Doug Butts says, "Prove me wrong that Judge Rodney Page is legislating from the bench"

Today a comment was left on one of my earlier posts titled, Why is Doug Butts auditing Judge Rodney S. Page by someone claiming to be a judge who used the tag, "keeping it real." Although I have already addressed Judge Real on that thread I have decided that it is time for another post. I want to thank my neighbor Rob for allowing me the use of his blog to have a voice and to say, "Prove me wrong that Judge Rodney Page is legislating from the bench!"



Here's my post.


I have yet to have anyone prove Judge Rodney Page had the authority to change the statues listed below. Here's how he ruled on cases between 1995-2006 based on my audit.

78-45-7.15(3,6) - 356 times ruled at 50/50 *Correctly
78-45-7.15(3) - 4 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.15(6) - 10 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.16(1) - 3 times ruled at 1/3, 2/3
78-45-7.15(3) - 28 times ruled at 100%

Current law:

U.C.A. 78-45-7.15 Medical expenses,

(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(6) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and co-payments, incurred for the dependent children.

U.C.A. 78-45-7.16. Child care expenses – Expenses not incurred.

(1) The child support order shall require that each parent share equally the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the parents.

Statute history:

Notice in 1990 the statute used to say “ratio to be determined by the appropriate court” ask yourself why would the legislature go through all the trouble to change the statute to say “shall require each parent to share equally” if the court had discretion to change it anyway? Results show in fact the court does not have discretion as some would have us believe.

1990 78-45-7.15

(1) Only the costs of health and dental insurance premiums for children are included in the base combined child support obligation table

(2) (b) both parents to share [equally] all other reasonable and necessary uninsured medical and dental expenses in a ratio to be determined by the appropriate court or administrative agency.

1994 78-45-7.15


(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(5) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and copayments, incurred for the dependent children and actually paid by the parents.

1995 78-45-7.15

(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by a parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

(5) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and copayments, incurred for the dependent children [and actually paid by the parents.]

As of today statute wording has not changed

What has the appellate court stated on these statues?

Notice the yellow areas with the last case giving the court discretion only because the word “may” was used. They didn’t site any other statute but the exact wording of the give statute. Hence using the word ‘shall’ does not give the court discretion and using the word ‘may’ does.

Reddish v. Russell, 2005 Case No. 20040027-CA

[29] *fn2 Reddish additionally asserts Russell should have to pay all of the uncovered medical expenses of the child, but fails to reconcile the request with Utah Code section 78-45-7.15(6), requiring the parents to share this expense equally. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-45-7.15(6) (2002). Reddish also requested attorney fees, but because she is not the prevailing party, she is not entitled to them.

Wardle v. Bowen, 2005 Case No. 20031004-CA

[23] Father also argues that the trial court abused its discretion by requiring him to pay for half of Child's daycare expenses. We disagree. Pursuant to section 78-45-7.16(1) of the Support Act, 'each parent [shall] share equally the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the parents.' Utah Code Ann. § 78-45-7.16(1) (2002). The trial court found that the prekindergarten daycare costs at the Challenger School were fair and reasonable, Father presented no evidence that the fees were unreasonable, and Mother 'has not requested reimbursement from [Father] for any costs of private schooling for times when [Child] could have been in public school.' We affirm because Father has failed to challenge any of these findings and, while the cost of Child's daycare may have increased, this does not relieve Father of his statutory responsibility to share these costs equally. See id.

Larsen v. Larsen, 2003 Case No. 20010879-CA

[18] Husband argues that because Wife did not provide him with verification of the expenses, pursuant to subsection 7, the trial court abused its discretion when it awarded Wife the expenses. This court reviews questions regarding child support under an abuse of discretion standard. See Jensen v. Bowcut, 892 P.2d 1053, 1055 (Utah Ct. App. 1995) ('A trial court's decision regarding child support will not be disturbed absent 'manifest injustice or inequity that indicates a clear abuse of . . . discretion.'' (alteration in original) (citation omitted)). By using the term 'may,' subsection 8 of the statute gives the trial court discretion to grant or deny credit to a parent who incurred medical expenses based on that parent's compliance with subsection 7. Further, Wife submitted, and served on Husband, a verification of costs. Although the verification of costs was not submitted within the statutory time period, we determine that the trial court in this case did not abuse its discretion and therefore uphold the trial court's order regarding medical and dental expenses.

Other interesting statistics on Judge Rodney Pages method of rulings.

Notice how much more money Judge Page adds onto the three areas of child support, alimony, and attorney's fees when he did have discretion compared to how much he allocated for medical costs when he didn't have discretion. The table below shows that Judge Page allocated higher costs when he didn’t follow the law as compared to those instances where he did follow the law.

The challenge stands to anyone who can prove that Judge Rodney Page doesn’t have to split the medical costs equally as defined by the above statutes.

