Justice LEE, opinion of the Court:
¶ 1 In this case we are asked to answer a certified question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit concerning the preclusive effect of a decision like that in Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, 238 P.3d 1054. The state law question presented focuses specifically on whether our "discretionary review of a petition for extraordinary writ and subsequent dismissal on laches grounds" is a "decision `on the merits' when it is accompanied by a written opinion, such that later adjudication of the same claim is barred." We answer the certified question in the affirmative: A decision like the one we reached in Lindberg is a decision "on the merits" for res judicata purposes that would thus preclude a subsequent action on the same claims between the same parties.
¶ 2 The certified question presented stems from litigation surrounding a Utah probate court's 2005 reformation and subsequent administration of a charitable religious trust formed by the predecessor to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. At the time of the initial proceedings culminating in the reformation of the trust, plaintiff, an association of individual members of the FLDS church and beneficiaries of the trust (the FLDSA), declined to intervene or participate in the litigation. When the FLDSA eventually sought to attack the reformation years later, it did so on two fronts.
¶ 3 First, in October 2008, the FLDSA filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Utah, asserting various state and federal constitutional challenges to the trust reformation and administration and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Eventually, the FLDSA moved for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against court administration of the trust. At that point, the federal court, upon agreement from the parties, stayed its proceedings "until the parties either reached a settlement or resumed the matter in court." Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Wisan, 773 F.Supp.2d 1217, 1225 (D.Utah 2011). Meanwhile, in October 2009, the FLDSA filed an extraordinary writ petition with this court under UTAH R. CIV. P. 65B, asserting claims substantially similar to those in the federal case. Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, 238 P.3d 1054. This court held that all but one of the FLDSA's claims (one we deemed unripe) were barred by the equitable doctrine of laches and dismissed the petition. Id. ¶ 36. In so doing, we cited the FLDSA's unexplained but conscious delay in waiting nearly three years to challenge the reformation and also noted the resulting injury "to those who relied on the Trust's modification." Id. ¶¶ 30-36.
¶ 4 The federal court then lifted its stay and invited further briefing on the motions pending there. After that briefing, the federal district court issued a memorandum opinion and order in February 2011 granting the FLDSA's preliminary injunction. Wisan, 773 F.Supp.2d at 1244. Though it acknowledged that Utah's preclusion law was unsettled, id. at 1238, the federal district court determined that our laches decision in Lindberg was not a judgment "on the merits for the purposes of res judicata," id. at 1242. In the absence of clear Utah precedent on the matter, the court reached this result by extrapolating "one common element" from approaches used elsewhere to determine whether laches dismissals warrant preclusive effect: "whether the underlying case in which laches was found included a fair examination of the circumstances and merits of the suit." Id. at 1239-40. The court then opined
¶ 5 Unable to find any such analysis in the Lindberg opinion, the federal district court then determined that "the [FLDSA] ha[d] not yet had a forum in which their claims of serious constitutional violations have been entertained or addressed sufficiently to earn a finding that they were on the merits." Id at 1241. In addition, the court concluded that the FLDSA was substantially likely to succeed on its constitutional claims, id. at 1233-34, and that those claims were not time-barred under its independent laches analysis, id. at 1236-38. The court accordingly granted the FLDSA's request for a preliminary injunction on those grounds, id. at 1244, and Defendants/Appellants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
¶ 6 The Tenth Circuit, recognizing that "the proper course in Utah is not well marked," formally certified to us its question about the state of Utah preclusion law. We now respond to that query.
¶ 7 The posture of a matter certified to us by a federal court is unusual. "[T]raditional standards of review do not apply" because we are not asked "to affirm or reverse a lower court's decision."
¶ 8 Thus, we disagree at least in part with the FLDSA's request that we answer the certified question abstractly and without reference to the circumstances of the Lindberg case. Our function in a certified case is not to issue abstract, advisory opinions on general matters of interest to the federal courts. It is to resolve disputed questions of state law in a context and manner useful to the resolution of a pending federal case.
¶ 9 The certified question presented undoubtedly implicates our decision in Lindberg. And our resolution of that question can fulfill its purpose of facilitating the disposition of the underlying federal case only if our analysis is informed by and addresses the particular context in which the question arises.
