Utah Supreme Court Summaries

By Professor John Martinez

Mountain West v. Hospital Corporation of Utah
2007 UT 92 (November 27, 2007)

By Professor John Martinez

This case reiterates that an opposition to a motion for summary judgment cannot be based on an affidavit of someone who has no personal knowledge and, moreover, such an opposition affidavit must be sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact.
Mountain West Surgical Center and Mountain West Medical Properties (collectively “Mountainwest”) entered into a joint venture with South Davis Community Hospital (“SDCH”) to establish a new medical complex adjacent to Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful, Utah.
A significant glitch in the Mountainwest-SDCH venture, however, was that the land on which the new facility was proposed to be built was subject to restrictive covenants prohibiting the operation of certain medical facilities. The restrictive covenants were enforceable by the Hospital Corporation of Utah (“HCU”), the business entity that owned and operated Lakeview Hospital. So, not surprisingly, HCU sued SDCH to prevent the construction of the new facility next door. The parties ultimately settled that lawsuit and the facility was constructed at a different location. ¶ 5.
Mountainwest, the “odd-party-out” however, then sued HCU for tortious interference with prospective economic relations and with abuse of process. Mountainwest claimed that by filing the lawsuit against SDCH, HCU had caused the proposed medical facility to be built at a different location, at increased cost, and only after long delays. ¶ 6.
Mountainwest then apparently sat on the case for two years. It conducted no discovery and refused to respond to discovery requests from HCU. ¶ 7. So HCU finally filed a motion for summary judgment against Mountainwest, which responded with an affidavit of Richard Vincent, a Mountainwest employee. ¶ 8. The affidavit “stated that the filing of the first lawsuit ... effectively stopped the project and that, subsequently, the lender withdrew its financing.” ¶ 8. The trial court granted summary judgment against Mountainwest. ¶ 9. The case was appealed to the Utah Supreme Court.
The Utah Supreme Court first noted that “the only evidence [Mountainwest] offered [to prove HCU had caused Mountainwest harm] was the affidavit of its employee Richard Vincent.” ¶ 12. The Court held that, for two reasons, the Vincent Affidavit failed to provide evidence of causation: First, Vincent “did not purport to have personal knowledge of the decision-making process of the lender or the effect (if any) of the lis pendens [which HCU had filed against SDCH in the earlier lawsuit].” Second, even if Vincent’s affidavit had been based on personal knowledge, it was “factually insufficient to establish causation.” ¶ 14.
The Supreme Court therefore upheld the trial court’s grant of summery judgment in favor of HCU and against Mountainwest.