U.S. Bank v. HMA

2007 UT 40
This opinion is subject to revision before final
publication in the Pacific Reporter.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH
----oo0oo----
U.S. Bank National Association, No. 20050236
Plaintiff, Counterclaim
Defendant, and Appellee,
v.
HMA, L.C., Robert Michael
Anderson, and Robert Henry
Anderson,
Defendants, F I L E D
Counter-claimants, and
Appellant. May 18, 2007
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Third District, Salt Lake
The Honorable Sandra N. Peuler
No. 010908063
Attorneys: Stephen C. Tingey, Brent D. Wride, Cameron M.
Hancock, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff
Ronald W. Ady, Salt Lake City, for defendants
---
NEHRING, Justice:
¶1 HMA, the appellant before us, is a business engaged in
real estate development. HMA deposited a large check in its
account with U.S. Bank. HMA then wrote a check on its U.S. Bank
account to pay obligations HMA owed Barnes Bank. U.S. Bank paid
the check that HMA wrote to Barnes Bank.
¶2 In the meantime, the maker of the check that HMA
deposited, a check we will call the Woodson check in honor of its
maker, stopped payment on it. When the Woodson check was
returned to U.S. Bank, that bank swept remaining funds from HMA’s
account at the bank. U.S. Bank sued HMA in Salt Lake County for
the difference between the amount the bank paid on the Barnes
Bank check and the funds seized from HMA’s account. U.S. Bank’s
efforts to recover the overdraft sum included actions to
foreclose deeds of trust that secured promissory notes made by
HMA.

No. 20050236 2
¶3 HMA interposed a wide array of theories in its defense
to U.S. Bank’s claims, but to no avail. The district court ruled
summarily for U.S. Bank. Only two of HMA’s theories concern us
in this appeal: (1) HMA’s contention that U.S. Bank was
prohibited from charging-back the Woodson check and placing the
HMA account in an overdraft condition because the Woodson check’s
paying bank, Wells Fargo, failed to timely return it to U.S.
Bank; and (2) HMA’s assertion that the district court erred when
it refused to change venue of the action from Salt Lake County to
Utah County. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶4 When a check is presented to a bank for collection and
the account upon which the check is drawn contains insufficient
funds to cover it, the paying bank may return the check to the
depositary bank without risk of incurring liability for that
check if it satisfies three conditions imposed by the Uniform
Commercial Code (or the U.C.C.) and federal regulations. First,
the check must depart the paying bank on its return trip to the
depositary bank before the “midnight deadline.” Next, the paying
bank must plan the check’s itinerary to assure its “expeditious
return” to the depositary bank. See 1 Barkley Clark & Barbara
Clark, The Law of Bank Deposits, Collections and Credit Cards
¶ 6.02[1][b], at 6-16 to 6-17 (rev. ed. 2006). Finally, the
paying bank must, in addition to returning the check in a timely
manner to the depositary bank, provide timely notice of its
intention to dishonor the check. The dispute in this appeal
concerns only whether Wells Fargo met the midnight deadline and
whether its return of the Woodson check was expeditious.
¶5 Our analysis of the timeliness of the Woodson check’s
return requires us to delve into the often murky contents of
three sources of controlling authority: federal regulations, the
Uniform Commercial Code, and the rules governing the operation of
the Boise Clearinghouse, which served as a central location where
member banks, including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, could settle
the aggregation of checks written by their customers. Each of
these sources has something to say on the subjects of the
midnight deadline and the expeditious return. As our discussion
will reveal, sorting out which voice to heed poses challenges
that often appear to be best overcome by recourse to an
analytical tool akin to a game of rock, paper, scissors.
¶6 Before we commence our analysis, we pause to take note
of a peculiar feature of this appeal. Wells Fargo, the bank upon
which the Woodson check was drawn, is the bank whose conduct we
are called upon to scrutinize for compliance with the midnight