¶ 11 With this in mind, our discussion below evaluates the preclusive effect of a decision like Lindberg in a purely state law context — as in a case similar to the current one but filed in a district court of the State of Utah. We do so, however, not in the abstract but in consideration of the facts and circumstances of Lindberg.
¶ 12 Claim preclusion is one of two branches of the judicially created doctrine known as res judicata. Mack v. Utah State Dep't of Commerce, Div. of Secs., 2009 UT 47, ¶ 29, 221 P.3d 194. It "is premised on the principle that a controversy should be adjudicated only once." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The law of preclusion promotes this principle by barring parties from relitigating claims that have already been litigated in a previous suit. See id.
¶ 13 This doctrine serves three important purposes: First, it "preserv[es] the integrity of the judicial system by preventing inconsistent judicial outcomes; [second, it] promot[es] judicial economy by preventing previously litigated issues from being relitigated; and [third, it] protect[s] litigants from harassment by vexatious litigation." See Gudmundson v. Del Ozone, 2010 UT 33, ¶ 30, 232 P.3d 1059 (internal quotation marks omitted). Generally, we apply a three-part test to decide whether a claim is precluded:
Mack, 2009 UT 47, ¶ 29, 221 P.3d 194 (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 14 The FLDSA argues that Lindberg does not satisfy this test and thus has no res judicata effects because it was not a "final judgment on the merits." In the FLDSA's view, a decision like Lindberg falls short because it (1) stems from this court's discretionary jurisdiction over extraordinary writs; (2) did not properly examine each element of a laches affirmative defense; (3) resulted from inadequate or improper factual analysis; and (4) dismissed on laches grounds constitutional claims that are not subject to that affirmative defense.
¶ 15 We find none of these points sufficient to undermine the preclusive effect of a decision like that in Lindberg. Upon rejecting each of the FLDSA's arguments, we hold that Lindberg would preclude a subsequent action on the same claims by the same parties if filed in the Utah courts.
¶ 16 The FLDSA's first point focuses on the discretionary nature of our extraordinary writ jurisdiction. It emphasizes that a preclusive judgment must be "on the merits," and insists that a decision like that in Lindberg does not qualify because it involves only
¶ 17 The Utah Constitution confers on this court "original jurisdiction to issue all extraordinary writs." UTAH CONST. art. VIII, § 3.
¶ 18 As the FLDSA notes, "a petitioner seeking rule 65B(d) extraordinary relief has no right to receive a remedy that corrects a lower court's mishandling of a particular case." State v. Barrett, 2005 UT 88, ¶ 23, 127 P.3d 682.
¶ 19 The FLDSA seeks to paint our Lindberg decision with this brush. Since some denials of extraordinary writs are based on the availability of an alternative remedy, the FLDSA insists that Lindberg was that kind of decision — and thus one that was not "on the merits" for claim preclusion purposes. That is not an accurate characterization of our decision in Lindberg. We did not dismiss the petition in that case based on the availability of an alternative remedy; we did so in light of our resolution of the merits of the respondents' affirmative defense of laches.
¶ 20 That sort of decision is "on the merits" for res judicata purposes. It is well settled that the discretionary character of an extraordinary writ proceeding "does not, ipso facto, preclude a judgment rendered therein from operating as res judicata in another action or proceeding."
¶ 21 The FLDSA reads Lindberg as falling in the latter category, citing a sentence in our opinion in which we "decline[d] to reach the merits of [its] claims." Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, ¶ 43, 238 P.3d 1054. That argument takes this sentence out of context. In context, it is apparent that we were simply clarifying our decision to resolve the Lindberg case on the basis of an affirmative defense (laches); the "merits" we declined to reach were not the merits of the laches defense but of the underlying constitutional challenges to the trust's reformation. That does nothing to undermine our characterization of Lindberg as a
¶ 22 Our case law defines "the merits" for res judicata in light of rule 41 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Under rule 41(b):
As we indicated in Madsen v. Borthick, rule 41 "comprehensively define[s] a dismissal on the merits." 769 P.2d 245, 248 (Utah 1988). It establishes a presumption that the dismissal of a case is "on the merits" and thus has preclusive effect, subject to exceptions where the court "otherwise specifies" or where the decision is for lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, or for failure to join a necessary party.
