[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
This case is 24-4085, Earth Grains Baking Companies versus Sycamore Family Bakery.

[00:00:09] Speaker 02:
Mr. Heidemann.

[00:00:11] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:00:12] Speaker 03:
My name is Justin Heidemann.

[00:00:14] Speaker 03:
We'll offer him Heidemann and associates.

[00:00:16] Speaker 03:
And today we appear at the pleasure of the appellant, Sycamore Family LLC.

[00:00:22] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, it is my sincere hope that the following argument may be found pleasing by this Court.

[00:00:29] Speaker 03:
We would request a rebuttal of three and a half minutes.

[00:00:34] Speaker 03:
The appellants posit that two specific exchanges from the trial court highlight the error committed in this case.

[00:00:40] Speaker 03:
In the amended judgment, Appellants Appendix Volume 1, 204 to 206, the trial court states, pursuant to the orders entered in this case, the verdict of the jury filed on April 13, 2012,

[00:00:53] Speaker 03:
the July 25, 2014 order and judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit and the court's memorandum decision and order entered on August 21, 2015, all claims in this lawsuit having been resolved, tried, or stipulated.

[00:01:08] Speaker 03:
And this court amends the July 16, 2012 final judgment and enters the amended final judgment as follows.

[00:01:16] Speaker 03:
That order concludes with this statement.

[00:01:19] Speaker 03:
Each of the previous orders and decisions entered by this court

[00:01:22] Speaker 03:
in this case remain in effect except were otherwise reversed by the 10th Circuit.

[00:01:29] Speaker 03:
Nine years later, the trial court in response to Appellant's motion to terminate the judgment enters the following statement.

[00:01:36] Speaker 03:
Quote, in this case, the amended final judgment amended and superseded the final judgment.

[00:01:42] Speaker 03:
Defendants appealed the 2012 final judgment and obtained a favorable decision from the 10th Circuit invalidating the 2012 final judgment

[00:01:50] Speaker 03:
and requiring this court to enter the amended final judgment.

[00:01:54] Speaker 03:
That language is found in the Appellant's Appendix Volume 2, 236 through 240, specific language 237.

[00:02:03] Speaker 03:
These cannot be read to be consistent.

[00:02:05] Speaker 03:
And as a result of these statements, it is clear where the error lies in this case.

[00:02:12] Speaker 03:
I would note for the court that on issues 1 and 3, the parties agree as to the standard of review.

[00:02:17] Speaker 03:
But as to issue 2, the standard of review is in contention.

[00:02:20] Speaker 03:
I will address that through the course of this argument.

[00:02:23] Speaker 03:
However, I would start with the simple fact that if the court follows the state of Utah's plain language law, which this court has indicated in its prior appeal in this matter that it does so by simply looking at the plain language of the statute, that this case terminates as a result or with the result that reverses the trial court's decision.

[00:02:44] Speaker 03:
In this case, there is a specific statute at play that requires that from the date of the original judgment, there is an eight-year time frame.

[00:02:53] Speaker 01:
So the 2015 judgment would last for eight years?

[00:02:58] Speaker 03:
No, the 2012 judgment would last for eight years.

[00:03:01] Speaker 01:
So what in that plain language of the statute saying that a judgment lasts for eight years

[00:03:07] Speaker 01:
would apply only to the 2012 judgment, even if it survives in addition to the 2015 judgment.

[00:03:16] Speaker 01:
Is the 2015 judgment a nullity?

[00:03:19] Speaker 03:
No, it is not, Your Honor.

[00:03:20] Speaker 03:
The 2012 judgment or the language of the statute specifically states that the original judgment uses those two words in conjunction.

[00:03:28] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:03:28] Speaker 03:
Can be renewed.

[00:03:30] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:03:31] Speaker 01:
There's two statutes.

[00:03:32] Speaker 01:
The one you were referring to doesn't use the word original.

[00:03:35] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:03:36] Speaker 01:
And so it says that a judgment lasts for eight years.

[00:03:41] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:03:41] Speaker 01:
And the caption of the 2015 document has the word judgment in it, right?

[00:03:48] Speaker 03:
Specifically, Your Honor, I'm referring to Section 78B-5202.

[00:03:53] Speaker 03:
And what that expressly states in subparagraph 1B is that

[00:03:57] Speaker 03:
The entry of an order renewing a judgment maintains the date of the original judgment.

