The Utah Supreme Court held that an insurer

Robert Oltmanns was named as a defendant in a personal injury case. He filed a claim with his insurer, Fire Insurance Exchange, who questioned whether the claim was covered under the policy. Rather than deny the claim outright, Fire Insurance brought a declaratory judgment action to determine whether the claim was covered under Mr. Oltmanns’s policy. The court of appeals ultimately held that it was covered, and Mr. Oltmanns filed a counterclaim seeking attorney fees for the declaratory judgment action, arguing that it was brought in bad faith. The question presented for this court is whether the court of appeals erred in concluding that Fire Insurance’s denial of Mr. Oltmanns’s insurance claim was “fairly debatable,” thus negating Mr. Oltmanns demand for attorney fees and expenses for the coverage dispute and appeal. We affirm the court of appeals’ decision to uphold the summary judgment of the district court.

Losing counsel had petitioned for rehearing

We would ordinarily stop here and refrain from making any additional comments regarding the Petition. But the rhetoric Mr. Oltmanns’s counsel chose to employ in the Petition takes this case out of the ordinary. Counsel accuses us of being biased for insurers: “for some reason, since it involved the filing of a declaratory judgment action by an insurance company, the normal rules of contract interpretation—and civil procedure—did not apply.” He then goes on to charge that we “unfairly meted out” “savagery” on his client’s case. This sort of language, which questions motives rather than ideas, reflects an insufficiency of thought and ineffective advocacy and has no place in filings before the trial or appellate courts of this state.

We admonish counsel for his use of such language. And we take this opportunity to remind him of paragraph 3 of the Utah Standards of Professionalism and Civility—“Lawyers shall not, without an adequate factual basis, attribute to other counsel or the court improper motives, purpose, or conduct