Cutting Edge Real Estate v. Russell

2025 UT App 168
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedNovember 20, 2025
DocketCase No. 20240133-CA
StatusPublished

This text of 2025 UT App 168 (Cutting Edge Real Estate v. Russell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cutting Edge Real Estate v. Russell, 2025 UT App 168 (Utah Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

2025 UT App 168

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

CUTTING EDGE REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS, LLC, ET AL., 1 Appellees, v. GENE J. RUSSELL, Appellant.

Opinion No. 20240133-CA Filed November 20, 2025

Third District Court, Tooele Department The Honorable Teresa L. Welch No. 130300758

Steven M. Rogers and Alexis A. Hooley, Attorneys for Appellant Jeremy C. Reutzel and J. Jacob Gorringe, Attorneys for Appellees

JUDGE RYAN D. TENNEY authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES JOHN D. LUTHY and AMY J. OLIVER concurred.

TENNEY, Judge:

¶1 This appeal is the latest chapter in a dispute over fifteen parcels of land in Tooele County (collectively, the Properties) that has been litigated, in various forms, for over fifty years. In the case at issue, the district court held a bench trial regarding various claims to the Properties that were made by Gene Russell. 2 After

1. Additional Appellees include Valley View Properties, LLC; Eagle Ridge Real Estate, LLC; Golden Spike Real Estate, LLC; Randy Hunt; Nadine Hunt; and Max Hunt.

2. As will be explained below, the four persons principally involved in this case are Mervin Russell, Ada Russell, Gene (continued…) Cutting Edge Real Estate v. Russell

the close of trial, the court issued a written ruling rejecting Gene’s claims and quieting title in favor of various individuals and entities associated with Cutting Edge Real Estate Holdings, LLC (collectively, Cutting Edge). The court gave several alternative rationales for ruling in Cutting Edge’s favor. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the court’s ruling quieting title on the basis of adverse possession. Because this issue is dispositive, we do not consider Gene’s challenges to the other rationales provided by the court.

BACKGROUND

The Russell Divorce and the 1975 Judgment

¶2 In 1971, Ada and Mervin Russell, who were Gene’s parents, divorced. Based on documents recorded in the Tooele County Recorder’s Office, title to the Properties was, at the time of the divorce, held as follows:

• Mervin individually owned thirteen parcels; 3

• Mervin and Ada owned two parcels as cotenants—these were the parcels commonly referred to in the various proceedings as the 14 and 26 Parcels.

Russell, and Georgia Monroe. Because Mervin, Ada, and Gene all share the same surname, we’ll follow our usual practice and refer to them by their first names, with no disrespect intended by the apparent informality. For consistency of usage, we’ll likewise refer to Georgia by her first name after the first reference to her below.

3. These included what the parties have referred to as the Ophir Survey 03 Parcel; the Ophir Survey 04 Parcel; the Ophir Survey Blocks 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, and 23; the Eagle Ridge Parcel; and the Golden Spike Parcel.

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Mervin and Ada’s divorce decree did not award the Properties to Mervin or Ada, nor did it purport to resolve any issues relating to the Properties’ ownership. Soon after Mervin and Ada’s divorce, Mervin married Georgia Monroe.

¶3 In 1974, Ada filed a lawsuit against Mervin, claiming that the Properties were assets of the Russell Livestock Company (the Partnership), which was a partnership owned by Ada and Mervin, and Ada further claimed that she still had rights to the Properties through the Partnership. The case was litigated, and in 1975, the court issued a judgment (the 1975 Judgment) that (1) held that the Partnership owned the Properties and (2) ordered the Partnership to sell the Properties and split the proceeds equally between Mervin and Ada. Despite having received this judgment, however, neither Mervin nor Ada ever sold the Properties, either personally or through the Partnership, nor did the Partnership ever purport to convey the Properties to anyone. Of some note, the 1975 Judgment was never renewed.

Subsequent Conveyances and Lawsuits

¶4 Although Mervin and Ada never tried to sell the Properties after receiving the 1975 Judgment, they each purported to convey their individual interests in them over the ensuing years. Ada gave deeds to Gene in 1976 and 1980 that, together, conveyed her interest in the majority of the parcels. 4 For his part, when Mervin died in 1985, he left everything, including his real property, to Georgia.

¶5 In 1987, Georgia filed suit against Ada and Gene, seeking to resolve questions over ownership of the Properties. Ada and Gene soon filed their own suit against Georgia, and these cases

4. In 2020, Gene, acting as the representative of Ada’s estate, conveyed Ada’s interest in the remaining parcels to himself through a personal representative’s deed.

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were then consolidated and litigated together in what we’ll refer to as the 1987 Lawsuits.

¶6 Ada died in 1988. That same year, Gene moved out of Tooele County, and he eventually moved permanently to Wyoming. Following Ada’s death, Gene was appointed the personal representative of Ada’s estate.

¶7 Though records from the 1987 Lawsuits are sparse, it appears that the cases languished for some time without much activity. Two orders were eventually issued in the 1987 Lawsuits that ended up mattering later in separate cases—one of these was issued in 1994 (the 1994 Order), and the other was issued in 2000 (the 2000 Order). The 1994 Order held that “the findings and conclusions in [the 1975 Judgment], if they were ever reduced to judgment, were not the basis of any new proceeding to enforce a judgment based thereon within the period of the eight-year statute of limitations.” 5 The 2000 Order reaffirmed this, holding that the 1975 Judgment “became unenforceable eight years after the date it was entered.” As a result, the 2000 Order then held that since the 1975 Judgment “had never been applied to the real property, whatever the pre-existing deeds . . . reflected as to

5. At the time of the 1994 Order, Utah Code section 78-12-22 (1992) established an eight-year limitations period for actions “upon a judgment or decree of any court of the United States, or of any state or territory within the United States.” See also Mason v. Mason, 597 P.2d 1322, 1324 (Utah 1979) (“With respect to a judgment, . . . . the owner of the cause of action has already resorted to the court to preserve it; and unless he [or she] can bring another action on the judgment within the eight-year period, he [or she] has no way of preventing the loss of his [or her] justly adjudicated claim.” (quotation simplified)); Fisher v. Bybee, 2004 UT 92, ¶ 3 n.1, 104 P.3d 1198. This statute has since been amended and renumbered as Utah Code section 78B-2-311, but the relevant language establishing an eight-year statute of limitations remains unchanged. See Utah Code § 78B-2-311(1) (2025).

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ownership and status of [the Properties] remained . . . effective” as to the “ownership and status” of them.

¶8 Following the 2000 Order, it appears that neither Gene nor Georgia made any meaningful effort to move the 1987 Lawsuits forward, and in February 2007, a judge entered an order directing all exhibits to be destroyed pursuant to the court’s retention schedule. 6

Cutting Edge Purchases the Properties

¶9 In 2005, Georgia began selling individual parcels included in the Properties to Cutting Edge (or, as indicated, its affiliated persons or parties). With only one exception, Georgia’s deeds purported to convey a 100% interest in the various parcels. 7

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Bluebook (online)
2025 UT App 168, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cutting-edge-real-estate-v-russell-utahctapp-2025.