3 No. 20050236
deadline and for its obligation to make expeditious return of the
Woodson check. Despite being the focus of our attention, Wells
Fargo is not a party to this appeal, nor was it a party at any
stage of the proceedings below. HMA’s objective is not to seek
any direct relief from Wells Fargo for its alleged untimely
return of the Woodson check. Instead, HMA desires to exploit the
legal consequences that would befall Wells Fargo for its
untimeliness, most significantly its obligation to pay U.S. Bank
for the Woodson check and defeat U.S. Bank’s contentions that it
was entitled to declare HMA’s account overdrawn, to sweep funds
that HMA held in deposit with the bank, to declare HMA’s secured
notes in default, and to recover a money judgment for any
deficiency. We are unaware of any reported case similarly
postured. HMA’s defense to U.S. Bank’s actions is based on the
contention that under the U.C.C., Wells Fargo’s untimely return
of the Woodson check resulted in final payment of the check, see
Utah Code Ann. § 70A-4-215(1) (2001), and that final payment or
settlement of the Woodson check by operation of law terminated
U.S. Bank’s rights to recoup its loss from its customer, HMA, see
id. § 70A-4-214(1). Although both parties appear to concede that
this relief would be available to HMA were we to conclude that
Wells Fargo returned the Woodson check late, we have not been
asked to review the legal effect of untimely return in this
appeal.
ANALYSIS
¶7 HMA deposited the $700,000 Woodson check with U.S. Bank
on Thursday, August 2, 2001. That same day, HMA wrote a check
payable to the Barnes Bank in the amount of $662,147.75. Had the
Woodson check cleared without mishap, when U.S. Bank paid the
Barnes Bank check, all would have been well. Things went awry
when the maker of the Woodson check stopped payment on it, one of
three critical events in this saga, which all occurred on August
2.
¶8 To properly analyze the legal consequences of the
treatment of the Woodson check, we must closely track the check’s
whereabouts as it made its way along the check processing
itinerary. The Woodson check was drawn on Wells Fargo Bank. On
August 2, the day on which HMA deposited the Woodson check into
its U.S. Bank account, U.S. Bank sent the check to a Wells Fargo
check processing center. Wells Fargo processed the check in the
late hours of August 2, and the Woodson check therefore became
part of the August 3 banking day. HMA contends that it contested
the date that the Woodson check left U.S. Bank for presentment to
Wells Fargo in opposing U.S. Bank’s motion for summary judgment.
HMA points to the affidavits of Maureen LaTendresse, the witness
U.S. Bank produced to give deposition testimony pursuant to HMA’s

No. 20050236 4
request under Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), and
challenges as lacking foundation Ms. LaTendresse’s testimony that
Wells Fargo received the Woodson check as part of the bank’s
August 3 banking day. Even if HMA were capable of neutralizing
Ms. LaTendresse’s statements on this question, the result would
not affect HMA’s concessions in its papers and at oral argument
before the district court that Wells Fargo received the Woodson
check as part of the August 3 banking day. Although, as we will
come to understand, the date on which Wells Fargo received the
Woodson check has considerable legal importance and is therefore
material, the district court did not err by treating this fact as
uncontested when it ruled on U.S. Bank’s motion for summary
judgment.
¶9 On the Friday, August 3 banking day, a number of
significant events occurred relating to both the Barnes Bank and
Woodson checks. First, Wells Fargo processed the Woodson check,
which joined the ranks of other checks that were settled through
the interbank procedures of the Boise Clearinghouse. The second
significant event of August 3 was U.S. Bank’s decision to make
available to HMA the funds represented by the Woodson check.
U.S. Bank paid the Barnes Bank check without having assurance
that the Woodson check would be honored. By doing so, U.S. Bank
in essence granted an extension of credit to HMA pending final
determination of the fate of the Woodson check.
¶10 After the Woodson check was settled through the Boise
Clearinghouse and found its way into the hands of Wells Fargo, it
began a return trip to U.S. Bank by another route, the Federal
Reserve System. This journey was made necessary because
Mr. Brent Woodson, the maker of the Woodson check, advised Wells
Fargo on the morning of August 2 to stop payment on the check.
Just as HMA’s deposit of the Woodson check with U.S. Bank placed
that check on a trajectory toward Wells Fargo, Mr. Woodson’s
stop-payment instruction put in motion a series of events that
intercepted the Woodson check and sent it on a return journey to
U.S. Bank.
¶11 Information of Mr. Woodson’s intention to stop payment
traveled on two parallel tracks. The first channel of check
status information passed from Wells Fargo to U.S. Bank through a
central hub, Primary Payment Systems (PPS). PPS gathers
information about a given day’s transactions in each of its
participating banks’ accounts at the close of each banking day.
Much of this information is transmitted electronically using
magnetic ink character recognition technology that draws data
from the numbers coded on the bottom of checks. As of 2001, PPS
had gathered and sorted account information for approximately 184
million accounts. The role of this conduit of information about

