An antitrust case against Summit County and a special water service district, Mountain Regional Water, will go to trial after a decision Friday by the Utah Supreme Court.

The 5-0 decision reverses a district court ruling that said Summit County and Mountain Regional Water were exempt from the antitrust suit because Summit County is a municipality. Utah code exempts "municipalities" from antitrust rules.

The Supreme Court ruled that the district court's interpretation of the word "municipality" was overbroad and did not apply in the case, according to the ruling. The case originally was filed in 2001 by Summit Water Distribution Co., which competes against Mountain Regional Water to provide culinary water services in the Snyderville Basin.

Summit Water alleged in the case that Mountain Regional Water "conspired, agreed, and combined to unlawfully tie the sale" of water to building permits and planning approvals, according to the Supreme Court ruling.

Robert Campbell, attorney for Summit Water, said the decision was "historic."

"It is a forceful reaffirmation by Utah's highest court of their commitment to strong enforcement of the state's antitrust laws," he said Friday, "and that neither a county or its commissioners or its contractors are immune from antitrust liability when they conspire as they have done here to eliminate competition in a competitive water market and attempt to install their own company as a monopoly."

Summit County commissioners said in a statement that they were disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling. The commissioners act as the governing body of Mountain Regional Water.

"It is a disappointing decision because Summit Water and Mountain Regional Water had been working together and had just cooperatively settled a prior lawsuit and had committed to work together providing water from the spring creek source," said Bob Richer, Summit County Commission chairman. "This decision will simply take them back to court in adversarial roles, which benefits no one."

Richer said he is confident the county and Mountain Regional Water are not guilty of anti-competitive activity and the courts will rule in their favor.

Dave Thomas, chief civil deputy in the Summit County Attorney's Office, said, "We'll just head back to court, pick up where we left off and continue through the judicial process."

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