SALT LAKE CITY — As attorney Jim McConkie recalls, it was not your typical negotiation.
McConkie represented the parents of slain University of Utah student-athlete Lauren McCluskey in their claims against the campus and the state. McConkie and his co-counsel were trying to negotiate a settlement.
“It was a two-pronged effort,” McConkie told FOX 13 in a recent interview. “Keeping the Legislature informed, and settling the case as we normally would with opposing counsel.”
Statutes say the Legislature has to approve any settlement of more than $2 million in claims against the state. That could impact any negotiations with the family of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His widow, Erika Kirk, has filed a notice of claim – often a step toward a lawsuit – against Utah Valley University and the state alleging security failures allowed his assassination last year at UVU.
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With a Republican supermajority in both chambers of the Utah Legislature, any deal could be considered by politicians sympathetic to Charlie Kirk’s politics.
“When you have to have a settlement approved by a political body,” McConkie said, “it introduces politics.”
Utah Speaker of the House Mike Schultz and Senate President Stuart Adams, through spokespeople, declined interview requests, but issued a joint statement.
“We respect Erika Kirk’s right to pursue the judicial process,” the statement said. “Our sympathies remain with the Kirk family and all impacted by this tragedy.”
Billy Hesterman, president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, said he is not concerned, “but want to make sure that we keep an eye on it.”
Hesterman said he wants to make sure any settlement is fair for all sides, including taxpayers. A settlement wouldn’t have to be limited to cash paid to the Kirks.
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“If there's going be a grant set up to establish,” Hesterman said, “free speech dialogue events so that both sides can come together and discuss issues for years to come in the state, I think that'd be entirely appropriate.
“If we do want to look at statues and memorials, I would hope that's something that's done on a private-sector level.”
Neither UVU nor the state have publicly answered the notice of claim. Utah doesn’t have to settle. The state could do what happens in lots of claims against it: argue its side in court.
But Republican legislators could be in trouble either way, says Weber State University political science professor Leah Murray.
“If they go against paying the civil claim,” Murray said, “then they are open to conservatives saying they don't care about Charlie Kirk and the Kirk movement.
“If they say, ‘We should pay the claim,’ then they are open to criticisms that they are using taxpayer money to pay off a major civil claim.”
McCluskey had complained to police about a man she dated. He later shot and killed her on the University of Utah campus in 2018. The Legislature in 2021 approved a $13.5 million settlement with the McCluskey family.
McConkie says the Kirk case is different.
“The state, in my judgment,” McConkie said, “probably has a stronger defense than they had when it was a student who lived on campus, paid money to go there, as was the case in in McCluskey.”