5 No. 20050236
the status of checks is largely to facilitate compliance with the
third condition for return check compliance noted above: the
paying bank’s prompt notice of dishonor to the depositary bank.
¶12 Early in the morning of August 3, PPS connected the
information it had received from U.S. Bank disclosing the paying
bank (Wells Fargo), the account (Mr. Woodson), and the amount of
the check, with the information about Mr. Woodson’s stop-payment
order sent to PPS by Wells Fargo. PPS then electronically
transmitted the stop-payment status of Mr. Woodson’s check to
U.S. Bank’s operations center in Minnesota. The operations
center transmitted this information to the branch of U.S. Bank in
Provo, Utah, where HMA deposited the Woodson check before it
opened for business on August 3. While the Provo branch of U.S.
Bank may have had institutional knowledge of the stop-payment
status of the Woodson check, that knowledge had no legal effect
on the issue before us: whether Wells Fargo returned the
dishonored Woodson check to U.S. Bank in a timely manner. We
turn now to our discussion of the two relevant measures of
timeliness, the midnight deadline and the expeditious return.
I. WELLS FARGO WAS ELIGIBLE FOR AN EXTENSION OF THE MIDNIGHT
DEADLINE AND DISPATCHED THE WOODSON CHECK WITHIN THE TIME
AUTHORIZED BY THE EXTENSION
¶13 A bank that seeks to return a check because of
insufficient funds, a stop-payment order, and the like must
normally dispatch the check before the midnight deadline. See
Utah Code Ann. § 70A-4-301(1) (2001). The midnight deadline is
defined by the U.C.C. as midnight on a bank’s “next banking day
following the banking day on which it receives the relevant item
or notice or from which the time for taking action commences to
run, whichever is later.” Id. § 70A-4-104(1)(j).
¶14 Wells Fargo received the Woodson check as part of its
Friday, August 3 banking day. This meant that the midnight
deadline would occur at midnight on the bank’s next banking day,
Monday, August 6. HMA contends that because Idaho law designates
Saturday as a banking day, the midnight deadline was not Monday,
but Saturday. Under both the Boise Clearinghouse rules and Utah
law, Saturday is not a banking day. In our view, either of these
sources of authority for establishing banking days is superior to
applying Idaho law. HMA contends that because the Woodson check
was not returned through the Boise Clearinghouse, its rules do
not apply to any matter relating to the return of the Woodson
check. We disagree. As the example of the conflicting treatment
of Saturday’s status as a banking day by Idaho and Utah amply
illustrates, the laws of the various states in which the members
of the Boise Clearinghouse do business may vary in their

No. 20050236 6
designation of banking days. The clearinghouse rule achieves the
useful objective of bringing uniformity to the calendar of
banking days among its member banks.
¶15 The parties agree that the Boise Clearinghouse banking
day rule applied when the Woodson check was presented. HMA
contends, however, that when Wells Fargo elected to return the
Woodson check through the Federal Reserve System, the bank
severed itself from the application of all Boise Clearinghouse
rules. Unlike HMA, we believe that the Boise Clearinghouse’s
effort to provide uniformity in the designation of banking days
is entitled to be afforded an enduring quality that extends to
post-presentment events. It is apparent to us that this result
was consistent with the reasonable expectation of the member
banks. A comprehensive application of the Boise Clearinghouse
banking day rule also permits member banks to avoid the need to
undertake a choice of law analysis before engaging in
transactions involving member banks. Moreover, we see no
opportunity for paying banks to manipulate the Boise
Clearinghouse banking day designation in a manner that would
permit them to unilaterally impose unnecessary delays when
returning checks outside the clearinghouse. Such manipulation
might occur if the Boise Clearinghouse rule removed days from its
banking day calendar that were otherwise uniformly recognized as
banking days under the laws of its member banks. This is not the
case here.
¶16 HMA contends that the affidavit and deposition
testimony of Ms. LaTendresse support a finding that Wells Fargo
did not meet the midnight deadline on August 6 and in fact
dispatched the Woodson check on Tuesday, August 7. Were we to
conclude that her testimony could reasonably be read to support
this assertion, the question of whether Wells Fargo met the
August 6 midnight deadline would be at issue and summary judgment
would be placed out of the reach of U.S. Bank. We decline to
reverse the district court on this issue, however, not because we
interpret Ms. LaTendresse’s affidavit differently than HMA, but
rather because we conclude that as a matter of law Wells Fargo’s
midnight deadline was extended beyond midnight of August 6 to a
time that would include the alternative dispatch times that may
be extracted from Ms. LaTendresse’s affidavit according to HMA.
Our analysis therefore renders competing readings of Ms.
LaTendresse’s testimony immaterial.
¶17 If the U.C.C. were the exclusive authority governing
the return of checks, as it largely was before Congress enacted
the Expedited Funds Availability Act (the Act) in 1987, see Farm
Credit Serv. of Am. v. Am. State Bank, 339 F.3d 764, 768 (8th
Cir. 2003), the obligations of a paying bank, like Wells Fargo,

