$52.2 Million Wrongful Death Verdict for the Family of Slain Polygamist Leader Rulon Allred
A federal jury in Utah awarded $52.2 million to the survivors of Rulon Allred, believed at the time to be the largest wrongful death verdict in state history, against the woman who confessed in print to killing him 15 years earlier.
What happened
On May 10, 1977, Rulon Allred, a 71-year-old physician and leader of a polygamist religious community, was shot and killed at his medical office in Murray, Utah. Rena Chynoweth was tried criminally and acquitted in 1979 after lying under oath. For more than a decade, the case appeared closed.
Then in 1990, Chynoweth published a memoir called "Blood Covenant" in which she admitted to shooting Allred. The confession gave his family a factual foundation for a civil wrongful death lawsuit that had previously been impossible to pursue. Allred was survived by seven wives and 48 children, and 28 family members joined as plaintiffs.
Attorney Jim McConkie of what is now Parker and McConkie filed suit and pressed a threshold legal fight before a single witness testified: whether the two-year Utah wrongful death statute of limitations had long expired. U.S. District Judge Aldon J. Anderson ruled in the family's favor in January 1992, finding that Chynoweth's perjury and 13-year concealment of her role had tolled the limitations period until the memoir's publication. That ruling cleared the way for trial on damages.
With liability settled by Chynoweth's own written admission, the trial focused on the scope of harm. The jury returned a verdict of $52,125,000 on February 12, 1992, composed of $50 million in punitive damages, $75,000 in compensatory damages per child, and $200,000 for pain and suffering. Deseret News reported it was believed to be the largest wrongful death award in Utah history at the time.
Chynoweth appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the judgment 2-1 in April 1993. The majority affirmed both Judge Anderson's tolling analysis and the size of the award. Chief Judge Monroe McKay dissented, arguing that Chynoweth's 1978 arrest should have put the family on notice earlier. McConkie told the Deseret News after the appellate ruling: "We think it's wonderful that the court upheld Judge Anderson's decision."
Collection was always the practical constraint. Chynoweth's memoir had earned under $4,000, and McConkie acknowledged at the time that the family would likely recover only a fraction of the award, with any future media proceeds directed toward them. The judgment stood nonetheless at $52,125,000.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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Related wrongful death verdicts
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