Utah Family Law, LC

06/07/2026

You Can’t Decide What You Haven’t Examined: What Most Courts Miss in Child Custody Decisions

When courts decide child custody cases, are they truly evaluating evidence—or relying on filtered interpretations? This video breaks down a critical structural issue in custody decisions: the absence of direct, reviewable input from the child.

Learn why summaries and reports fall short, how meaning gets lost in translation, and why tone, context, and questioning methods matter more than most courts acknowledge. If the underlying interaction isn’t examined, can the outcome really be trusted?

Understand the difference between evidence and interpretation—and why that distinction can change everything in a custody case.

https://youtu.be/_TXAHQuimMk

06/06/2026

Why Most Settlement Offers Fail: They Ask for Too Much

Most settlement offers fail for one simple reason: they ask for more than a court would ever award. In this video, we break down why overreaching kills negotiations—and how to structure a settlement proposal that actually works.

Learn how to align your offer with likely trial outcomes, avoid common strategic mistakes, and increase the chances of reaching a resolution without the cost and risk of litigation. If your proposal feels like a wish list instead of a forecast, it’s probably already failing.

https://youtu.be/EuovA5T5jec

06/05/2026

Divorce Mediation Wastes Time, Money, and Effort. There Is an Obvious Better Way.

The way divorce mediation is conducted in Utah is wildly overrated, yet that fact is one of the best kept secrets in the family law legal profession.

To be clear, mediation as a process still has value, just not the kind most people believe it has. In Utah, parties are, unless excused, required to attempt mediation before proceeding to trial in divorce and child custody disputes.

Settlement discussions are usually useful. Compromise is typically preferable to prolonged litigation. But that does not mean mediators themselves are the reason cases settle.

When it comes to mediation, divorcing parties and their lawyers routinely confuse correlation with causation. A settlement happened during mediation; therefore (people assume), the mediator caused the settlement. Not really.

Most divorce and child custody disputes settle because the parties finally reach the point where settlement becomes preferable to continued litigation. Attorney’s fees accumulate. Discovery exposes weaknesses. Temporary orders create pressure. Trial approaches. Risks become clearer. Fatigue and reality set in.

In Utah, mediators do not and cannot make findings of fact, impose consequences for dishonesty, punish delay or gamesmanship, compel disclosure, issue rulings, or force reasonable behavior.

At most, many mediators manage emotional traffic and relay offers between rooms. Occasionally they may “reality check” a particularly unreasonable position. Sometimes that helps. Yet parties routinely pay thousands of dollars for what is essentially supervised indirect communication.

The problem becomes especially obvious in shuttle mediation, where the parties sit in separate rooms while the mediator walks back and forth carrying proposals, arguments, grievances, and selective summaries.

Shuttle mediation is deeply inefficient. It strips away tone, nuance, spontaneity, and ordinary human interaction. It encourages positional bargaining. It rewards dramatic presentations to the mediator instead of direct problem-solving. It allows parties to perform reasonableness privately while behaving unreasonably publicly. It creates opportunities for message distortion, intentional or not. It turns what could have been a four-hour negotiation into an eight-hour game of telephone.

Almost every experienced litigator has lived through this: the mediator spends forty-five minutes in one room listening to a monologue, walks into the other room, paraphrases it imperfectly, receives another monologue in response, then repeats the process for hours while the billing meter runs continuously.

Of course, there are situations where shuttle mediation makes sense. Protective orders. Legitimate domestic violence concerns. Severe intimidation dynamics. Parties who truly cannot communicate without chaos erupting. Some extraordinarily high-conflict cases. But those situations are exceptions, not the rule.

The broader problem is that mediation culture has become ritualized. Courts order mediation because that is what courts do. Lawyers schedule mediation because that is what lawyers do. Parties pay for mediation because refusing to do so may appear unreasonable. Then, when the parties eventually settle under the weight of mounting litigation pressure, everyone congratulates the mediator.

But most mediators do not resolve disputes. They supervise the moment when the parties themselves finally decide to compromise and settle. That is not the same thing as a mediator bringing settlement to fruition.

Other, better processes alter the parties’ understanding of risk and likely outcomes. They force reality into focus. They actually change incentives and tend to produce more meaningful movement.

And one of the simplest alternatives is also one of the most overlooked: have the parties and their attorneys sit down together and negotiate directly.

