Groups Seek to Halt Recently-Passed Utah Laws from Derailing Great Salt Lake Lawsuit

Conservation and community groups yesterday filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the transfer of a landmark public trust suit to protect the Great Salt Lake to a new three judge panel. The motion was filed in response to the state’s application of the recently-passed H.B.392 and S.J.R 5 to the public trust suit, an application that the groups claim violates Utah’s constitution. The new law and resolution give the state the ability to obtain a new set of judges simply because they dislike the direction of an ongoing case.

“So far the Utah Legislature has demonstrated that not only are they not serious about saving Great Salt Lake, several of the bills they have passed will actually cause even more harm,” said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “H.B. 392 would remove the current judge from our lawsuit to protect the lake because the state didn’t like how things were shaping up in court.”

On Friday, February 13, the Utah legislature passed H.B. 392, which Gov. Cox signed into law that same day. The law allows the state of Utah to reassign to a three-judge panel any “civil action” in which “a state entity, or a state official [sued] in the state official’s capacity, is a party.” This means that for any civil case in which Utah is a party, including Great Salt Lake suit, the state effectively has veto power over the judge automatically assigned in the venue in which the plaintiff brought the suit and, if the state chooses, it can file a “notice” that the case should be reassigned to a panel of three judges chosen at random from across Utah.

Along with H.B. 392, the legislature also passed S.J.R. 5, which amends the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure to clarify that H.B. 392 applies to active cases, giving the state until March 30 to file a notice to convene a three-judge panel. The state filed its notice to convene a panel of three district court judges in the Great Salt Lake case on Sunday, February 22.

“This new judge-shopping law demonstrates Utah’s opposition to delivering water to the Great Salt Lake through basic, common-sense policies,” said Zach Frankel, executive director of Utah Rivers Council. “This move comes years into this case and at the beginning of one of our worst water runoff forecasts for the Great Salt Lake. If the state is allowed to change judges this late in the case, it risks irreparable harm to the Great Salt Lake and all those who depend on it.”

The plaintiffs in the Great Salt Lake case argue that the transfer of the case to a three-judge panel would be unconstitutional because it privileges state officials to arbitrarily choose whether to have their cases tried before a single-judge district court or a three-judge panel. Utah officials are provided 45 days after a lawsuit begins to remove the case from the randomly assigned judge and reassign it to a three-judge panel. The plaintiffs argue that the new laws violate their right to due process by insulating the government’s notice to convene a three-judge panel from challenge by any party and from judicial review. The groups also argue that the laws impermissibly redefine the meaning of “district court” under Utah’s constitution, which has always been understood to be a single judge presiding over a case — not a panel of three judges.

The plaintiffs argue that the state’s notice to transfer the Great Salt Lake case to a three judge panel is particularly inappropriate because in 2023 the state requested that the case be reassigned from the randomly selected judge to an expert water law judge, claiming the case presented issues “of sufficient legal complexity as related to water law to warrant assignment to a water judge.” The court granted this request, and the case was reassigned to water judge Laura Scott. However, after losing at the motion to dismiss stage in 2025, the state has abandoned their interest in a water judge to seek a new three-judge panel.

“The uncertainty and delay that accompany the state’s attempt to get this case reassigned to a three-judge panel is deeply concerning,” said Maria Archibald, senior lands and water program coordinator at the Sierra Club. “Even a slight delay risks exacerbating a mounting public health and ecological crisis.”

“The millions of birds that depend on the Great Salt Lake cannot afford the delay that this move threatens to introduce,” said Deeda Seed, senior Utah campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity. “The spring migration is about to begin. Our very ecosystem is at stake.”

“These new laws clearly violate Utah’s constitution,” said Stu Gillespie, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “The state of Utah cannot be allowed to change the rules of the game at halftime because they are trailing by 30 points. The people of Utah want to see meaningful action to protect the Great Salt Lake, and the state continues to do everything in its power to abdicate this responsibility.”

Earthjustice is representing Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, American Bird Conservancy, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Utah Rivers Council in the suit.