[00:04:01] Speaker 01:
And that's not the statute I'm asking you about.

[00:04:03] Speaker 01:
I'm asking you about the one you were talking about just a moment ago.

[00:04:06] Speaker 01:
Not the renewal.

[00:04:08] Speaker 01:
Let's say there's no renewal.

[00:04:11] Speaker 01:
The statute that you were just referring to saying that a judgment lasts for eight years.

[00:04:15] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:04:16] Speaker 01:
Why wouldn't the 2015 document, it is a judgment.

[00:04:22] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:04:23] Speaker 01:
So why doesn't it last for eight years, even if it can never be renewed?

[00:04:27] Speaker 03:
Excellent question.

[00:04:27] Speaker 03:
And Your Honor, I think the answer to that is because of the fact that the renewal statute identifies specifically the original time frame.

[00:04:35] Speaker 03:
And in fact, it's interesting.

[00:04:36] Speaker 03:
In a case cited by counsel, I'm going to get the name wrong, so I'll point to it.

[00:04:44] Speaker 03:
It is this case, cited at the very end, it's the Juergenson versus Ford case.

[00:04:52] Speaker 03:
Juergenson versus Ford goes through and actually identifies the public policy reason

[00:04:56] Speaker 03:
that answers the court's question.

[00:04:58] Speaker 03:
The judgment itself operates to create effectively a collection effort.

[00:05:03] Speaker 03:
And in this case, the 2015 effort would go into effect.

[00:05:06] Speaker 03:
But as Juergensen points out, the operation of the original judgment is what creates an issue associated with the property.

[00:05:13] Speaker 03:
And as a result of the fact that there is a necessity to be able to identify ownership and encumbrances on property, we go to the original judgment, not the original.

[00:05:20] Speaker 01:
Let's say that we are 100% persuaded.

[00:05:25] Speaker 01:
Well put.

[00:05:26] Speaker 01:
It sounds very persuasive.

[00:05:28] Speaker 01:
But you just told us that we have to, you know, we can't use our own policy preferences.

[00:05:33] Speaker 01:
We can't go behind the words of the statute.

[00:05:36] Speaker 02:
Correct.

[00:05:36] Speaker 01:
And the words of the statute, not the renewal statute, just the duration of the judgment.

[00:05:42] Speaker 01:
It sounds to me pretty unequivocal, pretty unambiguous that judgments last for eight years.

[00:05:48] Speaker 01:
And so even if it maybe was counterproductive by the legislature to say that any judgment lasts for eight years, we're stuck with the plain language of the statute.

[00:05:58] Speaker 03:
And this goes to the second point I was about to make.

[00:06:00] Speaker 03:
And again, I think it's an excellent question.

[00:06:02] Speaker 03:
I've spent hours tolling or toiling over this particular issue.

[00:06:06] Speaker 03:
Toll is on my mind, apparently.

[00:06:07] Speaker 03:
But in this particular instance, I think there's one date that gets overlooked.

[00:06:11] Speaker 03:
And it's one that cannot be.

[00:06:13] Speaker 03:
And that's the March 6, 2014 date.

[00:06:17] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, the charging order was entered that day.

[00:06:20] Speaker 03:
The amended judgment was entered in 2015.

[00:06:22] Speaker 03:
The amended judgment only amended one line.

[00:06:25] Speaker 03:
And it just simply identified that there was a LLC forfeiture with only one state, California, instead of two, Nevada and Arizona.

[00:06:34] Speaker 03:
It didn't change any economic elements.

[00:06:37] Speaker 03:
And the reason that's critical is because of what happens in 2018.

[00:06:39] Speaker 03:
In 2018, on November 2, the receiver is appointed, and the court expressly says,

[00:06:45] Speaker 03:
In reliance on the charging order and the failure to collect, I find it necessary to put the receiver in place.

[00:06:53] Speaker 03:
The charging order predates the amended judgment.

[00:06:55] Speaker 03:
And so as a result, it's clear to me that although the amended judgment amended an element of the judgment, it did not change the fundamental nature of the judgment, which was the amount to be collected.

[00:07:06] Speaker 03:
And in fact, that judgment is what is relied upon.

[00:07:09] Speaker 03:
Otherwise, the charging order is a legal nullity.