Not every divorce or child custody dispute needs a mediator acting as a paid go-between. In many cases, the people most capable of resolving the dispute are already in the room. The parties know the facts. The attorneys understand the law, the risks, the likely outcomes, and the weaknesses in each side’s position. Very often, they can negotiate productively without paying someone thousands of dollars to carry messages between conference rooms all day.

Direct settlement discussions are frequently more efficient than mediation. They allow real-time conversation instead of delayed relay communication. They reduce misunderstandings. They force positions to withstand immediate scrutiny instead of being selectively filtered through a third party. They also make it harder for people to posture performatively in private while pretending to be “reasonable” through a mediator.

Experienced divorce and family law attorneys already know this. Some of the most productive settlement discussions happen around conference tables without any mediator present at all. The parties and lawyers exchange information candidly, discuss risk honestly, identify practical solutions, and work toward settlement directly.

That approach is not appropriate in every case. Some cases genuinely require separation, structure, or security concerns that justify formal mediation. But those cases are not most cases.

Yet mediation has become so institutionalized in modern divorce practice that many parties never stop to ask the obvious question:

If the parties are ultimately going to settle the case themselves anyway, why not try sitting down together first before spending thousands of dollars paying a mediator to walk messages back and forth?

Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277

Expert divorce lawyers in Utah. Simplify your divorce with clear, legal advice from the experts with Utah Family Law LC. Book your consultation today!

06/04/2026

Equal Custody in Utah: Common, Increasingly Favored, but Still Not Presumed

A growing number of divorcing and unmarried parents walk into consultations convinced that Utah law now requires “50/50 (equal) child custody.” Some are absolutely certain of it. They heard it from a friend, from social media, from a podcast, or sometimes even from another attorney.

And to be fair, one can understand why people believe it. Equal parent-time is far more common in Utah than it was twenty or thirty years ago. Many judges and commissioners increasingly view substantial involvement by both parents as beneficial to children. Utah law now contains statutory equal parent-time schedules. Social and political attitudes have also shifted heavily toward shared parenting.

But none of that changes a critical legal reality: Utah has no statutory presumption of equal physical custody. Not now. Not historically.

Utah law does recognize a rebuttable presumption favoring joint legal custody. See Utah Code § 81-9-205. But legal custody and physical custody are not the same thing.

Legal custody concerns decision-making authority over matters such as education, healthcare, and religion. Physical custody and parent-time concern where the children actually live and how overnights are allocated.

People constantly confuse these concepts.

Utah’s equal parent-time statute—currently Utah Code § 81-9-305, formerly § 30-3-35.2—does not say courts must award equal custody. It says courts may award equal parent-time if certain findings are made. “May” is not “shall.” “Permitted” is not “presumed.”

Under § 81-9-305, a court may order equal parent-time if the court finds, among other things, that:

equal parent-time is in the child’s best interest;
each parent has been actively involved in raising the child;
the parents can effectively facilitate the schedule;
and the logistics and geography make the arrangement workable.
That is very different from a statutory rule that courts are to begin with a presumption that equal custody is automatically best.

Still, I believe Utah is evolving toward a rebuttable presumption of equal physical custody in many cases. Frankly, it should. I suspect it is only a matter of time before some version of that becomes law.

If two fit parents are both capable and desirous of caring for their children, there is a strong argument that the law should begin from the position that the children should have roughly equal access to both parents unless there is evidence showing otherwise. That is not a radical proposition. It is merely an acknowledgment that children generally benefit from meaningful relationships with both parents and that divorce should not automatically reduce one parent—usually the father—to the status of a weekend visitor.

Historically, American custody law openly favored mothers under what became known as the “Tender Years Doctrine,” the idea that young children belonged primarily with their mothers because mothers were supposedly natural caregivers while fathers were primarily financial providers.

Although the Tender Years Doctrine has formally disappeared from Utah law, remnants of that mindset still linger culturally and institutionally. Not as openly as before. Not as crudely as before. But they linger. And this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

Utah does not have dedicated family law trial courts. District court judges handle everything from felony criminal matters to commercial litigation to probate disputes to divorce and child custody disputes. Many judges understandably prefer some categories of cases over others. Family law cases are emotionally exhausting, fact-intensive, and often messy. Judges don’t like that. The result is that some courts still fall back on familiar cultural assumptions when analyzing child custody disputes. Those assumptions are not usually stated explicitly anymore.

