Court Opinion

ID: 9792744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:35:42.946205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.938036
License: Public Domain

JACKSON, Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the evidence and instruction sections and in the final result reached by the main opinion. However, on Erickson’s “public nuisance” claim, I follow a different rationale.
Erickson failed to properly plead and prosecute his claim as required by the statute upon which he relies. Because his approach to the issue of public nuisance was deficient, neither the trial court nor my colleagues have had the opportunity to focus on the pertinent consideration. The definition of public nuisance is “a crime against the order and economy of the state and consists in unlawfully doing any act.” Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-803 (1990) (emphasis added). Accordingly, this statute contains an antecedent condition that requires Erickson to allege and prove that what Sorenson did violated a pre-existing law. Erickson has failed to identify for either the trial court or us the “law” which Sorenson’s act violated and which brings Sorenson’s act within the purview of the nuisance statute. Erickson’s amended complaint alleged only that Soren-son created a “defective condition” affecting the highway.
Erickson’s claim is circular. He says that violation of the public nuisance statute makes Sorenson’s act unlawful, and thus, Sorenson violated the public nuisance statute. But a violation of the public nuisance statute requires an antecedent “unlawful act.” The dissent recognizes this hole in Erickson’s position and attempts to plug it by supplying Utah Code Ann. § 27-12-141 (1989) as the “law” which Sorenson violated to create the prerequisite “unlawful act.” But, Erickson failed to identify that “law” or any other “law” which first makes Sorenson’s placement of the sign an “unlawful act.” Thus, the trial court was deprived of the opportunity to consider this statutory requirement, and it cannot be raised for the first time on appeal, whether by Erickson or the dissent. Franklin Fin. v. New Empire Dev. Co., 659 P.2d 1040, 1044 (Utah 1983); Shayne v. Stanley & Sons, Inc., 605 P.2d 775, 776 (Utah 1980).1

. In response to footnote two of the main opinion, the statute requires an unlawful, not merely a wrongful act. Moreover, the creative examples describing "wrongful” acts are no doubt unlawful. "[P]arking a trailer in the middle of a public road" violates Utah Code Ann. § 27-12-141. And as for "driving livestock through a school hallway,” we know from the classic children's rhyme that Mary did bring livestock to school and it "was against the rules.”