[00:07:12] Speaker 02:
Don't we think, though, in other contexts

[00:07:15] Speaker 02:
An amended judgment supersedes that which preceded it.

[00:07:21] Speaker 02:
You obtained a reversal in part in the 10th Circuit.

[00:07:25] Speaker 02:
It goes back, and the district court had no choice but to enter a new judgment that conformed with what the case was now about.

[00:07:35] Speaker 02:
I 100% agree.

[00:07:37] Speaker 02:
And so it reaffirms what it found before and fixes what

[00:07:43] Speaker 02:
the 10th Circuit said was erroneous.

[00:07:47] Speaker 02:
But you think that judgment, that document, is what the plaintiff needs to go show an enforcement officer, or maybe you came back up to the 10th Circuit, whatever.

[00:08:01] Speaker 03:
Let me make sure I understand the court's question.

[00:08:02] Speaker 03:
I think I do.

[00:08:03] Speaker 03:
I agree 100% that the new judgment supersedes the old.

[00:08:06] Speaker 03:
What I don't agree with, and what I think the legislature of the state of Utah does not agree with, is that it changes the timing

[00:08:13] Speaker 03:
for the renewal period.

[00:08:15] Speaker 02:
But in most other contexts, the federal rules later in time with judgment would be the operative judgment.

[00:08:22] Speaker 02:
That's what we would look at.

[00:08:23] Speaker 02:
I agree.

[00:08:23] Speaker 02:
And you're saying because of the statutory language, that's out the door.

[00:08:29] Speaker 03:
Well, and I think, Your Honor, it's also important to take a look at what happens with regard to the construction in the case I just referenced.

[00:08:36] Speaker 03:
I keep saying the name incorrectly.

[00:08:38] Speaker 03:
Here we go.

[00:08:42] Speaker 03:
Juergensen case.

[00:08:43] Speaker 03:
I want to say Yazd, and it's Juergensen.

[00:08:44] Speaker 03:
Yazd is a famous Utah case.

[00:08:46] Speaker 03:
In that particular instance, the court identifies that you only get one additional eight-year period.

[00:08:51] Speaker 03:
So when your judgment is entered eight years later, if you renew it, you don't get to renew again.

[00:08:57] Speaker 03:
You get two periods of time.

[00:08:59] Speaker 03:
And the court sets that period of time based specifically on that statute.

[00:09:04] Speaker 03:
And the statute says the original judgment.

[00:09:07] Speaker 03:
If they wanted to say a superseded judgment, if they wanted to say an amended judgment, they would have.

[00:09:11] Speaker 03:
But they did not.

[00:09:12] Speaker 02:
Could earth grains have been pursuing collection efforts during the appeal to the 10th Circuit?

[00:09:19] Speaker 03:
They did.

[00:09:20] Speaker 03:
They did.

[00:09:22] Speaker 03:
In fact, that's one of the specific elements.

[00:09:25] Speaker 03:
If you look at the November 15, 2019 report, which is the 14th status report, the court ordered $1.1 million be distributed.

[00:09:35] Speaker 03:
And then we find out that on December 20, 2021,

[00:09:38] Speaker 03:
There was a distribution of $1.375 million.

[00:09:41] Speaker 02:
And I'm talking about between 2012 and 2014.

[00:09:46] Speaker 03:
Yes, they did.

[00:09:46] Speaker 03:
That's where these funds came from.

[00:09:49] Speaker 03:
The court entered during the, well, and to be very, very specific, there was an appeal that was taken in 2020.

[00:09:59] Speaker 03:
And when that appeal was filed, there was only four months left on this renewal period.

[00:10:06] Speaker 03:
That notice created a circumstance where there was a 57-day complete stay.

[00:10:11] Speaker 03:
But this court affirmed in part and denied in part.

[00:10:14] Speaker 03:
And what it affirmed was that the liquidation stay was still in effect, but the collection stay was never in effect after that order.

[00:10:23] Speaker 03:
So they had the ability to collect at all times.

[00:10:26] Speaker 02:
OK, let me ask my question a little differently in the form of a hypothetical.

[00:10:29] Speaker 02:
Let's say you've appealed the 2012

[00:10:35] Speaker 02:
final judgment, and for whatever reason, the Tenth Circuit doesn't get an opinion out for eight years.

[00:10:46] Speaker 02:
And I think I hear you saying that the plaintiff had to enter its collection actions during that period, or even though there was not a decision from the Court of Appeals, would have to file for renewal.