¶ 23 The case law under federal rule 41
¶ 24 As a general rule, dismissals resulting from an "initial bar" to the court's adjudication of the parties' claims and defenses are not preclusive. See Costello v. United States, 365 U.S. 265, 286, 81 S.Ct. 534, 5 L.Ed.2d 551 (1961). An initial bar to the court's authority exists when venue or jurisdiction is lacking or the wrong parties are before the court. See UTAH R. CIV. P. 41(b). So, while dismissal for lack of capacity to sue is not phrased in terms of "lack of an indispensable party," such a dismissal is not preclusive. Stewart v. K & S Co., 591 P.2d 433, 434 & n. 1 (Utah 1979) (deciding that dismissal because one of the parties is not the real party in interest is not on the merits).
¶ 25 When an initial bar exists, the court has authority to opine only on the law and facts surrounding its own power.
¶ 26 Under these standards, we have no hesitation in concluding that a dismissal based on laches is a judgment on the merits under rule 41 and thus preclusive in Utah courts.
¶ 27 The FLDSA next points to the fact that the Lindberg court's laches decision nowhere considered the merits of the underlying constitutional claims. That fact forecloses the preclusive effect of Lindberg, in the FLDSA's view, under the standard set forth in Papanikolas Brothers Enterprises v.
¶ 28 We disagree. This argument is based on a misunderstanding of our laches precedent and law of preclusion, which we now take occasion to clarify. First, we explain that the origin of "harm to the plaintiff" as a factor in a laches analysis is suspect and conclude that weighing "harm to the plaintiff" has no place in our general laches jurisprudence. Second, and in view of this holding, we reject the FLDSA's argument that a proper laches analysis must examine the relative strength or weakness of a plaintiff's underlying claim. That kind of analysis is not merely unnecessary; it is forbidden.
¶ 29 The doctrine of laches "is `based upon [the] maxim that equity aids the vigilant and not those who slumber on their rights.'" CIG Exploration, Inc. v. State, 2001 UT 37, ¶ 14, 24 P.3d 966 (alteration in original) (quoting BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 787 (6th ed. 1990)). In Utah, laches traditionally has two elements: "(1) [t]he lack of diligence on the part of plaintiff" and "(2) [a]n injury to defendant owing to such lack of diligence." Papanikolas, 535 P.2d at 1260 ("Laches is not mere delay, but delay that works a disadvantage to another."). Neither of these elements requires a court to consider the strength or weakness of the plaintiff's underlying claims.
¶ 30 It is true, as the FLDSA indicates, that there is stray dicta in Papanikolas suggesting that "harm to the plaintiff" is a factor in a laches analysis. See id.; see also Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, ¶ 28, 238 P.3d 1054 (quoting Papanikolas's dicta). Yet the context of the Papanikolas decision forecloses the reading that the FLDSA gives to this language. In Papanikolas, the defendant built a structure on property reserved under a restrictive covenant for parking to serve nearby businesses. Papanikolas, 535 P.2d at 1259. When the plaintiff complained, the court considered whether laches barred enforcement of the restrictive covenant, citing the traditional two-pronged laches test detailed above. Id. at 1260. The court went on, however, to list "factors considered by the courts in determining the existence or nonexistence of laches," including:
Id. (emphasis added). Papanikolas cited an American Law Reports annotation
¶ 31 The Papanikolas notion of "harm to the plaintiff" is best understood not as a component of laches, but as part of a broader, equity-based inquiry that is particular to certain real property disputes. In these disputes, "harm to the plaintiff" is a factor that
¶ 32 Valhouli v. Coulouras, 101 N.H. 320, 142 A.2d 711 (1958), involved one such dispute and sheds light on this court's approach in Papanikolas. In that case, the defendant built two dwellings on his land where a covenant allowed only one, and the plaintiff complained, requesting a mandatory injunction ordering the defendant to remove the second dwelling. Id. at 711-12. The trial court denied the request on laches grounds, id., and the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed and outlined the particular rules regarding injunctions and real property disputes:
Id. at 713 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 33 Papanikolas can and should be read as attempting to accomplish the same result. Indeed, the A.L.R. annotation cited in Papanikolas for the "harm to the plaintiff" factor confirms that the Papanikolas court was attempting to articulate Valhouli's "laches plus disproportionate harm equals denial of injunction" standard.
