Court Opinion

ID: 9534560
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:40:58.4532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:29.346935
License: Public Domain

GREGORY K. ORME, Court of Appeals Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the court’s opinion. I write separately only to address the law of the case doctrine, which I believe was viewed with undue reverence by Judge Murphy, probably because the prior determination had been made by a fellow judge who previously had the Summit County assignment. Because this issue recurs with some frequency in counties served by rotating judges, I think we should clarify the matter even though the parties, in the press of debating the merits of the judgment ulti*439mately entered, have not paused to address this link in the decisional chain.
While this court in footnote six of the main opinion expresses no opinion on Judge Murphy’s view that the law of the case doctrine “dictate[d]” that he give effect to Judge Wilkinson’s incorrect conclusions, it seems clear to me that this view leads to an unwarranted delay in delivering justice and burdens the appellate courts with issues that are capable of expeditious resolution at the trial level.
The law of the case doctrine is not a limit on judicial power, but only a practice designed “to protect both court and parties against the burdens of repeated reargument by indefatigable diehards.” 18 Charles A. Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478, at 789-90 (1981) [hereinafter Federal Practice ]. “The doctrine is not an inexorable command that rigidly binds a court to its former decisions but rather is an expression of good sense and wise judicial practice." Carpa, Inc. v. Ward Foods, Inc., 567 F.2d 1316, 1320 (5th Cir.1978), overruled on other grounds, Copper Liquor, Inc. v. Adolph Coors Co., 701 F.2d 542, 544 (5th Cir.1983) (en banc); see Salt Lake City Corp. v. James Constructors, Inc., 761 P.2d 42, 44-45 n. 5 (Utah Ct.App.1988). Among situations where reconsideration of a previously decided issue is recognized as desirable, notwithstanding the law of the case, is when there is a “need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Federal Practice, § 4478, at 790. As one appellate court observed, with all delicacy aside: “The only sensible thing for a trial court to do is to set itself right as soon as possible when convinced that the law of the case is erroneous. There is no need to await reversal.” Champaign-Urbana News Agency, Inc. v. J.L. Cummins News Co., 632 F.2d 680, 683 (7th Cir.1980).
Simply put, the law of the case doctrine does not prohibit a judge from catching a mistake and fixing it. See James Constructors, 761 P.2d at 45 (“[Tjrial court is not inexorably bound by its own prece-dents_”); McKee v. Williams, 741 P.2d 978, 981 (Utah Ct.App.1987) (court can change a ruling until a final decision is formally rendered; hence judge did not abuse discretion by rescinding prior decision to deny partial summary judgment). If this had been Judge Murphy’s case on his Salt Lake County individual calendar, and he had entered some interim order like Judge Wilkinson did, and he became convinced at trial that he was wrong, he would not have hesitated to fix it, relying on his fuller knowledge of the matter, more complete briefing, or other circumstances exposing the error. The happenstance that Summit County is still on a master calendar, served by constantly rotating judges, should not change that prerogative of the judge who actually decides the case on its merits.1 Nor do I think the statute prohibiting one trial judge from “reversing” another, see Utah Code Ann. § 78-7-19(1),2 applies to this situation — it is just intended to prevent a party from repeatedly peddling the same motion, hoping to eventually find a favorable judicial response. Thus, the statute would properly preclude Judge Murphy from entertaining the very TRO application rejected by Judge Wilkinson, but it does not preclude him in a subsequent stage of the case from taking a legal view different from that which Judge Wilkinson espoused in denying the TRO. In a sense, the two judges, while different per*440sons, constitute a single judicial office for law of the case purposes, namely, the third district judge serving Summit County.
In situations like the one before us, a judge who recognizes a mistake by the judge previously concerned with the same case and yet fails to correct that mistake simply delays the inevitable correction at the appellate level. In my view, if Judge Murphy could have deviated from his own prior interim decision — and he clearly could have done so here — he could have deviated from Judge Wilkinson’s. And he could have done so with certainty that this court would not reverse a second judge’s sound correction of a prior error on the basis that the correction was not in accordance with the law of the case established by the first judge. See Federal Practice, § 4478, at 795.
STEWART, J., concurs in the concurring opinion of GREGORY K. ORME, Court of Appeals Judge.
DURHAM, J., having disqualified herself, does not participate herein.
GREGORY K. ORME, Court of Appeals Judge, sat.
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. While the general rule in Utah is that one judge of the same court cannot properly redetermine a previous ruling made by another judge in the same case, see State v. Lamper, 779 P.2d 1125, 1129 (Utah 1989), circumstances occasionally arise when a judge may properly overturn a peer judge’s ruling in the same case. See, e.g., Richardson v. Grand Central Corp., 572 P.2d 395, 397 (Utah 1977) (another judge from same court can consider same question of law if presented in a different light); In re Estate of Mecham, 537 P.2d 312, 314 (Utah 1975) (second judge vacated first judge’s order striking exceptions to an accounting when matter subsequently appeared on law and motion calendar).

. Section 78-7-19(1) provides:
If an application for an order, made to a judge of a court in which the action or proceeding is pending, is refused in whole or in part or is granted conditionally, a subsequent application for the same order may not be made to any other judge, except of a higher court.