Utah made it easier to speak and harder to ask.
In the space of just a few years, the state legislature gave Utahns one of the country's strongest anti-SLAPP laws, created a way for agencies to cut off a citizen's records requests, replaced the independent records committee with a director the governor appoints, and narrowed what a person who wins can recover in fees. Judges, attorneys, media, public officials and ordinary citizens are still mapping this new landscape, and its implications for Utahns’ First Amendment rights. This site tracks what can be found of it, makes the filings available, and keeps the record where anyone can check it.
Something was filed against me
A petition to cut off your records requests, or a lawsuit that exists because you spoke up, asked questions, or took part. Plain-language walkthroughs of what happens next.
I’m researching the law
Every Utah decision found so far, with the briefs and orders behind it. Built for people who need the filings themselves, not a summary of them.
I’m writing about this
What’s new, what’s pending, and what the record actually supports. Documents and data available for reuse.
What’s tracked
Vexatious requester petitions
Agencies asking the state to stop answering a citizen's records requests, under § 63G-2-209. Every one found so far that produced a public order, and a records request is out for the ones that didn't.
Anti-SLAPP motions (UPEPA)
Special motions for expedited relief under § 78B-25. Appellate decisions are complete. Trial court rulings are public but searchable only case by case, so this list is built by hand and stays partial.
Records appeals
Appeals from a denied records request, heard for three decades by a committee and now by a single director. Decisions are counted year by year. Those that reached a court get a row showing how long each stage took.
Legislative timeline
Every Utah act since 2022 that changed how these proceedings work.
- 2022 Effective May 4
H.B. 96Records access Changed what an agency may charge to fill a records request. Detail
The bill itself was about fees. Its place here is a phrase, “vexatious requester,” spoken at its committee hearing. That is the earliest the term appears in the Utah Legislature’s record, a year before any bill used it.
- 2023 Effective May 3
S.B. 18Anti-SLAPP Utah’s UPEPA Act. Gave people sued over speaking up, or taking part in public life, a way to end the case quickly. Detail
It covers more than just speech: what you say at a public meeting, what you say about something a government body is deciding, your rights to publish, to assemble, to petition, and more. If someone sues you over your public expression on any matter of public concern, you can ask the judge to throw the case out. Filing that request freezes the rest of the case while the judge decides. Win, and the other side pays your lawyer and cannot sue you again over the same thing.
- 2023 Effective May 3
S.B. 231Records access Let a government agency ask the state to cut off a person’s records requests. Detail
The government can file one of these against someone it says is abusing the request process. If it works, that person can be blocked from asking for records for up to a year. There is no discovery. Someone who beats the petition can recover costs only by proving three separate things at once.
- 2024 Signed March 19
H.B. 266Records access Changed the rules for the state records ombudsman, the official who mediates records disputes. Detail
Asking the ombudsman to mediate pauses the clock, both for appealing a denial and for taking a decision to court. The bill also stopped requiring that the records committee be named when someone challenges one of its decisions in court, which means the state no longer automatically learns that its decisions are being challenged.
- 2025 Effective May 7
H.B. 69Attorney fees Made it much harder to get your legal costs back after beating the government in a records case. Detail
Winning used to be all the statute required before a judge could make the other side pay your lawyer. Three things changed. You must now also prove the other side acted in bad faith. If the case mainly helps your business, no award is possible at all. And the other side can now collect from you, if it wins and the judge finds you acted in bad faith.
- 2025 Effective May 7
S.B. 277Records access Replaced the seven-member committee that heard records appeals with one director appointed by the governor. Detail
The deadlines barely moved. Who decides did. A volunteer panel that by law included a seat for a working journalist became a single lawyer chosen by the governor. It took effect the same day as H.B. 69, so the appeal itself and the cost of challenging the answer changed together.
- 2026 Signed March 23
H.B. 260Practice of law Made practicing law without a license a crime. Detail
Advising someone about their own legal problem or writing their filings, whether for money or as a favor, is now a class A misdemeanor unless you are a licensed lawyer. If a judge finds it happened in a case, the judge must order that person to pay whatever costs it caused and may throw out what they wrote. Handing out forms and explaining in general terms how a process works is still allowed.
- 2026 Effective May 6
H.B. 307Attorney fees Changed the statewide rule for when a judge can make a losing side pay the winner’s legal bills. Detail
It took the phrase “bad faith” out of the general fee law, § 78B-5-825, heading included, and put a two-part test in its place: the claim had no reasonable basis in law or fact, and the party brought it to harass, cause delay, run up the other side’s costs, or abuse the process. The records law and the vexatious requester law both still require bad faith, and neither defines it. Whether the new test now fills that gap is unsettled.