[00:11:02] Speaker 03:
OK, no, Your Honor, that's not what I'm saying.

[00:11:04] Speaker 03:
If you look at the Gilead case, the Gilead case is very clear that whenever there are stays vis-a-vis operation of law, which is this plain language of the statute, or whenever there is a period where there is an adverse ruling that precludes an activity, that equals an equitable tolling event.

[00:11:20] Speaker 03:
And I'm sorry, I said Gilead, and I should have said Stinson.

[00:11:22] Speaker 03:
That's the Stinson case.

[00:11:24] Speaker 03:
And so those periods of time would allow for tolling, but that didn't happen here.

[00:11:27] Speaker 01:
Well, it didn't happen.

[00:11:29] Speaker 01:
There was a specific statute.

[00:11:31] Speaker 01:
There was two arguments that had been presented.

[00:11:37] Speaker 01:
And you seemed to conflate the statutory stays and the equitable stays.

[00:11:44] Speaker 01:
The judge concluded that because of improper conduct from Mr. Sycamore and the LLC, that that should count as an equitable stay.

[00:11:55] Speaker 01:
The statute specifically enunciates, however, I think 785B202, that there is a separate provision for statutory stays.

[00:12:07] Speaker 01:
And the statutory stays, I think, come up, if you total the math, I think it comes up to one year and 364 days.

[00:12:13] Speaker 01:
And so that one year and 364 days, even if you're right on the Gilead case, that would affect the extension of the operation

[00:12:25] Speaker 01:
whatever judgments involved, correct?

[00:12:28] Speaker 01:
No.

[00:12:28] Speaker 01:
You've never argued otherwise.

[00:12:30] Speaker 01:
We have.

[00:12:31] Speaker 01:
No, you haven't.

[00:12:32] Speaker 01:
OK.

[00:12:33] Speaker 01:
So in your reply brief, you say, I'm not trying to argue, I shouldn't say that.

[00:12:37] Speaker 01:
In your reply brief, you said, yeah, we have.

[00:12:40] Speaker 01:
We have absolutely argued that there shouldn't have been any equitable states.

[00:12:45] Speaker 01:
Oh, I see.

[00:12:45] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry.

[00:12:47] Speaker 01:
I know that.

[00:12:48] Speaker 01:
I'm arguing about the statutory stay.

[00:12:51] Speaker 03:
You're correct.

[00:12:52] Speaker 03:
That's not what I was saying.

[00:12:53] Speaker 03:
What I was saying is it doesn't matter, because none of the stays went into effect until the time had already expired.

[00:13:00] Speaker 01:
If we say the 2015 judgment doesn't really

[00:13:07] Speaker 01:
That is correct.

[00:13:08] Speaker 01:
If you say the 2015 judgment matters, I'm not a supreme mathematician, but even I can add eight years to 2015 to 2023.

[00:13:18] Speaker 01:
And if I add one day shy of two years, you're in 2025.

[00:13:24] Speaker 01:
And so in 2024, the termination of the charging order would have preceded the expiration of the 2015 judgment.

[00:13:34] Speaker 01:
with the addition of a year in 364 days.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
And this is where I think the court has to take a very close look at the timing of when these stays were offered or issued by with regard to the operation of law.

[00:13:45] Speaker 03:
Those stays took place when the first appeal was filed, which is in 2020.

[00:13:48] Speaker 03:
That's a 57 day window.

[00:13:51] Speaker 03:
They don't file within that 57 day window.

[00:13:54] Speaker 03:
The next day comes after the 2023 date.

[00:13:57] Speaker 03:
And so that doesn't matter.

[00:13:59] Speaker 03:
So the only thing that matters, that's why we didn't argue the statutory, the only thing that matters is equity, and they were able to collect the entire time.

[00:14:07] Speaker 03:
And so as a result, Gilead makes it very clear, unless you're somehow precluded, you don't get there, which is why we come, and I'm almost out of time, so I'm talking fast, which is why we come to the issue of the second item, this equitable tolling.

[00:14:19] Speaker 03:
No Utah court in the history of the state has ever applied equitable tolling when the dates were known.

[00:14:24] Speaker 03:
And I would note for the court, there was a case that was issued 35 days ago by the Court of Appeals.

[00:14:29] Speaker 03:
It is not even published yet.

