Court Opinion

ID: 9794229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:01:38.846017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:11.919649
License: Public Domain

BENCH, Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in the main opinion’s treatment of the Jensens’ motion to disqualify Zions’s legal counsel. I dissent from my colleagues’ analysis of Zions’s motion to compel settlement. I believe the trial court’s grant of that motion was an abuse of discretion.
Our Code of Judicial Administration, rule 4-504(8) provides as follows:
No orders, judgments or decrees based upon stipulation shall be signed or entered unless the stipulation is in writing, signed by the attorneys of record for the respective parties and filed with the clerk or the stipulation was made on the record.
In Brown v. Brown, 744 P.2d 333 (Utah Ct.App.1987), this court applied the predecessor to rule 4-504(8)1 and expressly held that settlement agreements must be in the *482form of a written stipulation to be enforceable. I believe Brown is indistinguishable from the instant case.
The only exception to the rule that settlement agreements must be in writing is where the parties concede the existence of an agreement. See, e.g., Murray v. State, 737 P.2d 1000, 1001 (Utah 1987) (conceded at oral argument).2 Throughout the instant case, the Jensens have consistently denied that an agreement was ever reached.
In view of the clear language of rule 4-504(8) and our decision in Brown, I would reverse the order compelling settlement and remand the case for trial.

. Previously, rule 4.5(b) of the Rules of Practice in the District Courts and Circuit Courts provided that
No orders, judgments or decrees upon stipulation shall be signed or entered unless such stipulation is in writing, signed by the attorneys of record for the respective parties and filed with the clerk, provided that the stipulation may be made orally in open court.

. Where an agreement is admitted but not written, an evidentiary hearing may be necessary to determine the terms of the agreement. See Brown, 744 P.2d at 337 n. 3 (Orme, J., dissenting). See also Kukla v. National Distillers Prods. Co., 483 F.2d 619 (6th Cir.1973) (if the existence or the terms of a settlement agreement are in dispute, it is improper for the court to enforce the alleged agreement without an evidentiary hearing).