Opinion ID: 2634494
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendants' Failure To Marshal in Relation To Their Claims Regarding the Preliminary Injunction[14]

Text: ¶81 Both of defendants' claims regarding the propriety and scope of the preliminary injunction, regardless of the initial trappings, involve the application of a highly fact-sensitive legal standard. [15] Because of the factually sensitive nature of a court's decision to enter a preliminary injunction, to properly challenge such an order an appellant must set forth findings of fact . . . [which] shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous. Utah R. Civ. P. 52(a). As we have discussed extensively, in order to show that these findings of fact are clearly erroneous, an appellant is required to marshal the evidence in support of the findings and show that they are against the clear weight of this evidence. Utah Med. Prods., 958 P.2d at 232. ¶82 Defendants claim that there is no evidence supporting the trial court's findings. Their assertion, however, does not satisfy the marshaling requirements. In situations where there is virtually nothing in the record that would support the trial court's findings, a claim of no evidence might be sufficient. However, an appellee need only point to a scintilla of evidence that supports a court's findings in order to refute an appellant's claim of no evidence. Wilson Supply, 2002 UT 94 at ¶ 22. Here, plaintiffs have met and surpassed that burden. They identify several of the trial court's findings of fact used to justify the preliminary injunction, along with citations to the record containing evidence that does indeed support these findings. These citations to the record include, among other things, detailed evidence of Madame Chen's central role in the establishment of the competing Apogee enterprise. Plaintiffs have presented more than enough evidence to persuade us that the trial court's findings were amply supported by evidence. [16] ¶83 Defendants have merely ignored damaging findings and avoided confronting problematic facts by claiming that there is no evidence. They restate evidence favorable to their position, point out facts that would support findings contrary to the trial court's findings, and attempt to recast damaging evidence in a light more favorable to their position. This is essentially an attempt to reargue the facts before us. Without proper marshaling of the evidence, we refuse to set aside the ruling of the trial court or the findings upon which it is based. We have been given no reason to believe they were erroneous, and have many convincing reasons to believe they were justified.