Washington County Water Conservancy District v. Washington Townhomes LLC

The Utah Court of Appeals recently issued its decision in the case of Washington County Water Conservancy District v. Washington Townhomes LLC. The central issue in this case was whether a special master should have been appointed to resolve the issues regarding impact fees for water facilities.

This case has been ongoing for a number of years. The controversy started in 2006 when Washington County Water Conservancy District adopted impact fees based on its capital facilities plan. The District collected these fees for several years, until a group of property owners and developers sued the District, alleging that the impact fees did not comply with Utah's Impact Fee Act. The landowners sought a refund of millions of dollars. At one point, the case was appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, who sent the case back to the district court in 2016. Click here to read about the 2016 decision.

Following several more years of litigation, the property owners sought to have a special master appointed to preside over the litigation on the basis that the case involved "esoteric issues" and required the "application of a specialized area of law." The District opposed the motion and argued that there was no need or basis for the appointment of a special master. Ultimately, the district court granted the motion and appointed a retired district court judge as the special master. The District appealed the decision to the Utah Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals' decision focused on Rule 53(b) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs the appointment of special masters. The rule states that a case should be referred to a special master "only upon a showing that some exceptional condition requires it." The Court noted that there is "scarce Utah caselaw interpreting what constitutes an 'exceptional condition.'" The Court looked at the reasons cited by the district court for appointing a special master, including (1) that the district court judge was going to be retiring soon, (2) that the case had been ongoing for many years, (3) that the case included several procedural and substantive complexities, and (4) the congested court calendar that made it nearly impossible for the case to be tried before the judge's retirement. The Court of Appeals concluded that a number of these reasons (retirement of a judge, long-standing cases, and congested court calendars) are normal conditions and not "exceptional conditions" in litigation. The Court also concluded that this impact fee case was not any more factually or legally complex than many of the civil cases found throughout the state. 

In sum, the Court of Appeals concluded that there was an insufficient basis for the district court to appoint a special master. Accordingly, the district court's appointment of a special master was reversed, and the case was returned to the district court for further proceedings.