You will rarely hear a judge say, “Children belong with their mothers.” But the assumptions often emerge indirectly through phrases like:

“Mom has historically been the primary caregiver.”
“Mom works fewer hours.”
“Mom has handled more of the day-to-day nurturing.”
Sometimes those facts are genuinely important. Sometimes they are not.

Working full-time does not make a parent inferior. Being stricter or more disciplinary does not make a parent less loving. A father should not have to become a caricature of softness and emotional performance to be viewed as capable of exercising equal custody of his children.

To be clear, fathers have it far better today than they did historically in Utah custody litigation. Many fathers now receive equal or near-equal custody awards that would have been far less likely a generation ago.

But lingering institutional skepticism still exists. Many fathers still walk into court feeling as though they must prove worthy of maintaining equal custody of children they already helped raise every day before the divorce. Meanwhile, mothers are often still treated—subtly, unofficially, but perceptibly—as the default custodial parent unless something disqualifying appears.

Interestingly, many mothers increasingly recognize this problem too. As women increasingly occupy the same educational, professional, and economic roles historically occupied primarily by men, many also recognize the unfairness of treating employment, long work hours, or financial focus as evidence of parental inferiority. A parent who works hard to support a family is not somehow less of a parent because of it. At the same time, people should avoid swinging too far in the opposite direction.

Equal custody is not automatically appropriate in every case. There are absolutely situations where unequal parent-time is justified, including cases involving: domestic violence; abuse; neglect; severe instability; substance abuse; alienating conduct; profound communication failures; or practical realities that make equal schedules unworkable.

Courts are still required to conduct a best-interest analysis under Utah Code § 81-9-202 and related statutes. Or at least they are supposed to. And that leads to the real takeaway here. Utah currently has no automatic custody formula. No parent is legally entitled to equal custody merely because he or she asks for it.

At the same time, equal parent-time is increasingly common, increasingly accepted, and increasingly viewed by many courts as a legitimate and often beneficial arrangement.

So if you are involved in a Utah child custody dispute, stop relying on internet slogans like “Utah is automatically 50/50 now.” It is not (yet). But also stop assuming fathers are doomed to receive every-other-weekend parent-time by default. That is no longer true either.

Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277

Expert divorce lawyers in Utah. Simplify your divorce with clear, legal advice from the experts with Utah Family Law LC. Book your consultation today!

06/03/2026

The Rule 702 Gap: Why Utah Custody Evaluations Need Real Evidentiary Scrutiny

In a Utah personal injury case, if a doctor testifies that a low-speed collision caused a traumatic brain injury, that opinion will usually face meaningful scrutiny under Rule 702 of the Utah Rules of Evidence. Courts may require the expert to identify supporting literature, explain the methodology used, account for error rates, and demonstrate that the opinion rests on something more than intuition or professional confidence.

But in child custody disputes—cases involving one of the most fundamental liberty interests recognized in American law—the evidentiary culture often looks very different.

After nearly thirty years practicing Utah family law, I have watched courts apply rigorous skepticism to financial experts, engineers, accident reconstructionists, and medical causation testimony while simultaneously treating custody evaluators as quasi-judicial authorities whose conclusions are rarely subjected to equivalent methodological scrutiny.

That asymmetry deserves attention and correction.

The “Black Box” Problem

Utah custody evaluators often conduct extensive interviews with parents, children, teachers, therapists, and collateral sources. They then produce reports capable of dramatically influencing custody outcomes.

But much of the evaluator’s factual foundation is effectively unreviewable.

The interviews are typically not recorded. Statements are filtered through evaluator summaries rather than preserved directly. Many conclusions rely heavily on subjective interpretation rather than reproducible methodology.

As a result, judges are frequently asked to rely on conclusions without meaningful access to the underlying information from which those conclusions supposedly emerged. In practical terms, the process becomes an evidentiary “black box”: information goes in, recommendations come out, but neither the parties nor the court can fully examine what happened in between.

That opacity creates a deeper problem: credibility determinations are ultimately legal determinations reserved to the finder of fact—the judge—not to a custody evaluator.

A custody evaluator is supposed to provide psychological insights, behavioral observations, and professional analysis. The evaluator is not supposed to function as a substitute judge deciding whose account is “true.” But when child interviews occur inside an unrecorded evidentiary black box, the evaluator inevitably becomes the sole interpreter of the child’s statements, tone, demeanor, and perceived reliability.

