Could Utah re-file its public lands lawsuit? The state — and a judge — are deliberating

Third District Court Judge Thaddeus May during a hearing on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s complaint against Utah’s public lands federal lawsuit on Monday, July 14, 2025. (Pool photo by Manuel Rodriguez/FOX 13 News)

After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Utah’s lawsuit seeking to take over 18.5 million acres of federally-controlled land within its boundaries in January, a pending suit from environmentalists continues, now asking lower courts to prevent the state from filing a similar case in the future.

The state hasn’t filed a new lawsuit in a federal lower court as the Supreme Court suggested. And it may or may not pursue a new filing, Lance Sorenson, an attorney representing the state, said at a Monday court hearing. 

Now, without a lawsuit, 3rd District Court Judge Thaddeus May might have to decide whether Utah’s executive branch can file a similar suit in the future. But, first, the court has to consider whether to allow the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) to amend its original complaint against the state, now that the Supreme Court has dismissed the case.

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“Maybe the burning question is, ‘when will that case get refiled?’ I can tell you, it’s under consideration, but it’s not guaranteed that it will even be filed again,” Sorenson said. “And so as we stand here today, there is no federal lawsuit, and there may never be one, which I think underscores our argument that there’s really no case here.”

But, according to SUWA, the state’s request itself is unconstitutional since the Utah Constitution establishes that state inhabitants “forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands” within its borders.

“If the suit is unknown, why is it not better to wait for that suit to be filed in federal court and then have a reaction? Why does this court have to preempt that decision or that lawsuit?” the judge asked Jess Krannich, an attorney representing the environmental group.

Public statements from Utah officials “crystallized a legal position that is 180 degrees opposite what is in the Utah constitution in its plain language,” Krannich said.

“The basic claim is the Utah Constitution plain language limits authority in this space, and therefore the state actors are acting contrary to Utah law, binding Utah constitutional law, if they take the action that they took, and then they’re saying that they’re going to take again,” Krannich said. “That’s the gist of it.”

Rather than “taking an act that is completely foreclosed by the Utah Constitution,” the court could comment on the issue, and the state could take the appropriate steps to amend its constitution, Krannich said. 

However, for the state, the original SUWA complaint is moot since the U.S. Supreme Court already dismissed the state’s first suit. SUWA’s request to amend its complaint would be “futile,” since it wouldn’t withstand a motion to dismiss, the state argued in court documents.

Additionally, Sorenson said, the remedies SUWA is requesting are beyond the court’s power to grant “because the court can’t craft an unconstitutional remedy.”

“If the federal courts were to find that Utah’s lawsuit has merit, they would be finding that Gov. Cox and Attorney General Brown are not precluded from bringing the lawsuit,” Sorenson said. “And such a ruling from a federal court under the Supremacy Clause would take precedence over any contrary ruling from this court.”

If, on the other hand, federal courts determine that Utah’s hypothetical future lawsuit doesn’t have merits, SUWA’s claims would be moot since there wouldn’t be any damages to begin with, Sorenson said. 

“It’s also helpful to know what Utah did request in its lawsuit, which was not to transfer title to Utah, it was to start disposing the land as it had done for hundreds of years prior under federal constitutional doctrines of equal sovereignty, so that the land gets disposed,” Sorensen said. “We don’t know how the land would get disposed of. Maybe they would sell it to SUWA, right? It’s all that’s speculative.”

That would imply opening up the old Federal Land Office or taking other actions to make dispositions available, Sorenson said.

After the hearing, Steve Bloch, legal director with SUWA, said that was a highlight of the state’s arguments, especially after Utah officials spent over $1 million on legal fees and a public relations campaign that includes billboards, print, TV and radio ads, since filing the lawsuit against the U.S. government last summer.  

“The focus of its campaign was ‘stand for our land,’ ‘keep Utah lands in Utah hands.’ And what the attorney for the state of Utah said this morning is, ‘that’s wrong. That’s actually not what they’re after here,’” Bloch said. “In their federal court filing, in the position that they’ve now stated in court here, they want to force the sale of federal lands into private hands, full stop.”

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