Parr Brown Gee & Loveless, A Professional Corporation

President: Stephen M. Sargent

Number of partners: 58

Number of other lawyers: 19

Firm Overview: 

Parr Brown Gee & Loveless, one of Utah’s largest commercial law firms, provides comprehensive legal services to a diverse group of corporate and individual clients.

Main Areas of Practice:  

-Corporate/Securities

-Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestitures

-Real Estate Development & Finance

-Construction

-Commercial Litigation

-Employment

-Environmental & Natural Resources

-Media & First Amendment

-Tax

Mergers & Acquisitions/Corporate & Securities:  

■Represented SkyWest Airlines, Inc. (and parent SkyWest, Inc.) in connection with various financing facilities from the Treasury Dept. of the United States, under CARES Act provisions. These amounts include secured loans availability, unsecured loans, and payroll support payment (PSP) grant amounts, as allocated among the largest U.S. airline carriers by the Treasury Dept., and included issuances to Treasury of warrants to purchase SkyWest, Inc. securities. Excess of $1B. Seth King, Dale Hansen, Spencer Romney

■Acted as Utah counsel for a private lender. In such capacity, we reviewed and revised certain loan documents to ensure that the lender could enforce the various agreements and collateral documents under Utah law. We also provided local law advice, and specific comments to help the lender obtain a first priority security interest in each of the three collateral properties, $8.75M, James Ahlstrom, Braden Johnson

Litigation: 

■Successfully defended a City against claims that the ordinance unlawfully restricted protected panhandling speech, obtaining summary judgment in the district court dismissing the case. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal and denied rehearing en banc, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari after requiring a petition response. The case is significant as one of a handful of similar constitutional challenges currently progressing through courts of appeals around the country, and was the Tenth Circuit’s first opinion on the issue. David Reymann

■Lead counsel representing a developer in the completion of land use entitlements and the issuance of $67.5 million in assessment bonds for Mayflower Mountain Resort. Estimated project value at build out is in excess of $1 Billion. Roger Henriksen, Robert McConnell, Matt Jensen, Nick Jones

Intellectual Property (Disputes): 

■ Successfully defended Bold Films LP, Bold Films Productions, LLC, Open Road Films, LLC, NBCUniversal Media, LLC, and Universal Studios Home Entertainment LLC in copyright suit. The matter involved the Oscar-nominated film Nightcrawler, which was produced and distributed by the defendants. The plaintiff claimed the film infringed his film called Falling and sought over $60 million in damages. Parr Brown successfully got the case dismissed with prejudice on summary judgment, which was affirmed by the Tenth Circuit. The case is one of the only copyright cases in Utah to involve two films. $60M Jeff Hunt, David Reymann, Cheylynn Hayman, Jeremy Brodis, Stephen Mouritsen

■Obtained dismissal with prejudice of $65M pharmaceutical trade secret litigation brought against University client. Robert S. Clark, Jeremy Brodis. 

■Represented Growgenix Solutions and Nu Skin in action regarding patent inventorship and trade secrets. Companion case in Utah State Court involves partnership and Utah trade secret claims, this case involves a Nu Skin entity accused of intellectual property infringement as well as high-dollar value partnership and contract breaches. Damages in case are alleged to be in excess of $50M. Jeff Hunt, Austin Riter, Michael Lehr

■Represented ProLung accused by a regulator of making untrue technological claims regarding its diagnostic devices. Parr Brown represented ProLung in front of the regulator, and successfully obtained favorable rulings on summary judgment. $10M+, Robert Clark, Stephen Mouritsen

■Represented Bioscience Advisors in challenging changes to SEC rules that prevent public access to key information regarding technology licensing. Last year, Parr Brown filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court. This year, we’re challenging SEC rules; this work is done not only on behalf of a key consultancy in the biopharmaceutical industry, but also indirectly on behalf of the many biopharma company customers of BioSci. Robert Clark, Jonathan Collier

■Successfully defended and defeated motion to transfer to Defendant’s preferred jurisdiction for an ongoing large value three-patent dispute in District of Utah. Jonathan Hafen

