Utah Senate acknowledges Open Meetings Law violation, agrees to settlement

Senate President (Senator Beatty) told the House on Feb. 19 that the Utah Senate has admitted it violated the state Open Meetings Law and has reached a stipulation that settles a lawsuit filed over an improperly closed meeting.

"One year ago, the Senate admitted to have made a mistake," Senator Beatty said when invited to address a committee of the whole called by the House. He told members the closed meeting was not intentional and that Senate leadership accepted responsibility. Beatty thanked in-house counsel and outside attorneys for resolving the matter.

Jay Taylor, identified in the proceedings as the Senate's chief legal counsel, summarized the stipulation for members: the Senate acknowledges a violation of the Open Meetings Law; the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss their request for injunctive relief (which had asked a court to supervise the Senate's notices, agendas and minutes); there will be no appeal by either party; each side generally will bear its own costs and fees except that the Senate agreed to pay $10,000 toward the plaintiffs' attorney fees (Jay Taylor said plaintiffs' actual fees were about $15,000).

Taylor said the stipulation is a straightforward judgment that the law was violated and that copies of the stipulation are available to legislators who wish to review it. He also said the plaintiffs named no individual senators in the suit and that the remedy does not impose sanctions on individual members.

Following the presentations, the committee of the whole thanked Senate leadership and dissolved, and regular business resumed. Members asked procedural and legal clarification questions during the session; Senate and House legal staff were present to answer them.

Next steps: the stipulation ends the litigation (no appeal) and the agreed-upon payment was described as an effort to mitigate likely attorney-fee exposure while avoiding court-supervised oversight of legislative meetings.