[00:14:30] Speaker 03:
It is a slip opinion.

[00:14:32] Speaker 03:
I've got the citation for you if you would like it.

[00:14:34] Speaker 03:
You can submit a 28-J letter.

[00:14:36] Speaker 02:
I'm sorry?

[00:14:36] Speaker 02:
You can submit an authority afterwards.

[00:14:39] Speaker 03:
We will.

[00:14:39] Speaker 03:
I just want the court to know that it came out.

[00:14:41] Speaker 03:
But the whole point here is that even as of 35 days ago, it is consistent.

[00:14:45] Speaker 03:
And in this case, all they had to do is file a motion.

[00:14:50] Speaker 03:
That's it.

[00:14:51] Speaker 03:
That's all they had to do.

[00:14:52] Speaker 03:
Every single case that they identify for this court predates the Renewal Act.

[00:14:58] Speaker 03:
The Ford opinion, even Gilead, all of those opinions predate this act.

[00:15:02] Speaker 03:
It was created in 2011.

[00:15:05] Speaker 03:
There is simply no ability for the court to look at this language and say, oh, we're going to apply some equitable issue here.

[00:15:14] Speaker 03:
It doesn't work that way, not with the statute.

[00:15:17] Speaker 03:
I see I'm out of time.

[00:15:17] Speaker 03:
Are there any questions?

[00:15:18] Speaker 03:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:15:40] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court, Alan Moritz for Earth Grains.

[00:15:46] Speaker 00:
Covered a fair amount of ground this morning.

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
I think the Court can resolve this appeal quite straightforwardly based on the standard adopted in Gildea, which was in 2015, four years after the renewal statute was passed.

[00:16:05] Speaker 00:
And the standard in Gildea states that a judgment debtor

[00:16:09] Speaker 00:
cannot assert a judgment's expiration as a defense if the judgment debtor acts in bad faith to prevent the judgment creditor from enforcing the judgment.

[00:16:22] Speaker 00:
That principle is grounded in equitable estoppel.

[00:16:26] Speaker 00:
It's what Judge Kimball, who has lived with this case for more than 15 years, relied upon, at least in part, to hold that the judgment had not expired, or at least

[00:16:38] Speaker 00:
that the sycamores were prohibited from arguing the judgment's expiration as a defense because they had engaged in bad faith conduct with respect to the judgment creditors' efforts to enforce the judgment.

[00:16:54] Speaker 00:
And if you look at, and this ruling was issued on November 2, 2018, more than four and a half years after the original charging order had been put into place.

[00:17:08] Speaker 00:
So over that entire period of time, the Sycamore family had paid exactly zero dollars on the judgment, despite EarthGrain's consistent efforts to collect on the judgment.

[00:17:21] Speaker 00:
And if you look at page 258 of the first volume of Appellant's Appendix, you see Judge Kimball expressly finding that the Sycamore family engaged in willful contempt of the charging order.

[00:17:37] Speaker 00:
And based on that willful contempt, they had engaged in bad faith conduct.

[00:17:42] Speaker 04:
Are you saying you never needed to renew them?

[00:17:45] Speaker 00:
On this doctrine, we did not.

[00:17:48] Speaker 00:
Essentially, the judgment debtor is precluded from challenging the expiration of the judgment when it acts in bad faith to prevent enforcement of the judgment.

[00:17:59] Speaker 00:
That's the standard Gildea adopted in 2015.

[00:18:02] Speaker 00:
They applied it in Gildea.

[00:18:04] Speaker 00:
They, in that case, chose not to.

[00:18:07] Speaker 00:
find that Wells Fargo had engaged in bad faith, but here you have the poster child example.

[00:18:12] Speaker 04:
I read the district court almost using that as a fallback position, but you're leading with it.

[00:18:17] Speaker 04:
Is it your primary argument?

[00:18:19] Speaker 00:
I wouldn't call it my primary argument.

[00:18:22] Speaker 00:
I just think it's a clean way, based on Gildea and the standard that's set forth there, without having to disrupt or, you know, displace the court's findings on bad faith.

[00:18:35] Speaker 04:
How clean is it?

[00:18:36] Speaker 04:
Nobody ever knows what the answer is to whether you have to renew that way until you get some sort of a bad-faith finding.

[00:18:43] Speaker 04:
That doesn't seem to comport with what the Utah legislature would want.

