2006 UT 24
This opinion is subject to revision before final
publication in the Pacific Reporter.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH
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David K. Gillett, an individual,
No. 20050023
and Majestic Air Services
Incorporated, a Utah corporation,
Plaintiffs and Petitioners,
v.
F I L E D
Steve Price,
Defendant and Respondent.
April 28, 2006
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Third District, Sandy
The Honorable Royal I. Hansen
No. 030401300
Attorneys: Stephen G. Homer, Salt Lake City, for plaintiffs
Randall L. Skeen, Todd R. Mecham, Salt Lake City,
for defendant
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On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals
DURHAM, Chief Justice:
INTRODUCTION
¶1
The filing of postjudgment motions to reconsider has
become a common litigation practice, notwithstanding the Utah
Rules of Civil Procedure's failure to authorize it and our
previous attempts to discourage it. In this opinion, we consider
whether this practice tolls the time for filing a notice of
appeal. We answer this question by absolutely rejecting the
practice of filing postjudgment motions to reconsider. We also
warn that future filings of postjudgment motions to reconsider
will not toll the time for appeal and therefore may subject
attorneys to malpractice claims.

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BACKGROUND
¶2
This case began as a contract dispute. For our
purposes, it is sufficient to note that the plaintiffs filed a
complaint against the defendant claiming that he had breached an
entrustment contract by stealing their property. The defendant
filed a motion for summary judgment on the ground that the
parties had an oral contract for which the applicable four-year
statute of limitations had run. In response, the plaintiffs
argued that the parties had a written contract and thus had a
six-year statute of limitations period within which to file a
complaint.1 The district judge did not find any evidence of a
written contract and granted the defendant's motion, issuing a
memorandum decision on May 26, 2004, and entering a final order
on June 16, 2004.
¶3
On June 9, 2004, after the issuance of the memorandum
decision but before the entry of final judgment, the plaintiffs
filed a motion titled "Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration,"
arguing that the district court had misconstrued certain
documents and ignored factual disputes. The district court
denied this motion on July 21, 2004. On August 4, 2004, nearly
two months after the district court granted the defendant's
motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs filed a notice of
appeal.
¶4
The court of appeals held that the plaintiffs' notice
of appeal was not timely because it was filed more than thirty
days after the district court's final order granting summary
judgment. Gillett v. Price, 2004 UT App 460U, Para. 7. In so
holding, the court of appeals rejected the plaintiffs' contention
that the motion for reconsideration should be construed as either
a motion to alter or amend judgment or a motion for a new trial,
id., both of which toll the thirty-day period under rule 4(b) of
the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure. We granted certiorari to
determine whether a motion for reconsideration challenging a
district court's reasoning for its earlier judgment constitutes a
proper postjudgment motion, thereby tolling the time for appeal.

1 The plaintiffs' original complaint was dismissed for
failure to serve the defendant with notice. However, the
plaintiffs refiled the complaint within one year of the
dismissal, thereby taking advantage Utah Code section 78-12-40
(2002), which provides that if an action is commenced within due
time, and the action fails or is reversed on grounds other than
the merits, the action survives for one year after the failure or
reversal. Thus, if the statute of limitations in this case were
six years, the plaintiffs' complaint would have been timely.
No. 20050023
2

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We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78-2-2(5)
(2002).
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶5
"On certiorari, we review the court of appeals'
decision for correctness." State v. 736 N. Colo. St., 2005 UT
90, ¶ 6, __ P.3d __ (quoting State v. Garner, 2005 UT 6, ¶ 7, 106
P.3d 729). We affirm the court of appeals' judgment and hold
that motions to reconsider are not sanctioned by our rules and
therefore do not toll the time for appeal under any circumstance.
ANALYSIS
¶6
Under the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure, a party
may file a notice of appeal "within 30 days" of a final judgment.
Utah R. App. P. 4(a). Rule 4(b) of the Utah Rules of Appellate
procedure provides that some timely filed postjudgment motions
will toll the thirty-day period until the district court enters
an order regarding that motion. The motions that toll the time
for appeal under rule 4(b) include (1) a motion for judgment
notwithstanding the verdict under rule 50(b) of the Utah Rules of
Civil Procedure, (2) a motion to amend or make additional
findings of fact under rule 52(b) of the Utah Rules of Civil
Procedure, and (3) a motion to amend or for a new trial under
rule 59 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Not included
within the 4(b) exceptions, however, is a postjudgment motion to
reconsider. Id. In fact, postjudgment motions to reconsider are
not recognized anywhere in either the Utah Rules of Appellate
Procedure or the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. See Ron Shepherd
Ins., Inc. v. Shields, 882 P.2d 650, 653 n.4 (Utah 1994) ("[T]his
court has consistently held that our rules of civil procedure do
not provide for a motion for reconsideration of a trial court's
order or judgment . . . ."); Watkiss & Campbell v. Foa & Son, 808
P.2d 1061, 1064 (Utah 1991)(recognizing that the Utah Rules of
Civil Procedure do not technically allow motions to reconsider);
Peay v. Peay, 607 P.2d 841, 842-43 (Utah 1980) (same).
¶7
The plaintiffs do not contend that motions to
reconsider are recognized under rule 4(b). Instead, they argue
that their motion to reconsider was in substance a motion to
alter or amend the judgment under rule 59, Utah Rules of Civil
Procedure and therefore tolled the time for appeal. The court of
appeals disagreed, finding that the motion's substance was not
that of a motion to alter or amend. Gillett, 2004 UT App 460U,
Para. 5. We go beyond the reasoning of the court of appeals and
hold that, regardless of the motion's substance, postjudgment
motions to reconsider and other similarly titled motions will not
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No. 20050023