To all those who have given us overwhelming response with our audit….. Thanks!

Miscellaneous notes:

I have received questions asking if this the only problem I have with Judge Page. My answer is absolutely not. Maybe in some future posts I will give more details, but my main objective is to try to help others who are dealing with similar situations and to protect them from the brutality of judges like Judge Page. Let me leave you with one of the main reasons as to why I am doing this.

My research shows that a majority of of Utah judges will allow both parties in a divorce share photos and/or make copies of their children from photo albums and scrap books, but in my divorce this was not the case.

When I pleaded with Judge Rodney Page to allow me the opportunity to have copies of my children photos and scrap books his brutally refused. Talk about demoralizing someone who loves his children and yet I have videos of Judge Page saying yes to other fathers.

If Judge Rodney Page had a grudge or wanted to punish me he sure did a good job, but it's my promise that I will do all I can to stop Judge Page from doing the same to others. Judge Page should simply follow the law, and if there is no law, let all fathers who love their children have pictures of them while they were growing up.

Part II: Why is Doug Butts auditing Judge Rodney S. Page?

By Doug Butts

My name is Doug Butts and for the last year I have been spending my free time compiling an audit on Second District Court Judge Rodney S. Page. One might ask why anyone would take on such a project, and I will answer that question in a future post, but for now I would like you to know that this audit, when finished, will contain almost a thousand pages of evidence that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Judge Rodney S. Page legislates from the bench.

The evidence and examples compiled in my audit were taken from approximately 3500 domestic cases involving children between the years 1995 and 2006. From those cases 366 were ruled on by Judge Rodney Page. Of those 366 cases Judge Page correctly applied the statutes in question 315 times. In the other 51 cases Judge Page ignored the statues on the books. One might argue that a judge can rule anyway they see fit, but the law is very clear that judges are governed by statute to apply the law, or be held accountable. Statute 78-8-103 1( c ), and Canon 3b(2) reads as follows:

78-8-103 1( c ) Willful and persistent failure to perform judicial duties.

Canon 3b(2) A judges shall apply the law and maintain professional competence. A judge shall not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.

The following statutes have been on the books since 1995 and yet twelve years later Judge Page is still changing them at will, without any accountability.

78-45-7.15(3) The order shall require each parent to share equally the out-of-pocket costs of the premium actually paid by the parent for the children’s portion of insurance.

78-45-7.15(6) The order shall require each parent to share equally all reasonable and necessary uninsured medical expenses, including deductibles and co-payments, incurred for the dependent children.

78-45-7.16(1) The child support order shall require that each parent share equally the reasonable work-related child care expenses of the parents.

These are the statutes on the books and unless Judge Page doesn’t know how to add the law says, "equal", which does not mean one party pays one-third of the cost while the other pays two-thirds, or even 100% of the cost. Isn’t it clear that the two parties involved are legally bound to share the cost equally which means a 50/50 split? I think it‘s pretty clear, that is unless you don’t know how to add.

Let’s say I told you that the judge who was going to make a ruling on your case only applied the law correctly 98% of the time, or even 95% of the time on statutes that are very clear. Would you have confidence in that Judge? What if I told you that you had a ten percent chance that your judge would not apply the law correctly possibly resulting in a appeal that could cost you anywhere from ten to forty thousand unnecessary dollars, or more, depending on your personal situation? Would you want to take that chance? In my audit I discovered that Judge Page rules correctly about 86% of the time.

Is this a red flag? You bet it is.

Here is another interesting fact that I discovered during my audit. From 1995 to 2006 my search of appellate court cases in the Second District showed that Judge Page had almost twice as many cases as his colleagues in the same time period. In addition, those results showed men almost always had to pay all, or a higher percentage of the attorneys fees as compared to those cases where Judge Page applied the statutes correctly.

Like most branches of government our court systems are paid for by our tax dollars. We have a state auditor, and county auditors, so why is it that we don’t have a judicial auditor? Why is it that every other form of government is subject to an audit and accountability, but not our judicial branch? It’s true that we can vote a judge out, but that rarely happens except in extreme cases, and that quite frankly doesn't help insure justice. I believe that most judges are honest people, but I also believe that a lack of accountability is why Judge Rodney Page only gets it right 86% of the time, and that’s just on the few statutes I covered in my audit. Since we seem to hold judges to a higher standard shouldn’t we expect them to follow the law and not legislate from the bench?

If this audit does anything I hope it helps others to not have to go through the additional loss of time, money, and emotional stress caused by an unnecessary appeal. It seems that my only course of action is to attempt to have Judge Page removed from the bench, but if judges were audited, and held accountable, people would have a greater confidence in government as a whole, and I wouldn't have to go to such extreme measures to make sure that Judge Rodney S. Page, or any other judge doesn't harm your family due to a lack of accountability.