At that point, the court is often no longer evaluating the child’s actual statements. The court is evaluating the evaluator’s characterization of those statements.

That distinction matters enormously.

Without a preserved record, neither the court nor the parties can independently assess whether questions were leading, whether important context was omitted, whether inconsistencies were explored fairly, whether interview conditions affected reliability, or whether the evaluator’s summary accurately reflects the interaction as a whole.

That is not an acceptable evidentiary model for cases involving parental rights and the future of children.

Credentialing Is Not the Same as Validation

Too often, the inquiry effectively ends once the evaluator has the “right CV.”

If the evaluator possesses the expected licenses, certifications, training hours, affiliations, prior appointments, and polished courtroom demeanor, courts frequently treat the evaluator’s conclusions as presumptively reliable before any serious examination of methodology even begins.

But credentials establish qualification to testify. They do not establish that the resulting opinions are methodologically sound, scientifically reliable, or evidentially testable in a particular case.

Rule 702 was designed precisely to prevent courts from substituting professional status for evidentiary reliability. Yet in custody litigation, courts sometimes drift into a form of credentialism where licensure itself becomes a proxy for reliability.

Too often, evaluators offer sweeping conclusions about “emotional safety,” “coercive dynamics,” “alignment,” “protective parenting,” or “alienation” without clearly identifying the methodology used, the scientific support for the conclusion, competing explanations, or the extent to which the opinion depends on subjective interpretation.

In other areas of litigation, courts routinely ask experts a straightforward question:

“How do you know?”

In family law, courts sometimes settle for:

“Because the evaluator said so.”

Those are not equivalent standards.

At times, what is presented as clinical certainty is little more than subjective interpretation wrapped in professional terminology. Courts are occasionally asked to accept major custody recommendations based on vague behavioral concepts untethered to clearly articulated methodology or demonstrable scientific support.

That is not rigorous forensic analysis. It is often closer to professional intuition operating behind an evidentiary shield.

Why Rule 702 Challenges Often Go Nowhere

Custody evaluators serve an important institutional function. Family courts are overloaded. Judges operate under enormous docket pressure. A lengthy custody evaluation often functions as an organizational shortcut—a synthesized narrative helping courts process emotionally and factually complicated cases more efficiently.

That incentive structure matters.

A serious Rule 702 hearing requires time, judicial labor, and a willingness to scrutinize methodologies courts may have accepted for years with relatively little resistance. As a result, Rule 702’s existence does not necessarily guarantee meaningful gatekeeping in practice.

A Serious Reform Worth Considering

Utah should seriously consider requiring recording of custody evaluation interviews absent extraordinary circumstances.

Not because recording would eliminate subjectivity. It would not. But because transparency reduces the harm unchecked subjectivity can cause and permits meaningful scrutiny of the process itself.

Custody evaluator opinions shape custody outcomes. They must be subjected to the same evidentiary rigor expected elsewhere in the legal system. A professional license is not a substitute for transparency, methodological rigor, or testable reasoning. The more consequential the decision, the greater the need for meaningful scrutiny.

Given the enormous weight courts place on custody evaluator opinions, courts must insist on methodologies capable of withstanding meaningful examination. Parents and children deserve no less. Courts must not lower evidentiary standards simply because the subject matter is family law.

Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277

06/02/2026

Beyond 18: When Utah Law Requires Continued Support for Adult Children with Disabilities

Discover how Utah Code § 81-6-101 allows for child support to continue indefinitely for adult children with cognitive disabilities. Learn the legal standards for incapacity and how a Special Needs Trust can protect your child’s eligibility for Medicaid and SSI.

Most parents assume child support ends when a child turns eighteen or graduates from high school. That is usually true. But not always.

Some Utah lawyers also remember Utah Code § 15-2-1, which permits courts in divorce actions to order support up to age 21 in certain circumstances. But support for an incapacitated adult child arises from a different legal principle entirely. Utah law separately defines a “child” for support purposes to include an adult son or daughter who is incapacitated from earning a living and unable to support himself or herself by his or her own means. In other words, this is not merely a discretionary extension of ordinary child support for a few extra years. In appropriate cases, support may continue well beyond age 21.

Under Utah law, a “child” for support purposes can include an adult son or daughter who is incapacitated from earning a living and unable to support himself or herself by his or her own means. See Utah Code § 81-6-101.

