On March 15, 2019, Governor Gordon signed into law an act of the 2019 Wyoming legislature creating a Chancery Court, whose purpose is to provide a forum for the streamlined resolution of commercial, business, and trust cases. The act establishes a court with jurisdiction to decide actions seeking declaratory or injunctive relief and actions seeking money recovery over $50,000 that arise from claims including breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, derivative actions, the Uniform Commercial Code, and the Uniform Trust Code.
Stuart Day, a partner at WPDN, was appointed to the Wyoming Supreme Court Committee to design and implement the new Chancery Court. As one of only four Wyoming lawyers that was selected by the Wyoming Supreme Court to participate in this new committee, Mr. Day hopes to help build a long-lasting, sustainable court system that is devoted to business and trust law.
“It’s an attempt to give people with those kinds of cases a quicker venue to try and resolve their disputes, as compared to including them with civil, criminal, divorce, family protection, and so on,” Mr. Day remarked. “So, Wyoming state legislature decided that it would be a pro-business and pro-development move to create this court.”
Mr. Day himself is primarily in charge of developing a physical location for the court, in order for it to truly act autonomously from other courts. Additionally, as part of the committee, he will work to define and describe all of the rules and regulations necessary for a court to act within the legal rights of the justice system.
“We have committee meetings where we discuss potential reviews and rules that will govern the court and we rewrite that [to make it applicable to the Chancery Court]. So basically, we’re starting from the beginning to create a new kind of court in Wyoming.”
In addition to his duties with the Chancery Court, Stuart is a shareholder in the firm and has been involved in a broad spectrum of civil litigation, including personal injury defense and commercial litigation. He focuses on litigation involving electrical utilities contact and service interruption claims, defense of hospitality, retail and premises liability actions and construction cases in federal and all state courts in Wyoming. He also represents commercial and contract disputes, as well as land planning litigation.
He was also recently appointed to serve another term for USLaw and the Lawyers of Distinction organization.
When asked how Mr. Day balances his work-life, home-life and volunteer opportunities, he answered very simply:
“You just make the time to fit it all in,” he said. “I think that’s part of the profession. I think we’re obligated to use what we’ve been given in order to help our fellow citizens.”