[00:18:48] Speaker 00:
Well, I understand the concern, and it is risky to rely on a bad-faith finding.

[00:18:56] Speaker 00:
Why did you?

[00:18:58] Speaker 00:
Why did you not file earlier?

[00:18:59] Speaker 00:
Yeah, that's a good question, and I don't have a good answer for you.

[00:19:05] Speaker 00:
But all I can say is that Gildia says that the judgment debtor can't act in bad faith with respect to enforcing the judgment and then turn around and say, hey, it's expired.

[00:19:16] Speaker 00:
Your time's run out.

[00:19:17] Speaker 00:
And that standard is satisfied here.

[00:19:20] Speaker 00:
With respect to the statutory analysis, Judge Bacharach, you hit on the point, I think, which is if you go to 202, you see a statutory annunciation of a tolling period, basically saying

[00:19:35] Speaker 00:
If enforcement of the judgment is stayed, then that adds to the duration of the judgment for purposes of the renewal statute.

[00:19:44] Speaker 00:
And so here we had a stay entered on March 30, 2020, that prohibited the receiver from moving forward with liquidating the LLC's real property, which was, according to both the receiver and the district court, the only feasible way

[00:20:03] Speaker 00:
to enforce the judgment at that time.

[00:20:06] Speaker 00:
That stay remained in existence until March 8, 2022.

[00:20:14] Speaker 00:
And then the 21-day stay when counsel withdrew.

[00:20:19] Speaker 00:
Our math, Your Honor, may not entirely align.

[00:20:24] Speaker 00:
I have 729 days.

[00:20:27] Speaker 00:
No, no, no.

[00:20:29] Speaker 00:
I think that that is one day less than two years, right?

[00:20:32] Speaker 00:
And so even if we consider September 1st, 2023 as the expiration date for the amended judgment, once you add the statutorily authorized stays to that time period, you end up on August 9th, 2025, more than a year

[00:20:53] Speaker 01:
But his argument is that we don't look at the 2015 judgment.

[00:20:56] Speaker 01:
We will look at the 2012 judgment.

[00:20:59] Speaker 01:
I understand that that's... What's your rejoinder to that?

[00:21:01] Speaker 00:
My rejoinder to that is that original judgment is to be original as a term, right, is almost always used as a comparison mechanism.

[00:21:12] Speaker 00:
It's a comparison word, right?

[00:21:14] Speaker 00:
The original versus what?

[00:21:17] Speaker 00:
And here, given that the term original judgment

[00:21:20] Speaker 00:
is used in the Renewal of Judgment Act.

[00:21:23] Speaker 00:
It makes sense to consider the original judgment to be contrasted with the renewed judgment.

[00:21:30] Speaker 01:
So it sounds like you agree with him on the applicability of the language or the reference to the original judgment.

[00:21:44] Speaker 01:
in the renewal provision, it's not present in the provision saying that a judgment lasts eight years.

[00:21:51] Speaker 01:
And so I think, as I understand it, one of his arguments is that you don't look at just the pure existence of eight years from 2015 because you only look at the original judgment.

[00:22:06] Speaker 01:
So you disagree with him on maybe on the significance of the original judgment.

[00:22:12] Speaker 01:
But it sounds like there's implicit agreement that at least we have to consider the meaning of original judgment in determining whether a judgment lasts eight years.

[00:22:22] Speaker 00:
Well, and this is partly why I led with the Gildea standard, because I think it's a little bit messier.

[00:22:28] Speaker 00:
But I'm certainly not conceding that the amended judgment is not the relevant judgment for purposes of 1802.

[00:22:37] Speaker 01:
And if that's true, then why do we care what

[00:22:43] Speaker 01:
what original judgment means, because the phrase original judgment is not in the provision saying that a judgment lasts eight years.

[00:22:51] Speaker 01:
That could mean that, well, if it's not an original judgment, it's not renewable.

[00:22:57] Speaker 01:
You know, it's not the original judgment.

[00:22:59] Speaker 00:
But it's something.

[00:23:01] Speaker 00:
Well, and my point is that you would expect additional guidance from the legislature if it was intending to say,

[00:23:10] Speaker 00:
that no amended judgment could ever be renewed.

[00:23:13] Speaker 01:
Well, why do you even care if the amended judgment can be renewed?

[00:23:18] Speaker 01:
You win, even if the 2015 judgment is never renewable.