In plain English, if a child’s disability prevents meaningful self-support, child support may continue into adulthood.

That commonly arises in cases involving severe autism, Down syndrome, traumatic brain injuries, profound intellectual disabilities, or similar conditions that substantially impair independent functioning.

The important point is this: the legal standard is functional, not diagnostic.

A diagnosis alone is not enough. The court is not deciding whether the child has a disability. The court is deciding whether the child can realistically earn a living and support himself or herself.

That usually requires evidence, not assumptions.

Medical records, neuropsychological evaluations, educational records, vocational assessments, and testimony from treating professionals may all become important. Courts generally want evidence showing how the condition affects real-world functioning, not just labels or generalized opinions.

Timing also matters.

If the child’s long-term incapacity is already apparent, it is usually far better to address continued support before the original child support obligation expires. Waiting until years later can create unnecessary procedural and evidentiary problems.

There is another issue many parents—and many lawyers—miss completely: government benefits.

Many disabled adult children rely on SSI and Medicaid. Poorly structured support orders can unintentionally reduce or jeopardize those benefits. Under SSA rules, child support paid for an adult disabled child may be treated as income attributable to the child.

That can become a disaster if nobody planned for it.

In appropriate cases, support may need to be directed into a properly drafted special needs trust instead of simply being paid directly for the child’s benefit. These rules are technical, and mistakes can be extremely expensive.

This is one of the few areas of family law where divorce law, disability law, public benefits law, estate planning, and long-term caregiving all collide at once.

Parents dealing with these situations are often planning not for the next five years, but for the next fifty.

Which is exactly why these issues need to be addressed carefully and early, not after the child turns eighteen and everyone suddenly realizes the support order is about to disappear.

Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277

Expert divorce lawyers in Utah. Simplify your divorce with clear, legal advice from the experts with Utah Family Law LC. Book your consultation today!

06/01/2026

State v. Paramoure - 2026 UT App 74

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH,
Appellee,

V.

PHILIP CHRISTOPHER PARAMOURE,

Appellant.

Opinion

No. 20240381-CA

Filed May 7, 2026

Third District Court, Salt Lake Department

The Honorable Paul B. Parker

No. 221903231

Freyja Johnson, Emily Adams, and
Jessica Hyde Holzer, Attorneys for Appellant

Simarjit S. Gill and Brandon E. Simmons,
Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE GREGORY K. ORME authored this Opinion, in which
JUDGES RYAN M. HARRIS and JOHN D. LUTHY concurred.

ORME, Judge:

¶1 The State charged Philip Christopher Paramoure with child abuse. At trial, Paramoure argued that his actions were justified as reasonable discipline of his son. The jury disagreed and convicted him. On appeal, Paramoure challenges the trial court’s initial and supplemental jury instructions regarding the affirmative defense of reasonable discipline. Because we agree that the supplemental instruction misstated the law, we reverse his conviction.

BACKGROUND[1]

¶2 One night in February 2022, Paramoure arranged to pick up his fourteen-year-old son (Son) for a weekend visit, but Son messaged Paramoure asking if he could go to Paramoure’s house the next morning instead. Son told Paramoure that one of his friends was “talking about hurting himself” and that Son “might need to go over there.” Paramoure was concerned because another of Son’s friends had committed su***de a few months prior. So Paramoure asked Son for the friend’s name and address. Son accused Paramoure of “blowing it way out of proportion.” Son said that he just wanted “to be there for” his friend.

¶3 Paramoure continued to argue with Son via text message, eventually saying, “I hope you’re not bullsh*tting me on this.” Son replied, “Jesus you are so messed up in the head.” Paramoure again asked Son for his friend’s address, and Son replied, “Are you serious, f**k off I’m going to [my friend’s house].” Paramoure said, “I’m going to kick your ass when I see you” and

“I have f****** had it with you.”2 Paramoure then told Son he would come pick him up soon.

¶4 When Paramoure arrived outside the house where Son lived with his mother (Mother) and her boyfriend, he texted Son, “Let’s go.” Son came outside and found Paramoure leaning against his car with his arms crossed. Paramoure asked Son “if [2][he] wanted to go,” which Son took as asking whether he “wanted to fight.” Paramoure pushed Son, who ran back toward the front porch of the house while telling Paramoure to “F off.” Paramoure followed Son to the porch and “pulled” Son down by the shoulders, getting on top of him and pinning him to the ground.