7 No. 20050236
would begin and end with meeting the midnight deadline. Banks
could focus their attention on the sole mission of getting checks
out the door. What happened to the checks after dispatch was of
little concern. The U.C.C. check return scheme was unpopular
with bank customers. Because banks were not accountable for
delays in returning checks to depositary banks, customers who had
deposited checks were frequently denied access to funds for
lengthy periods of time. See generally 1 Barkley Clark & Barbara
Clark, The Law of Bank Deposits, Collections and Credit Cards
¶ 7.02, at 7-2 (rev. ed. 2003). Customer unhappiness over these
delays provided the primary impetus for congressional action.
The Act empowered the Federal Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System to promulgate regulations to implement the Act.
The Federal Board exercised this grant of authority, mindful of
its need to strike a balance between the interests of bank
customers to enjoy speedier access to funds and the interests of
banks in managing the risks they would assume by standing behind
checks of dubious pedigree deposited by their customers. See 12
U.S.C. § 4008(b) (1987); see also Farm Credit Serv. of Am., 339
F.3d at 768.
¶18 The product of the Federal Board’s efforts was
regulation CC and, in particular, its subpart C at 12 C.F.R.
sections 229.30 to 229.43 (2001). Along with its predecessor,
regulation J, regulation CC created a federal check management
protocol that loosened to some degree the constraints of the
U.C.C. midnight deadline, but added the obligations of
expeditious return and prompt notice of dishonor to banks
returning checks. The effect of regulation CC was to expand the
check return mission of banks beyond their U.C.C. task of
monitoring dispatch before the midnight deadline to include an
interest in when dishonored checks were delivered to depositary
banks. 12 C.F.R. §§ 229.30-.31 (2001). Although it left the
midnight deadline in place, regulation CC made its effect less
Cinderella-like by authorizing an extension of the deadline to
paying banks that met certain conditions.
¶19 Regulation CC at 12 C.F.R. section 229 extends the
midnight deadline in two ways. First, a paying bank (of course,
as Judge Posner has noted, a bank handling a dishonored check is
more accurately viewed as the nonpaying bank), see Oak Brook Bank
v. N. Trust Co., 256 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 2001), may escape the
midnight deadline by seeing to it that it dispatches the check in
time to ordinarily reach the receiving bank, here the Federal
Reserve Bank, on or before the bank’s next banking day after the
imposed midnight deadline, provided the bank uses any means of
delivery that would ordinarily accomplish the safe arrival of the
check at a returning or depositary bank on that day. 12 C.F.R.
§ 229.30(c) (2001). As an even more generous alternative,

1 Regulation CC at 12 C.F.R. section 229.30(c) (2001)
states:
Extension of deadline. The deadline for
return or notice of nonpayment under the
U.C.C. or Regulation J (12 CFR part 210), or
Sec. 229.36(f)(2) is extended to the time of
dispatch of such return or notice of
nonpayment where a paying bank uses a means
of delivery that would ordinarily result in
receipt by the bank to which it is sent --
(1) On or before the receiving bank’s
next banking day following the otherwise
applicable deadline, for all deadlines other
than those described in paragraph (c)(2) of
this section; this deadline is extended
further if a paying bank uses a highly
expeditious means of transportation, even if
this means of transportation would ordinarily
result in delivery after the receiving bank’s
next banking day; or
(2) Prior to the cut-off hour for the
next processing cycle (if sent to a returning
bank), or on the next banking day (if sent to
the depositary bank), for a deadline falling
on a Saturday that is a banking day (as
defined in the applicable U.C.C.) for the
paying bank.
No. 20050236 8
regulation CC extends the midnight deadline beyond the next
banking day to a paying bank using a “highly expeditious” means
of transporting the check to the receiving bank.1 Id. One
commentator has plausibly suggested that the Federal Board’s
decision to provide for an extension of the midnight deadline was
prompted by the Board’s desire to encourage banks to abandon the
practice of using the mail to convey returned items in favor of
couriers and other means of more expeditious transport.
1 Barkley Clark & Barbara Clark, The Law of Bank Deposits,
Collections and Credit Cards ¶ 8.01[4], at 8-6 (rev. ed. 2006).
Irrespective of its possible objectives, the extension to the
midnight deadline authorized by section 229.30(c) clearly
replaces the midnight deadline’s compliance, measured based on
time of dispatch, with compliance measured by delivery. As our
upcoming discussion will reveal, the delivery contemplated in
section 229.30(c) is not necessarily limited, as HMA asserts, to
the depositary bank, but includes delivery to Federal Reserve
Banks in the manner Wells Fargo employed.