[00:23:24] Speaker 00:
Well, if it's never renewable, then with the statutory stays, we are coming up on August 9, 2025.

[00:23:32] Speaker 01:
But the issue before us is whether or not the motion to terminate the charging order in 2024

[00:23:39] Speaker 01:
was premature.

[00:23:41] Speaker 00:
Fair enough.

[00:23:42] Speaker 00:
And I understand that.

[00:23:44] Speaker 01:
You don't want to win the war and maybe lose the battle.

[00:23:47] Speaker 00:
Well, we want to win both, as the case may be.

[00:23:50] Speaker 00:
But I think if the court were to go that route without addressing the question of renewal, we would find that acceptable, I suppose, because we still prevail.

[00:24:04] Speaker 00:
But I think the larger point is, either under Guildea,

[00:24:09] Speaker 00:
which, again, has no stopping point when you engage in bad acts, or under the notion that the Renewal of Judgment Act applies to both amended judgments and original judgments, we are entitled to that additional time that we would be entitled to.

[00:24:26] Speaker 00:
And again, this goes back to the intransigence that we have been dealing with for going on 15 years now in trying to collect this judgment.

[00:24:35] Speaker 00:
Most of these cases arise when a judgment creditor sits on his hands

[00:24:39] Speaker 00:
for six years or seven years, and then says, oh, wait, I have a judgment.

[00:24:43] Speaker 00:
I'm going to go enforce that.

[00:24:45] Speaker 00:
That's not this case, right?

[00:24:47] Speaker 00:
We have been actively engaged in collection slash enforcement efforts since the judgment was initially entered in 2012, and the amended judgment was entered in 2015.

[00:24:57] Speaker 04:
Counsel, could I ask you, while you're on original judgment, and we leave that, the preceding paragraph one, a motion is filed within the original action.

[00:25:09] Speaker 04:
How do the words original action tie in your mind, and how should we use those words in interpreting what original judgment?

[00:25:18] Speaker 00:
I'm glad you asked that, Judge Phillips, because I think if you look at Gildea, what you see is a description of how this used to work in Utah.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
This used to work via a separate action.

[00:25:33] Speaker 00:
So you had the first case, and then you said, hey, I'm going to go enforce my judgment.

[00:25:38] Speaker 00:
But I have to initiate a new proceeding in order to do that.

[00:25:43] Speaker 00:
And in our view, that's why the legislature was using original, both an original action and an original judgment to differentiate between, hey, you used to do this with a separate action.

[00:25:57] Speaker 00:
Now you do it within the same action.

[00:25:59] Speaker 00:
And so when it says original action and original judgment, it simply means the operative judgment

[00:26:06] Speaker 00:
within the existing action.

[00:26:08] Speaker 04:
Is it a vestige then, or does a creditor have the option of the new post-2011 or proceeding under the pre-2011 file and other action?

[00:26:20] Speaker 04:
Are both available to a creditor still?

[00:26:22] Speaker 00:
My understanding is that both are not available.

[00:26:26] Speaker 04:
Then why have the original action talk?

[00:26:29] Speaker 00:
You know, I honestly think that it is, and if you look at Gildea, and I would encourage you to read this description because

[00:26:36] Speaker 00:
They actually highlight the word original in their discussion of this and seem to be suggesting that the legislature was trying to draw this distinction even though, again, it was no longer going to be operative.

[00:26:52] Speaker 00:
But it was telling litigants, hey, we've been doing this for 75 years a particular way.

[00:26:58] Speaker 00:
We are changing the way we do it.

[00:27:01] Speaker 00:
And the way we do it now is you stay within the original action.

[00:27:05] Speaker 00:
And I will tell you that there have been some recent attempts to amend this series of statutes, which are not the model of clarity, part of which is to delete the word original.

[00:27:16] Speaker 04:
Well, whatever gave the pre-2011 system of filing another action, did that get repealed?

[00:27:24] Speaker 00:
I believe that it was judicially imposed, that it wasn't statutory.

[00:27:34] Speaker 00:
I'm saying I believe it for a reason.

[00:27:37] Speaker 00:
I'm not positive whether the prior statute was repealed.

[00:27:42] Speaker 00:
My only point is I think that that is the best way to understand why they were using the word original.