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toll the time for appeal because they are not recognized by our
rules.2
¶8
We realize that this holding repudiates a long line of
cases from both the court of appeals and this court treating
motions to reconsider as rule-sanctioned motions based on the
substance of the motion. See, e.g., Watkiss, 808 P.2d at 1064-
65; Gallardo v. Bolinder, 800 P.2d 816, 817 (Utah 1990);
Bonneville Billing & Collection v. Torres, 2000 UT App 338, ¶ 4,
15 P.3d 112; Regan v. Blount, 1999 UT App 154, ¶ 5, 978 P.2d
1051; Salt Lake Knee & Sports Rehab., Inc. v. Salt Lake City Knee
& Sports Med., 909 P.2d 266, 268-69 (Utah Ct. App. 1995); Davis
v. Grand County Serv. Area, 905 P.2d 888, 891-92 (Utah Ct. App.
1995); Brunetti v. Mascaro, 854 P.2d 555, 557 (Utah Ct. App.
1993). We are now persuaded that it is time this practice comes
to an end. In our system, the rules provide the source of
available relief. They "[are] designed to provide a pattern of
regularity of procedure which the parties and the courts [can]
follow and rely upon." Drury v. Lunceford, 415 P.2d 662, 663
(Utah 1966). Accordingly, the form of a motion does matter
because it directs the court and litigants to the specific, and
available, relief sought. See Utah R. Civ. P. 7(b) ("A motion
shall be in writing and state succinctly and with particularity
the relief sought and the grounds for the relief sought.").
Hereafter, when a party seeks relief from a judgment, it must
turn to the rules to determine whether relief exists, and if so,
direct the court to the specific relief available. Parties can
no longer leave this task to the court by filing so-called
motions to reconsider and relying upon district courts to
construe the motions within the rules.

2 Arguably, the plaintiffs' motion could not even be
construed as a postjudgment motion to amend under our prior case
law because the plaintiffs filed it before the entry of a final
judgment. We addressed a similar situation in Ron Shepherd Ins.,
Inc. v. Shields, where we held that a motion to reconsider filed
after an unsigned minute entry but before a final judgment was
not a postjudgment motion, but rather a reargument that the
district court was free to consider any time before entering the
final judgment. 882 P.2d 650, 653-54 (Utah 1994). In any event,
such a prejudgment motion would not toll the time for appeal once
a final judgment was entered. We also note that rule 4(c) of the
Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure, which provides that a notice
of appeal filed after the announcement but before the entry of
judgment will be treated as a motion filed after the entry of
judgment, is of no effect in this case.
No. 20050023
4

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¶9
We do not abandon our precedent lightly, but we have
discouraged the use of motions to reconsider in the past. For
example, in Shipman v. Evans, we noted that motions to reconsider
"have proliferated in civil actions to the extent that they have
become the cheatgrass of the litigation landscape" and encouraged
attorneys to reverse the trend. 2004 UT 44, ¶ 18 n.5, 100 P.3d
1151 (internal citation omitted). Likewise, in Salt Lake Knee,
we stated that we did not approve of "the use of pleadings
identified as something not provided for in the Utah Rules of
Civil Procedure" and warned that this practice could "seriously
compromise" the position of a litigant. 909 P.2d at 269 n.2.
Unfortunately, our advice does not appear to have had the desired
effect.
¶10
We note that this holding applies to post-final-
judgment motions to reconsider; it does not affect motions to or
decisions by the district courts to reconsider or revise nonfinal
judgments, which have no impact on the time to appeal and are
sanctioned by our rules. See Utah R. Civ. P. 54(b) (providing
that when a case involves multiple claims or parties, any order
or other decision that does not adjudicate all of the claims is
subject to revision at any time before a final judgment on all
the claims).
¶11
The defendant has requested attorney fees under rules
33 and 34 of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure, claiming that
plaintiffs' application for a writ of certiorari was frivolous.
Given that filing motions to reconsider has been a common
practice among Utah attorneys, we disagree that the plaintiffs'
petition for certiorari was frivolous and therefore deny the
defendant's request.
CONCLUSION
¶12
We therefore affirm the court of appeals and direct
attorneys to immediately discontinue the practice of filing post
judgment motions to reconsider.
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¶13
Associate Chief Justice Wilkins, Justice Durrant,
Justice Parrish, and Justice Nehring concur in Chief Justice
Durham's opinion.
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No. 20050023

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