9 No. 20050236
II. WELLS FARGO’S DUTY OF EXPEDITIOUS RETURN WAS SATISFIED WHEN
IT PLACED THE WOODSON CHECK IN THE HANDS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE
BANK IN SALT LAKE CITY
¶20 Wells Fargo placed the Woodson check in the hands of a
courier who transported it from the Wells Fargo central
operations building located near Salt Lake International Airport
to the Federal Reserve Bank in Salt Lake City sometime either
before or shortly after midnight on August 6. No one disputes
that Wells Fargo’s choice of transport, a courier, was a highly
expeditious means of delivery that would ordinarily result in
delivery of the Woodson check to the Federal Reserve Bank in Salt
Lake City on August 7.
¶21 From the standpoint of HMA, the delivery of the Woodson
check to the Salt Lake Reserve Bank was irrelevant because under
HMA’s interpretation of the applicable authority the only
delivery destination that mattered was U.S. Bank. That delivery
occurred on Wednesday, August 8, a date too late even if Wells
Fargo were to enjoy the benefit of the section 229.30(c)
exception. To succeed, HMA’s argument depends on designating the
Boise Clearinghouse rules as the authority governing the manner
in which Wells Fargo could return checks. Those rules, HMA
asserts, required Wells Fargo to return the Woodson check
directly to U.S. Bank without interrupting the journey with stops
at intermediary banks including the Federal Reserve Bank.
¶22 Any restriction imposed on the method of returning
dishonored checks by the Boise Clearinghouse rules must contend
with and account for 12 C.F.R. section 210.12(a)(2) (regulation
J), which states:
A paying bank that receives a check as
defined in Sec. 229.2(k) of this chapter
(Regulation CC), other than from a Reserve
Bank, and that determines not to pay the
check, may send the returned check to any
Reserve Bank (unless its Administrative
Reserve Bank directs it to send the returned
check to a specific Reserve Bank) in
accordance with subpart C of part 229 of this
chapter (Regulation CC), the Uniform
Commercial Code, and the Reserve Banks’
operating circulars.
The Boise Clearinghouse rules surrender any claim as controlling
authority, however, on the method of check return when this
seemingly unambiguous grant of permission to return checks
through the Federal Reserve System--checks like the Woodson check

No. 20050236 10
that were not presented for collection through the Federal
Reserve System--is coupled with the assertion of the primacy of
federal regulations over inconsistent provisions of the Uniform
Commercial Code, any other state law, or regulation CC found in
12 C.F.R. section 210.3(f) of regulation J. The official
commentary to regulation CC reinforces this point by explaining
that section 229.30 supersedes provisions of the U.C.C. relating
to the method of returning dishonored checks “in that instead of
returning a check through a clearinghouse or to the presenting
bank, a paying bank may send a returned check to the depositary
bank or to a returning bank.” 12 C.F.R. pt. 229, app. E,
§ 229.30(a), cmt. 10.a (2001).
¶23 Federal regulations not only authorize check return
through the Federal Reserve System even where clearinghouse rules
might be construed to prohibit it, but they also make clear that
the successful transfer of a returned check to a Federal Reserve
Bank satisfies the paying bank’s duty of expeditious return. The
commentary to regulation CC notes that “[a]ll Federal Reserve
Banks agree to handle returned checks expeditiously.” Id. at
cmt. 5.b.i (2001).
¶24 HMA resists this conclusion by going to considerable
lengths to show that the Woodson check was not delivered within
the time limits established by either the two-day/four-day test
or the forward collection test, the two standards by which
regulation CC measures expeditious return. HMA’s labors in this
cause were to no avail because whether the Woodson check met
either test is irrelevant. Liability for untimely return
attaches to a bank upon its failure to make expeditious return of
a dishonored check. By agreeing to handle returned checks in an
expeditious manner, Federal Reserve Banks impliedly acknowledge
that their handling of the check will conform to the two-
day/four-day and forward collection tests.
¶25 None of the authorities cited by HMA in support of its
conclusion that Wells Fargo was obliged to deliver the Woodson
check directly to U.S. Bank and not to use the Federal Reserve
System alters our conclusion that Wells Fargo satisfied its duty
of expeditious return when it delivered the check to the Federal
Reserve Bank in Salt Lake City.
¶26 HMA’s selection of First National Bank of Chicago v.
Standard Bank & Trust, 172 F.3d 472 (7th Cir. 1999), as authority
for the proposition that a paying bank can escape liability for
untimely return if it misses the midnight deadline only by
placing a dishonored check in the hands of the depositary bank
before the close of the next banking day adds nothing to its
argument. It is no surprise that First National Bank focused on

