The Utah Court System

the utah court system is made up of various types of courts separated by geographic boundaries types of utah courts utah courts are classified into two basic types trial courts handle most basic legal disputes between parties such as criminal laws, divorce and family law disputes, personal injury claims, contract disputes, etc there are several sub types of trial courts that handle different types of legal disputes for example justice courts handle lower level criminal matters and traffic violations; small claims courts handle legal disputes over relatively low dollar amounts; juvenile courts handle criminal matters involving minors however, most types of legal disputes in utah, including all divorces, are handled by the district courts the second type of courts are the appellate courts the utah court of appeals and the utah supreme court as discussed above, these courts primarily handle appeals made by parties from the trial courts these courts interpret the utah statutes, case law, and court rules and determine how these properly apply in various situations these courts also determine whether the trial courts correctly applied these laws to the specific legal disputes they judge geography of utah district courts each of utah’s 30 counties are divided into one of eight judicial districts therefore, each district court is identified first by its judicial district and then by the county in which the court is located (e g the fourth judicial district in utah county) below is a map showing the judicial districts and counties in each each district court is presided over by one or more district court judges when a person files for divorce in the proper district court, the case is randomly assigned to one of the district court judges all divorce cases are decided by the assigned district court judge the judicial districts along the wasatch front (second district, third district and fourth district) use court commissioners to oversee the preliminary stages of all divorce and family law cases if you file for divorce in one of the courts in these districts, your case will be assigned to both a district court judge and a court commissioner jurisdiction of utah district courts the term “jurisdiction” refers to a court’s legal authority to make decisions over certain persons or cases (e g , a utah court having the authority to enter a divorce decree for you and your spouse) typically, utah courts have jurisdiction over people that live in utah or over events that occur in utah this rule protects people from being sued and having to fight a court case in another state across the country for example, your spouse couldn’t just move to florida and then file for divorce a week later in a florida court because the florida courts do not have the proper jurisdiction over you and your divorce case in order to obtain a divorce decree from a utah court, either you or your spouse must have resided in the state of utah for at least three months immediately prior to the filing of the divorce case further, the divorce case must be filed in the district court in the specific county where either you or your spouse currently resides