearing de novo process provides ready
access to district court de novo review of certain justice court
decisions that could not effectively be addressed on trial de
novo, such as the granting of a motion to suppress evidence, as
in this case, that would have seriously impaired the City’s ability
to proceed with the prosecution. That decision is binding on the
justice court. But there is nothing in the plain language of section
78A-7-118 that requires a complete reconsideration of every
decision already made in the district court during the justice
court process, and such an approach seems inconsistent with the
goal of providing a streamlined, relatively expeditious, and
simpler process for appeals by justice court defendants.
Id.
¶ 15
(noting that the concept of appeal through trial de novo
implicitly accepts a lack of finality in exchange for a “simple and
speedy” process (quoting
Colten v. Kentucky
,
case doctrine promotes these goals, preventing wholesale
reconsideration of decisions already made, while providing the
district court with the flexibility to revisit prior decisions in the
interest of justice. For instance, it makes little sense to require as
a matter of course that a district court’s decision interpreting a
statute (as where the validity of a statute or ordinance is
challenged on rehearing de novo) or finding facts (as in the
hearing de novo of most motions to suppress) be done over on
trial de novo by the same or another district court. But it may
make sense to do so when, for example, the law or the evidence
has evolved in the meantime or a party can establish that more
harm than good will flow from adhering to the prior ruling. And
the law of the case permits this sort of flexibility, without
requiring repeated “do-overs” simply as a matter of form.
See
Thurston
,
8. It follows from our decision here that assignment of a judge different from the one who heard a hearing de novo is neither required nor prohibited. The law of the case contemplates that the same judge may be presiding at a point in the proceedings, such as a trial de novo, when a defendant may request reconsideration of a prior decision. And there is no reason to question the ability of such a judge to impartially fulfill that role.
(continued…)
IV. Smith’s Request for Relief Smith petitioned for extraordinary relief under rule 65B.
See Utah R. Civ. P. 65B. “[R]ule 65B(d) is the equivalent of a common law petition for a writ of mandamus and provides the equivalent remedy.” Hogs R Us v. Town of Fairfield , 2009 UT 21, ¶ 11, 207 P.3d 1221. “The common law writ of mandamus was designed to compel a person to perform a legal duty incumbent on him by virtue of his office or as required by law.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Though a plaintiff may request the district court to direct the exercise of discretionary action, the writ is not available to direct the exercise of judgment or discretion in a particular way.” Id. (citation, emphasis, and internal quotation marks omitted). The granting of relief is (…continued)
Cf. In re Inquiry Concerning a Judge
,
discretionary, and “[u]nlike a party filing a direct appeal, a
petitioner seeking rule 65B(d) extraordinary relief has no right to
receive a remedy that corrects a lower court’s mishandling of a
particular case.”
State v. Barrett
, 2005 UT 88, ¶ 23,
and adequate remedy is available, a person may petition the
court for extraordinary relief on any of the grounds” identified
in the rule. Utah R. Civ. P. 65B(a). We may grant extraordinary
relief where the lower court has, among other things,
“(A) . . . exceeded its jurisdiction or abused its discretion;
(B) . . . failed to perform an act required by law as a duty of
office, trust, or station; [or] (C) . . . refused the petitioner the use
or enjoyment of a right or office to which the petitioner is
entitled.”
Id.
R. 65B(d)(2). The grounds for relief that are
relevant to the present matter are enumerated in subsection
(A), which addresses the wrongful use of judicial authority.
Id.
R. 65B(d)(2)(A). In this regard, “[w]here the challenged
proceedings are judicial in nature, the court’s review shall not
extend further than to determine whether the respondent has
regularly pursued its authority.”
Id.
R. 65B(d)(4). “Extraordinary
relief may be available upon a showing that the lower court has
exceeded its permitted range of discretion, and a mistake of law
may constitute such an excess.”
Salt Lake City v. McCleve
, 2008
UT 41, ¶ 5, 190 P.3d 1240. Importantly, however, even “if a
petitioner is able to establish that a lower court abused its
discretion, that petitioner becomes eligible for, but not entitled
to, extraordinary relief.”
Barrett
,
¶24 Here, the district court denied Smith the opportunity to
relitigate his motion to suppress because it concluded as a matter
of law that Smith was not entitled “to have the District Court
hear again . . . the same Motion to Suppress that ha[d]
previously been argued before and decided by the District
Court.” In reaching this conclusion, the district court relied upon
rule 38(e)(2) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure and stated
that “in this case [the court] does not deem it necessary” to hear
Smith’s motion to suppress. Rule 38 provides the process for
appeals from justice court to district court and specifically states
that “[d]iscovery, the trial, and any pre-trial evidentiary matters
the court deems necessary
, shall be held in accordance with these
rules.” Utah R. Crim. P. 38(e)(2) (emphasis added). In this
context, the district court’s decision is reasonably understood as
a determination that revisiting the motion was not necessary
because Smith had not demonstrated that there was a change in
the law or in the evidentiary landscape, that the prior decision
was clearly incorrect, or that adhering to the prior ruling would
yield more harm than good. Thus, the district court was justified
in exercising its discretion not to hear the motion again.
Smith has not persuaded us that the district court abused
its discretion in finding that it did not need to rehear the motion.
Both the City and Smith had the opportunity to present their
most compelling argument to the district court at the hearing de
novo regarding the justice court’s ruling that granted Smith’s
motion to suppress evidence. Smith had a full opportunity at
that hearing to argue why the traffic stop was unlawful and why
the evidence obtained after the stop should be suppressed before
the district court. Smith submitted briefing on the issue and
cross-examined the City’s only witness. After briefing,
testimony, and argument from both the City and Smith, the
district court denied Smith’s motion to suppress and remanded
the case to the justice court.
See
Utah Code Ann. § 78A-7-118(7)
(LexisNexis Supp. 2015). Additionally, in his reply brief, Smith
acknowledges that the law of the case doctrine as discussed in
Thurston v. Box Elder County
,
contemplate at least a change of some significance in the facts, the law, or the argument even under the flexible approach we have outlined here, we cannot say that the district court either misapplied the law or abused its discretion in determining that it was not “necessary” to rehear Smith’s motion. It is not apparent on the record whether Smith presented anything to the district court that triggered consideration of such an exception or whether the district court understood that it had flexibility to reconsider the motion to suppress under the law of the case doctrine. See id. at 1039 (providing for reconsideration of a prior decision under the law of the case where “there has been an intervening change of controlling authority,” “new evidence has become available,” or “the court is convinced that its prior decision was clearly erroneous”).
CONCLUSION We conclude that, while the second branch of the law of
the case doctrine gives the district court discretion to reconsider, in the context of a trial de novo, a decision made by the same or a different judge in an earlier hearing de novo in the same case, Smith has failed to persuade us that the district court abused its discretion by declining to do so here. As a result, because Smith has failed to persuade us that the court abused its discretion or that his request for extraordinary relief is otherwise merited, we deny his petition.