¶5 Hearing Son’s voice, Mother unlocked the front door and saw Paramoure pull Son down, get on top of him, and hit him. She called the police, and her boyfriend pulled Son inside the house. Paramoure returned to his car.

¶6 An officer (Officer) arrived at the house soon after and spoke with Paramoure in the driveway. Paramoure told Officer that he had “slapped” and “hit his kid a couple of times” to “deal[] with him” because “he needed to be disciplined.” Officer observed a cut above Son’s eye but reported no “redness, no bruising, no marks of any kind,” although Son and Mother later reported that a scab from a prior injury to his hand had reopened and there was swelling around his eye as well as bruising and scrapes on his back. Officer issued a citation to Paramoure, and he was later charged with one count of child abuse.

¶7 At trial, Son, Mother, Mother’s boyfriend, and Officer testified for the State. Paramoure testified in his own defense. He admitted to pushing and slapping Son and pinning him down. But he testified that he “was trying to defuse the situation” and “calm [Son] down.”

¶8 After Paramoure’s testimony, counsel and the court discussed the jury instructions, specifically the instruction regarding Paramoure’s affirmative defense of reasonable discipline. The State—believing that the case did not involve “serious bodily injury”—raised concerns that the proposed instruction nevertheless “talk[ed] a lot about serious bodily

injury.” Paramoure’s counsel (Counsel)[3] urged the court to include a discussion of serious bodily injury, arguing that the jury should be informed that force may be considered reasonable even if it results in injury. The State reiterated that the discussion of serious bodily injury should be removed, arguing “it incorrectly implies” that discipline is always reasonable “unless there is serious bodily injury.” But Counsel reiterated that the instruction should include a sentence stating that the presence of physical injury does not, by itself, render force unreasonable. The court stated that Counsel’s suggestion would go “too far” and would be “commenting on the evidence.” The court then removed all language regarding any physical injury—serious or otherwise— from the instruction on the defense of reasonable discipline.

¶9 The court then instructed the jury that to find Paramoure

guilty of child abuse, it would have to find beyond a reasonable doubt “[t]hat the defense of reasonable discipline does not apply.” A separate instruction explained:

Conduct which is justified is a defense to prosecution for any offense based on the conduct. For child abuse, this defense may be claimed when the actor’s conduct is reasonable discipline of minors by parents, guardians, teachers, or other persons in loco parentis.

Under the defense of Reasonable Discipline, an actor is not guilty of Child Abuse for conduct that constitutes reasonable discipline or management of a child, including withholding privileges.

The jury must consider all of the facts and circumstances presented at trial, in determining whether the defense of Reasonable Discipline applies.

You must decide whether the defense of Reasonable Discipline applies in this case. If you determine that Mr. Paramoure’s actions amounted to reasonable discipline, as defined in these instructions, his actions are “justified” and therefore, not unlawful. If the acts were justified, he is entitled to a finding of not guilty.

Another instruction defined “Reasonable” as “fair, proper, or moderate under the circumstances” and “Reasonableness” as “an objective standard, determined by the jury, not a subjective standard determined by any person involved.”

¶10 During deliberation, the jury submitted a question to the court:

Judge,

We feel we are close, but some hangups on definition of reasonable.

Is there any guidance (additional) you can provide for reasonable discipline?

The court informed both parties of the jury’s question and provided a proposed answer, which read:

The issue of what is reasonable discipline is considered from the viewpoint of an objectively reasonable person. In other words, would an objectively reasonable person, considering all the facts and circumstances that the Defendant was confronted with, use the force the Defendant did to discipline his child.



The court stated, “What I worry about here is that what [the jury is] struggling with is how to apply the test. And I think what is basic law is that you ask yourself what a reasonable objective person would do through the eyes of the defendant.”

¶11 The State noted that “one potential negative” with the proposed answer was that “the instruction as worded could imply that there was one correct thing to do, did the defendant do the one thing that a reasonable person would have done, where . . . a reasonable person could have . . . done multiple different things.” The parties then conferred on the court’s proposed answer, and when they returned, Counsel stated that “the problem with the second sentence is that there’s a lot of reasonable people who wouldn’t use any force” and that the instruction as worded by the court would result in “burden shifting” and “the false presumption that any reasonable person would use some force.” Counsel emphasized that the instruction should direct the jury to focus on “what a reasonable person would think because there’s a lot of reasonable people that wouldn’t use any force at all.”

