What attorney fees are recoverable under Utah's anti-SLAPP statute? Aston v. Chronicle-Progress Explained

The Utah Supreme Court’s decision in Aston v. Chronicle-Progress provides guidance for practitioners seeking attorney fees under Utah’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA), the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.

Background and Facts

Real estate developer Wayne Aston sued the Millard County Chronicle-Progress newspaper for defamation after it published a series of articles examining his business history and questioning his proposed development project in Fillmore. The newspaper successfully dismissed the case using UPEPA’s special motion for expedited relief procedure and then sought nearly $400,000 in attorney fees—an exceptional amount for a case disposed of in its early stages. The district court granted the entire fee request without analyzing whether each component related to the special motion.

Key Legal Issues

The central issue was interpreting UPEPA’s fee provision, which awards “reasonable attorney fees … related to the [special] motion” to prevailing defendants. The newspaper argued this covered all work during the expedited process, while Aston contended it should be limited to work reasonably necessary to prosecute the motion itself.

Court’s Analysis and Holding

The Court applied statutory interpretation principles and held that “related to” means reasonably necessary to prosecute the special motion. The Court distinguished between tasks obviously necessary (researching and drafting the motion) and obviously unnecessary (obtaining jury fee refunds), while acknowledging that middle-ground tasks involving “double duty” require case-by-case analysis. The Court looked to similar statutes in other jurisdictions and found that UPEPA’s qualification must be meaningful—limiting recovery to something less than the entire case.

Practice Implications

Practitioners seeking UPEPA fees must now demonstrate that each task was reasonably necessary to prosecute the special motion. The Court also excluded certain fees where billing entries were too heavily redacted to determine their relationship to the motion, and reduced excessive fees-on-fees from 91 hours to approximately 23 hours as unreasonable. This decision requires more detailed documentation and justification of fee requests in UPEPA cases.