On Friday, the Utah Court of Appeals threw out a case filed by a Utah County couple against the Division of Child and Family Services, a division of the Utah State Government.  The case arose when Ryan and Lene Morford adopted a boy.  The boy had been in foster care with DCFS and the parental rights of his natural parents had been terminated.  Shortly after the adoption, the boy sexually abused the Morford’s daughter.

The Morford’s claimed that DCFS was negligent and had breached several contractual provisions contained in the adoption contract.

Attorney Ron Wilkinson represented the parents.  The Court of Appeals threw the case out, finding that the brief did not comply with the law.  Some of the problems that the Court of Appeals found with the brief were that the table of authorities was incorrect, it did not contain citations to the trial court record and the brief did not contain the full text of the statutes supporting the Morford’s arguments.  The court stated, “most significantly, the argument section of the Morfords’ brief does not contain any meaningful legal analysis supported by relevant authorities that would enable this court to consider the Morfords’ arguments.”

Because of those deficiencies in the brief, the Court of Appeals refused to hear the case on its merits.