Utah judges and commissioners can—and many often do—bend or ignore laws/rules and facts. Learn how this happens, why appellate oversight rarely corrects it, and what litigants can do to protect themselves from it.
Most people enter family court cases expecting rules to be followed. Utah is no exception. Utah litigants fairly and reasonably expect judges and commissioners to follow statutes, procedural rules, and evidence standards and to apply them to the relevant facts, even if the results are unpleasant. What many quickly discover, however, is that this concept exists more as a hope than as a reality. Who sits on the bench often matters more than what the law actually says applies.
On paper, the law and the rules are clear. Yet, in practice, they are inconsistently applied. Some judges and commissioners treat procedural and evidentiary safeguards as optional.
The power domestic commissioners wield is particularly striking. Some commissioners openly relax procedural and evidentiary requirements, claiming efficiency or the child’s best interest as justification.
Judges are not immune to the improvisation culture either. Broad discretion is meant to allow for nuance. But in too many cases, discretion is stretched into something approaching arbitrariness.
The cost is significant. Legal predictability—the hallmark of any functional justice system—gets lost, and with it basic due process. Outcomes can differ dramatically between courtrooms or even from day to day in the same courtroom. Families endure unnecessary financial and emotional distress.
Rules (statutory, procedural, evidentiary) exist to protect fairness and preserve the integrity of judicial decision-making. When courts ignore them, litigants lose more than cases—they lose confidence in the justice system itself.
Appellate oversight, in theory, should serve as a check on this lawlessness. In practice, it rarely does. Appeals are expensive, slow, and limited. Most litigants lack the resources to challenge a trial court ruling, and even successful appeals often offer only partial remedies after damage has long been done. The system tolerates inconsistency because the practical barriers to review are high and deference to trial courts remains strong. As a result, patterns of procedural laxity and discretionary overreach continue largely unchecked.
So what can litigants do? Document everything. Carefully prepare and file well-documented and well-argued objections when warranted. Know the relevant statutes and rules and case law; the best protection against a court’s whims is knowing how to best to hold the courts accountable. Realistic preparation, clarity, and persistence are the only tools available to you. Know them and how to use them properly and effectively.
Utah family law remains one of the most discretionary and least predictable areas of our legal system. Litigants need to enter these courts with eyes wide open to the differences between how the system is designed to function and how it actually functions.
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