[00:27:50] Speaker 00:
And it's because, I mean, to my mind, it makes a lot more sense to give it that understanding given the background and the context than to state that amended judgments

[00:28:01] Speaker 00:
I mean, imagine an amended judgment is issued six months later or a year later.

[00:28:06] Speaker 00:
It's strange to me to suggest that the Utah legislature would say, we're just going to ignore any kind of renewal process when it comes to amended judgments.

[00:28:17] Speaker 00:
Even though they become the operative judgment, even though they supersede the original judgment by definition, we're just not even going to address that.

[00:28:25] Speaker 00:
That makes a lot less sense to me than to say they were using original

[00:28:31] Speaker 00:
to differentiate between this new proceeding and the old proceeding.

[00:28:37] Speaker 01:
Isn't what you just explained a pretty good argument for your adversary about why guilty really doesn't have the meaning that you attach to it?

[00:28:48] Speaker 01:
Because guilty is relying on free, which preceded, which was decided under the regime that in order to renew a judgment, you had to follow an enforcement action.

[00:28:59] Speaker 01:
And so his argument is, well, equitable and stockholder equitable doctrines are predicated on the notion that you are precluded from taking the desire of action because of misconduct of the adversary.

[00:29:15] Speaker 01:
And there was nothing to stop, even if there was obstruction and improper transfers to Mr. Sycamore's wife, et cetera, there was nothing to stop Earthgrains or its predecessor from filing a motion to renew the judgment.

[00:29:29] Speaker 01:
I mean, they had to stop you all from doing that.

[00:29:33] Speaker 01:
And that was in Gildea, which held that there was not equitable estoppel in that case, was relying on free in the excerpt that you're relying on.

[00:29:47] Speaker 01:
So where does that whole explanation that you gave give ammunition to your adversary and won't get Gildea's inapplicable?

[00:29:53] Speaker 00:
Well, just to clarify, the discussion I'm referring to from Gildea

[00:29:58] Speaker 00:
is in talking about why the Renewal of Judgment Act was implemented and how it changed.

[00:30:07] Speaker 01:
Not today.

[00:30:07] Speaker 01:
I mean, in your brief, you're relying.

[00:30:10] Speaker 01:
And district judges rely on you.

[00:30:12] Speaker 00:
Well, let me just say the doctrine of equitable estoppel, even though rooted and free, remains viable.

[00:30:22] Speaker 00:
Because this is four years.

[00:30:24] Speaker 00:
Excuse me, Your Honors.

[00:30:25] Speaker 00:
This was four years after the Renewal of Judgment Act was passed.

[00:30:29] Speaker 00:
So the court could have easily said, look, equitable estoppel doctrine no longer applies, because now you can renew.

[00:30:36] Speaker 01:
Yeah, that's my question.

[00:30:37] Speaker 01:
Was the judge just wrong in applying Gildea?

[00:30:40] Speaker 00:
No, because read Gildea.

[00:30:42] Speaker 00:
I mean, Gildea is very clear that equitable estoppel as a doctrine in this context continues to apply with full force.

[00:30:50] Speaker 00:
And you look at the argument, Gildia said, hey, Wells Fargo acted in bad faith.

[00:30:54] Speaker 00:
And I see my time's up.

[00:30:55] Speaker 00:
Let me just wrap up this thought.

[00:30:57] Speaker 00:
Wells Fargo acted in bad faith by filing an answer and asserting defenses and asserting counterclaims.

[00:31:02] Speaker 00:
The court could have said, estoppel doctrine no longer applies because we have the Renewal of Judgment Act.

[00:31:08] Speaker 00:
It didn't say that.

[00:31:10] Speaker 00:
It analyzed whether the evidence before the court showed bad faith.

[00:31:15] Speaker 00:
It remains a viable doctrine and fully enforceable.

[00:31:19] Speaker 00:
For those reasons, we ask that the court affirm.

[00:31:21] Speaker 00:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:31:22] Speaker 02:
Time's expired.

[00:31:23] Speaker 02:
Is the counselor excused and the case shall be submitted?

[00:31:26] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:31:30] Speaker 03:
I don't think you have any rebuttal.

[00:31:32] Speaker 03:
Oh, I used it all.

[00:31:34] Speaker 03:
In that case, I guess I'm done.

[00:31:35] Speaker 03:
I thought I'd say so, but I missed it.

[00:31:45] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:31:45] Speaker 03:
All right.