Emergency Reporting Abuse Amendments

Tougher rules for emergency call abuse

Beginning May 6, 2026, Utah expands emergency reporting abuse offenses and strengthens penalties. Knowingly reporting a nonexistent emergency to fire, police, or medical responders is generally a class B misdemeanor. False reports of serious injury or death threats at a specific location are second-degree felonies, including knowingly helping another person report them. Reports involving a weapon of mass destruction also carry a second-degree felony penalty. Repeat false reports, or helping someone make false reports, about sex-designated changing-room violations are class B misdemeanors. Calling 911 without an actual or perceived emergency, crime, or public-safety threat is also generally a class B misdemeanor after a warning. The caller must know or reasonably should know there is no such threat. A dispatcher, officer, or prosecutor must previously have warned against reporting that circumstance or a substantially similar one. This rule applies only when the call does not already qualify as a false emergency or threat report. For false emergency reports and warned-against 911 calls, a third or later conviction or adjudication raises the penalty to a class A misdemeanor. Prior false emergency reports, false threat reports, and warned-against calls count toward that threshold. Reckless conduct causing a response or delaying another response also raises the penalty: serious bodily injury or at least $5,000 in losses brings a class A misdemeanor; death brings a third-degree felony. The weapon-of-mass-destruction penalty remains an exception. Courts must order at least four days in jail or 40 hours of community service, plus repayment of responders’ expenses and losses. Courts must explain any repayment reduction on the record. Emergency-related prohibitions on party lines and public pay phones carry a class C misdemeanor; courts may also order repayment.