Banks will ask top Utah court to block expansion.

The Utah Bankers Association resumed its legal fight to rein in the expansion of some state-chartered credit unions after taking early losses in court.

On May 6 the trade group filed notice with the Utah Supreme Court that it would appeal a lower court decision upholding the right of credit unions to serve more than one county.

The notice names 18 credit unions as defendants. All of them have customer bases of more than one county.

The appeal also names a credit union shared branching network and the state commissioner of financial institutions, G. Edward Leary, as defendants.

Suit Was Filed Last Fall

Credit unions have been allowed to expand into more than one county for 10 years. The trade group charged such growth was illegal when it sued in the fall of 1993.

On March 17, 1994, Judge Murphy of the 3d Judicial District Court of Salt Lake County dismissed the lawsuit. He said the bankers' main complaint appeared to be credit unions' tax-exempt status, which was outside a court's jurisdiction.

He also said the association did not prove banks were harmed by credit union expansion.

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