¶12 When the court stated it would submit its answer as written, Counsel again argued, “Our objection to that is that it’s burden shifting, because . . . within the umbrella of reasonable person, there isn’t one right thing. And this is making it like a reasonable person either would have or wouldn’t have done that.” The court acknowledged that this was a “fair point” and stated that it would “add a statement on the bottom . . . that the burden to show that this was [not] objectively reasonable remains with the State.”

¶13 The court then submitted a supplemental instruction to the jury which stated,

The issue of what is reasonable discipline is considered from the viewpoint of an objectively reasonable person. In other words, would an objectively reasonable person, considering all the facts and circumstances that the Defendant was confronted with, use the force the Defendant did to discipline his child.

The burden to prove that the defense of reasonable discipline does not apply is on the prosecution. If the prosecution fails to convince you that the defense of reasonable discipline does not apply you must find the Defendant not guilty.

So instructed, the jury found Paramoure guilty.[4]

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶14 On appeal, Paramoure argues that both the trial court’s initial and supplemental instructions failed to properly instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of reasonable discipline. “We review challenges to jury instructions under a correctness standard.” Meeks v. Peng, 2024 UT 5, ¶ 33, 545 P.3d 226 (quotation simplified).[5] “When reviewing jury instructions, we must consider the challenged instruction in context.” Id. (quotation simplified). “And we will affirm when the instructions taken as a whole fairly instruct the jury on the law applicable to the case.” Id. (quotation simplified).[6]

ANALYSIS

¶15 Paramoure was convicted of child abuse under then-Utah Code section 76-5-109(3)(b). See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-109(3)(b) (LexisNexis 2022). At trial, he raised the affirmative defense of reasonable discipline under then-section 76-5-109(8)(a), which provided that “[a] person is not guilty” of child abuse “for conduct that constitutes . . . reasonable discipline or management of a child.” Id. § 76-5-109(8)(a). This required the State to “disprove that defense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Bountiful City v. Baize, 2021 UT 9, ¶ 79, 487 P.3d 71 (quotation simplified). And it entitled Paramoure to a reasonable discipline jury instruction. See State v. Devan, 2024 UT App 193, ¶ 54, 562 P.3d 1233, cert. denied, 568 P.3d 261 (Utah 2025).

¶16 The trial court instructed the jury on reasonable discipline in both the initial and supplemental instructions. Paramoure takes issue with both. First, he argues that the initial instruction misstated the law and that the court should have given his requested reasonable-discipline instruction instead. He argues that under our Supreme Court’s decision in Baize, the initial reasonable-discipline instruction should have clarified that “the presence of a non-serious injury does not prevent a jury from concluding that a parent engaged in reasonable discipline.”

¶17 Baize “obviously did not involve the contours of a defense in context of jury instructions,” State v. Cover, 2025 UT App 34, ¶ 31, 566 P.3d 788 (quotation simplified), because that case involved an appeal from a bench trial, see Baize, 2021 UT 9, ¶ 2. Nor did Baize “purport to establish a rigid . . . test that trial courts must always incorporate into jury instructions.” Cover, 2025 UT App 34, ¶ 31. But in Baize, our Supreme Court agreed with this court’s prior conclusion that “inflicting something less than serious physical injury is not always reasonable, nor is it always unreasonable.” 2021 UT 9, ¶ 46 (quotation simplified).

¶18 While “parties are entitled to have the jury instructed accurately on the law” but “are not entitled to have the jury instructed with any particular wording,” State v. Hunt, 2025 UT 54, ¶ 45, 582 P.3d 772 (quotation simplified), we take Paramoure’s point that an accurate statement of the law regarding reasonable discipline, at least in this case, may well have required an instruction clarifying that the mere presence of injury does not necessarily mean that the force used in inflicting it was unreasonable. We do not decide this definitively, though, because what we view as the bigger problem here is the court’s supplemental jury instruction.

¶19 After the jury expressed, during its deliberations, its “hangup” with the concept of reasonable discipline, the court further instructed, with our emphasis,

The issue of what is reasonable discipline is considered from the viewpoint of an objectively reasonable person. In other words, would an objectively reasonable person, considering all the facts and circumstances that the Defendant was confronted with, use the force the Defendant did to discipline his child.

