Case Name: AMERICAN SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION, a Utah corporation, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Otis A. PIERCE et al., Defendants and Appellant
Court: Utah Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Utah
Decision Date: 1972-06-22
Citations: 28 Utah 2d 76
Docket Number: No. 12779
Parties: AMERICAN SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION, a Utah corporation, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Otis A. PIERCE et al., Defendants and Appellant.
Judges: CALLISTER, C. J., and TUCKETT, ELLETT, and CROCKETT, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Utah Reports, Second Series
Volume: 28
Pages: 76–77

Head Matter:
498 P.2d 648
AMERICAN SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION, a Utah corporation, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Otis A. PIERCE et al., Defendants and Appellant.
No. 12779.
Supreme Court of Utah.
June 22, 1972.
Summerhays, Klingle & Cohne, Lowell V. Summerhays, Salt Lake City, for defendants-appellants.
Alma H. Boyce, Salt Lake City, for plaintif f-respondent.

Opinion:
HENRIOD, Justice:
Appeal from a judgment denying a motion to reconsider a denied motion to vacate a judgment in plaintiff's favor arising out of money lost in cashing an insufficient funds check signed by defendant Christensen. Affirmed with costs on appeal to plaintiff.
Defendant's fiscal unorthodoxy is exceeded only by that reflected in the preceding paragraph. He signed a blank check, one of whose payees was codefendant Pierce, who also was codepositor with Christensen in the bank upon which the check was drawn. Pierce promptly kited the check, plaintiff foolishly cashed it, and the bank wisely dishonored it.
The main thrust of Christensen's appeal is that relief should have been granted by vacating the judgment on the ground of excusable neglect. The record does not reveal any excusable neglect of any kind. Contrariwise, it reveals not only irresponsible neglect, but a flouting of procedural rules beyond judicial repair, repeated refusals to adhere to the discovery procedures, rendering suspect a disposition for unwarranted protraction and prostitution of the judicial process. Defendant, in the interim, exhausted a couple of attorneys, also himself as attorney pro se, and has a fourth that yet has not been exhausted al though defendant's urged remedy has. We find no justification whatever in any suggestion the trial court judge abused his discretion.
CALLISTER, C. J., and TUCKETT, ELLETT, and CROCKETT, JJ., concur.