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Natural Choice tells Utah Court of Appeals it lacked notice of vicarious-liability claim
Summary
At oral argument in Coombs v. Natural Choice, counsel for Natural Choice argued the landowners never pleaded a vicarious-liability claim tied to Sam Kingston and that discovery disclosures do not substitute for the complaint's required factual allegations; the court pressed both sides on waiver, trial-by-consent, and procedural timing.
Freya Johnson, counsel for Natural Choice, told the Utah Court of Appeals that the landowners never pleaded a claim that would allow the jury to hold Natural Choice vicariously liable for the actions of Samuel Kingston.
"This case stems from a trial over damages caused by fire," Johnson said as she outlined the trial's two phases — liability and compensatory damages followed by a punitive-damages phase — and explained that Natural Choice's second assigned error challenged the district court's decision to let the jury consider an unpleaded vicarious-liability theory.
Johnson urged the panel to look to the four corners of the operative complaint and not to treat…
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