The burden to prove that the defense of reasonable discipline does not apply is on the prosecution. If the prosecution fails to convince you that the defense of reasonable discipline does not apply you must find the Defendant not guilty.

¶20 Paramoure argues that the emphasized portion of this instruction improperly lowered the State’s burden to disprove his reasonable-discipline defense. In Paramoure’s view, “the question is not whether an objectively reasonable person ‘would . . . use the force [he] did to discipline his child’—the correct question is if the State met its burden of proving that no objectively reasonable person would use the force [he] did to discipline Son under the circumstances.” Paramoure stresses that a reasonable person could have taken any number of disciplinary actions—using force or not—but that this portion of the instruction implied that the affirmative defense of reasonable discipline applied only if a reasonable person would have used the very force he did under the circumstances. We agree that this instruction lowered the State’s burden to disprove Paramoure’s reasonable-discipline defense.

¶21 “Because the burden of proof for an affirmative defense is counterintuitive, instructions on affirmative defenses must clearly communicate to the jury what the burden of proof is and who carries the burden.” State v. Lee, 2014 UT App 4, ¶ 27, 318 P.3d 1164 (quotation simplified). The instruction here asked the jury to determine whether a reasonable person would use the same force that Paramoure had used in disciplining Son. But the proper inquiry was whether no reasonable person would have used that level of force. So while the second paragraph of the supplemental instruction explicitly allocated the burden to the State, the first paragraph effectively lowered it.

¶22 But even “if a jury instruction is erroneous, we will reverse only if the defendant shows a reasonable probability the error affected the outcome of his case.” State v. O’Bannon, 2012 UT App 71, ¶ 15, 274 P.3d 992 (quotation simplified). See State v. Hawkins, 2016 UT App 9, ¶ 52, 366 P.3d 884 (“To reverse a trial verdict, we must find not a mere possibility, but a reasonable likelihood that the error affected the result.”) (quotation simplified), cert. denied, 379 P.3d 1181 (Utah 2016). “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Wyatt v. State, 2021 UT 32, ¶ 34, 493 P.3d 621 (quotation simplified). See O’Bannon, 2012 UT App 71, ¶ 41 (“An error is prejudicial if it tends to mislead the jury to the prejudice of the complaining party or insufficiently or erroneously advises the jury on the law.”) (quotation simplified).

¶23 Given its question to the trial court during its deliberations, the jury was clearly focused on the reasonable discipline defense. And the jury was clearly confused about how to evaluate reasonable discipline. We are therefore convinced that had the supplemental instruction properly framed the question for the jury by requiring it to find that no reasonable person would have used the force Paramoure used in disciplining Son, there is a reasonable probability that Paramoure would have been acquitted.

¶24 Thus, we conclude that the supplemental jury instruction misstated the law in lowering the State’s burden to disprove the reasonable-discipline affirmative defense, thereby prejudicing Paramoure’s defense.

CONCLUSION

¶25 The trial court’s supplemental jury instruction misstated the law regarding reasonable discipline, effectively lowering the State’s burden of disproving Paramoure’s reasonable-discipline affirmative defense. Because we conclude that the erroneous instruction harmed Paramoure, we reverse his conviction and remand the matter for a new trial.

Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277

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[1] “On appeal, we review the facts in a light most favorable to the jury’s verdict and recite the facts accordingly,” presenting “conflicting evidence only as necessary to understand issues raised on appeal.” State v. Macbeth, 2026 UT App 3, n.1, 583 P.3d 1147 (quotation simplified). We employ this standard even when we conclude the jury was given an erroneous instruction. See id. ¶ 2.

[2] These text messages are quoted verbatim.

[3] Paramoure was represented at trial by two attorneys. For ease, we refer to them collectively as “Counsel.”

[4] Paramoure was charged with class A misdemeanor child abuse for “intentionally or knowingly” inflicting physical injury on a child. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-109(3)(a) (LexisNexis 2022). But he was convicted of a class B misdemeanor for “recklessly” inflicting physical injury on a child. See id. § 76-5-109(3)(b).

[5] As long as “the jury instructions are legally correct, the precise wording and specificity . . . is left to the sound discretion of the trial court.” State v. Hunt, 2025 UT 54, ¶ 45, 582 P.3d 772 (quotation simplified).

[6] Paramoure also argues that Counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance in failing to object to statements the prosecutor made about reasonable discipline during the State’s closing argument. Because we reverse based on the jury instructions, we need not address this issue.

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