¶ 34 In addition to making good sense, this view of Papanikolas has the added virtue of being consistent with how Utah courts have actually applied that case. Apart from our opinion in Lindberg,
¶ 36 At most, Papanikolas countenances an evaluation of "harm to the plaintiff, if he is confined to an action for damages." 535 P.2d at 1260 (emphasis added). That qualifying phrase confirms that the court is not concerned with any harm to the plaintiff, but a specific type of harm: harm that would result if the plaintiff is limited to one particular remedy. Put in the context of Papanikolas, "harm to the plaintiff" meant being forced to accept, in exchange for money damages, a structure built on land that was meant to serve as parking for nearby businesses. Thus, "harm to the plaintiff" contains an implicit assumption that the plaintiff's claims have merit and that the plaintiff deserves redress in some fashion. This assumption cannot coexist with the notion that examination of the merits of a plaintiff's claims is required.
¶ 37 A different result — one where a court's recognition of meritorious claims could defeat a laches defense — would be antithetical to the whole point of the doctrine of laches. Laches is designed to shelter a prejudiced defendant from the difficulties of litigating meritorious claims after an unexplained delay.
¶ 38 If laches required this showing, prejudice would be built into a doctrine established to prevent it. Specifically, unavailable or long-lost evidence and witnesses — long recognized as prejudice-causing results of delay
¶ 39 Thus, the Lindberg court's failure to consider the merits of the FLDSA's claims in its laches analysis is neither fatal nor relevant
¶ 40 The FLDSA next argues that this court's factual analysis in Lindberg was insufficient to sustain the preclusive effect of that decision. Because a finding of laches depends "on the circumstances of each case," Papanikolas Bros. Enters. v. Sugarhouse Shopping Ctr. Assocs., 535 P.2d 1256, 1260 (Utah 1975), a laches determination may turn on questions of fact, and the FLDSA insists this court was not equipped to resolve such questions in Lindberg. Specifically, because our Lindberg decision did not resolve disputed questions of fact, the FLDSA contends that it is preclusive only as to subsequent requests for extraordinary relief. We disagree.
¶ 41 When a court rules on a petition for extraordinary writ, it exercises original jurisdiction. See Gates v. Taylor, 2000 UT 33, ¶ 3, 997 P.2d 903 (per curiam). Although in such matters we are "not in a position to arrive at a legal ruling that is dependent on the resolution of disputed facts," Carpenter v. Riverton City, 2004 UT 68, ¶ 4, 103 P.3d 127 (per curiam),
Id. ¶ 5.
¶ 42 At oral argument, counsel for the FLDSA acknowledged that the dispositive facts supporting the Lindberg court's laches decision — those concerning unexplained delay and prejudice — were undisputed. Though the FLDSA took exception to the way these facts were documented in the record, it acknowledged that all of the parties supposed that they existed.
¶ 43 The FLDSA's arguments to the contrary smack of sour grapes. By submitting its extraordinary writ petition to the Lindberg court, the FLDSA implicitly certified that all the facts necessary to decide the
¶ 44 That the FLDSA now insists that the Lindberg court's factual analysis was faulty is suspect, particularly given its reliance on the federal district court's contrary resolution of the laches question. The federal district court held no evidentiary hearing and made no findings of fact. Yet the FLDSA has no dispute with that court's determination that there was no basis for application of the doctrine of laches, a determination the FLDSA lauds as "appropriate, legally correct, and within that court's jurisdiction to decide." In context, it appears that the FLDSA's real complaint is not that Lindberg was factually flawed, but that it didn't go its way. But of course the preclusive effect of our decision in Lindberg does not depend on the FLDSA's satisfaction with it. Indeed, "[claim preclusion] rests on a determination that justice is better served by attributing finality to judgments ... than by second efforts at improved results." Shoup v. Bell & Howell Co., 872 F.2d 1178, 1182 (4th Cir.1989) (second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶ 45 We therefore conclude that this court's factual analysis in Lindberg was proper and in no way impairs the preclusive effect of that decision. The submissions of both parties and the complete record from the probate proceedings provided an adequate factual basis from which to make a laches determination. That the FLDSA now regrets that outcome cannot alter its preclusive effect.