■Trial victory in opposition proceeding at Trademark Trial & Appeal Board. The at-issue mark is a key brand name for a large and successful fitness company. Brand value in the $tens or hundreds of millions, Gregory Hess

■Obtained a favorable resolution of patent inventorship and trade secret dispute involving a biologic therapy. Persuasively presented the client’s legal positions on patent inventorship and trade secret misappropriation. Matter is confidential. Biologic therapy involved in dispute has annual sales of $1 Billion. Robert Clark, Jeremy Brodis

■Successfully defended multiple aggressive filings of regulator complaints on client and retained advertising campaigns and labelling, while responding to and managing regulator inquiries. Proceeding taken through resolution with no material harm done to client’s business. Matter is confidential. Stephen Mouritsen

■Successfully handled all IP matters for a PE-backed company valued in the several hundreds of millions of dollars. Work includes: IP advice; active enforcement of trademarks around country, false advertising investigations; domain name spoofing enforcement, and antitrust advice. Matters are confidential. Gregory Hess

Environmental & Natural Resources: 

■Environmental, water right, and mineral right due diligence and counsel regarding a series of large (5,500+ acres) commercial real estate transactions involving former mining site in Summit and Wasatch Counties, Utah (near Park City, Utah), along with counsel regarding development and utility planning and approval for the first new full-service ski resort in the United States since 1980. $2B, Roger Henriksen, Steven Christiansen, Matt Jensen

■Environmental due diligence and counsel regarding large (187-acre) commercial real estate transaction involving former Superfund site being redeveloped to allow mixed use development. This opens the door for significant planned projects far in excess of the purchase price. Steven Christiansen, Lamont Richardson, Erin St. John

■Deal counsel for Emgold in Earn-in with Option to Joint Venture Agreement with Rio Tinto subsidiary for the New York Canyon Property in Nevada, which hosts a copper oxide skarn and copper-molybdenum-gold-silver sulfide porphyry, $22M, Matthew Jensen

■Environmental, water right, and mineral right due diligence and counsel, as well as assistance with development and utility planning and approval, for an 8,800-acre real estate development project in Heber City, Utah. Lamont Richardson, Kass Wallin

■Mineral title analysis and title curative work for 80-megawatt solar generation project in Carbon County, Utah. $100M, Lamont Richardson, Matt Jensen, Kass Wallin

■Provide environmental (NEPA), water, and litigation legal services on an approximately 140-mile pipeline project to bring about 86,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Powell near Page, Arizona to St. George, Utah. $1.5M, Jonathan Hafen, David Reymann, Erin St. John, Kass Wallin, Steven Christiansen, Matt Jensen

■Assisting with expansion of land portfolio through additional mineral leases and mining claims. Negotiating and drafting option to joint venture agreement with Rio Tinto subsidiary to infuse additional capital into the exploration project. Assisting with option to joint venture with Tamra Mining Company. $30M, Matt Jensen

■US counsel in the pending sale of a gold mining company in Humboldt County, Nevada for total consideration of approximately $85M. Dan Jensen

■Negotiate and secure agreement to acquire gold property in Nevada comprising 4,300 acres of patented and unpatented mining claims from fourth largest gold producer in the world. Provide strategic advice regarding Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) issues. Kass Wallin, Steve Christiansen, Dane Johansen

■Prepared various mining property title opinions for properties throughout Nevada. Assisted in preparing Canadian National Instrument 43-101 technical reports for several properties. Designed and completed critical title curative measures for fully-permitted US gold property. Prepared and closed various property acquisition, sale and joint development agreements. Provided strategic claimstaking advice. Provided US tax and corporate advice in connection with various transactions. Dan Jensen, Matt Jensen, Kass Wallin, Ken Tillou, Chase Manderino

Entertainment, Arts, & Sports Law: 

■Representation of principal cast and location in television production deal for the History Channel’s hit show “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” $Multi-Million, Michael Anderson, Victoria Luman

■Represented artist in negotiations culminating in recording agreement with Capitol Records. $10M+, Michael Anderson, Spencer Romney, Victoria Luman

■Represented producers in negotiations culminating in production agreement with Capitol Records. $1M+, Michael Anderson, Spencer Romney, Victoria Luman