11 No. 20050236
the timeliness of the paying bank’s return of checks to the
depositary bank because the itinerary of the checks included no
stop at an intermediary receiving bank. We have little doubt
that had an intermediary receiving bank been used along the
return route, the First National Bank court would have concluded
that the section 229.30(c) exception would have applied inasmuch
as the court noted that regulation CC “removes the constraint of
the midnight deadline if the check reaches either the depositary
bank or the returning bank to which it is sent on the banking day
following the expiration of the midnight deadline or other
applicable time for return.” Id. at 477.
¶27 HMA also points to a hypothetical scenario appearing in
the Clark treatise to bolster its claim that expeditious return
under regulation CC and access to the midnight deadline extension
provided by the regulation requires direct and timely return to
the presenting bank. In the hypothetical, the Federal Reserve
Bank was the presenting bank. The hypothetical focuses on the
paying bank’s obligation to make timely return of a dishonored
check to the Federal Reserve Bank in its status as the presenting
bank. Whether the Federal Reserve Bank also served as the
presenting bank is not the issue upon which the outcome of the
Clark hypothetical turns. Rather, the hypothetical focuses on
time and method of check transport. We would expect any
hypothetical scenario that had as its central focus the question
of check routing to include at least some mention of the
provision in regulation J that expressly authorizes return
through the Federal Reserve System and the agreement by the
Federal Reserve System to handle those returns expeditiously.
¶28 We accordingly hold that the district court properly
granted U.S. Bank summary judgment on the issue of the timeliness
of the Woodson check’s return.
III. THE DISTRICT COURT DID NOT ERR WHEN IT DENIED HMA’S MOTION
FOR CHANGE OF VENUE
¶29 HMA contends that the district court erred in denying
its motion for change of venue to the Fourth District, which
includes Provo. In HMA’s view, venue would have been more
appropriate there considering the company’s head office is
located in Provo and its U.S. Bank account, which was the origin
of the activities underlying this case, is also located in Provo.
¶30 Absent a clear abuse of discretion, we will not disturb
a trial court’s ruling on a motion to change venue. We will
reverse such a decision only if it “exceeds the bounds of
reasonability.” See Durham v. Duchesne County, 893 P.2d 581, 582
(Utah 1995); Crossland Sav. v. Hatch, 877 P.2d 1241, 1243 (Utah

No. 20050236 12
1994). We see no such abuse of discretion in this instance and
consequently decline to reverse the trial court’s decision.
¶31 HMA agreed in several signed commercial guarantees to
U.S. Bank, which are a part of this action, that Salt Lake County
would serve as the proper venue for any action arising out of
those guarantees. Additionally, Utah Code section 78-13-1 (2001)
provides that actions for foreclosure or liens and mortgages on
real property “must be tried in the county in which the subject
of the action or some part thereof, is situated.” U.S. Bank
seeks in this action foreclosure of real property owned by HMA
and located in Salt Lake County.
¶32 Accordingly, we hold that the district court acted
within its discretion in denying HMA’s motion for change of venue
and that Salt Lake County was the appropriate venue to determine
this case.
CONCLUSION
¶33 U.S. Bank was justified in charging-back the Woodson
check and placing the HMA account in an overdraft condition
because Wells Fargo timely returned the check to U.S. Bank. The
district court properly refused change of venue of the action
from Salt Lake County to Utah County. Affirmed.
---
¶34 Chief Justice Durham, Justice Durrant, Justice Parrish,
and Judge Pullan concur in Justice Nehring’s opinion.
¶35 Having disqualified himself, Associate Chief Justice
Wilkins does not participate herein; District Judge Derek Pullan
sat.