¶ 46 The FLDSA's final challenge to the preclusive effect of Lindberg is rooted in its notion that Establishment Clause claims are somehow immune from the reach of a laches time bar. Specifically, the FLDSA asserts that the Establishment Clause is a "structural" restraint of government power that arises "from the constitution's division of power between the states and the federal government and its branches" — a restraint not subject to waiver or interest balancing because it "delineate[s] non-transgressable limits on government action." And, in the FLDSA's view, if a government actor cannot waive structural violations, a litigant's right to complain about those violations is likewise not subject to timebar.
¶ 47 This argument falters on the ground that it confuses a government branch's inability to ratify unconstitutional power-grabs with a litigant's perpetual right to prosecute structural constitutional claims. The cases cited by the FLDSA simply conclude that a branch of government cannot waive infringement or enlargement of its constitutional power.
¶ 48 The FLDSA tries to unite them with the idea that the "passage of time, even with
¶ 49 As Hair illustrates, the idea that lapse of time cannot validate wrongfully exercised power is far from unique to structural constitutional violations, as the FLDSA insists. Indeed, it is theoretically applicable to every case — even the most pedestrian civil cases between private individuals — that is dismissed as time-barred. Any litigant so dismissed could claim that the court ratifies the offensive conduct in doing so and has, effectively, conferred on its opponent power to engage in the offensive conduct.
¶ 50 In reality, however, dismissal of a structural constitutional claim — or any claim, for that matter — on laches grounds is not a validation of power. A time-bar dismissal does not imply a simultaneous determination of governmental power to act outside constitutional bounds. It merely indicates that a particular litigant has forfeited a right to complain about such ultra vires acts. So while the government actor may escape punishment in one instance, any continuing or ongoing violation subjects it to further suits by litigants — perhaps even the same litigant — who diligently pursue their claims.
¶ 51 Our opinion in Lindberg recognized this principle. Specifically, we held that the FLDSA's challenge to the trust reformation was barred and included in that holding the majority of the FLDSA's claims because they "either occurred before or as part of the district court's modification of the [t]rust." 2010 UT 51, ¶ 37, 238 P.3d 1054. The only claim that arose from facts occurring after trust modification was dismissed not as time-barred but as unripe. Id. ¶ 36. If the hypothetical (or future) violations the FLDSA describes ever materialize and are unrelated to the trust modification, they would be unaffected by the Lindberg decision and the FLDSA's laches.
¶ 52 For these reasons, we are not persuaded that so-called structural constitutional violations are any less subject to time-bar than are garden-variety constitutional claims.
¶ 53 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that a decision like the one reached in Lindberg — dismissing an extraordinary writ on laches grounds — would preclude a subsequent claim brought in Utah courts.
Justice LEE authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice DURRANT, Associate Chief Justice NEHRING, Justice DURHAM, and Justice PARRISH joined.
We accordingly decline to address the authorities cited by the FLDSA raising the question whether a time-bar dismissal in state court, though preclusive there, would bind a federal court presented with the same claim. The case law is in some disarray on this matter, with some courts finding a state time-bar dismissal preclusive of subsequent federal litigation, see, e.g., Seavey v. Chrysler Corp., 930 F.Supp. 103, 108-09 (S.D.N.Y.1996), and others finding the time-bar dismissal to bar only the remedy sought in the time-barred suit, but not the right itself, see, e.g., Martel v. Stafford, 992 F.2d 1244, 1245-46 (1st Cir. 1993). But we have no occasion here to opine on this matter, as it concerns the existence and scope of the federal courts' authority to exercise their independent sovereignty to recognize federal limitations on or caveats to our state law of preclusion. Perhaps the federal courts will decide, as the FLDSA suggests, that federal sovereignty sustains a ground for recognizing an independent, federal notion of timeliness — e.g., a notion of laches that departs from or overrides our own. But that is a federal prerogative, not one for us to comment on — except perhaps to note the possibility that even if the federal courts were to adopt a standard of laches incorporating elements different from our own, we presume that a Utah judgment may nonetheless be granted issue-preclusive effects on any elements they share in common (e.g., the unreasonableness of the FLDSA's delay or the prejudice caused to other parties). See Taylor v. N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 309 F.Supp. 785, 790 (E.D.N.Y.1970) (deciding that laches decision in previous court did not bar court's consideration of the claims, but holding that it was "bound under the doctrine of collateral estoppel to accept as true any material facts necessarily found by the state courts" in their laches decisions).