The Utah Supreme Court agreed today to hear a petition for emergency relief brought by members of a polygamous sect after a lower court judge ordered documents sealed in a property trust dispute and refused to hear sect members' objections to the sale of trust assets.

The order, signed by Justice Ronald E. Nehring, sets a deadline of Jan. 4 at 5 p.m. for responses to the petition filed by attorneys for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The order also extends the trust's right to repurchase heifers sold from the Harker Farm in Beryl, part of the United Effort Plan Trust, until a ruling is made on the petition. That sale was to be final on Dec. 31.

In a petition filed Monday, the sect asked for a stay of all proceedings and orders in the trust case and requested a schedule be set to hear claims that members' religious rights have been violated in the court-sanctioned reformation and management of the trust.

The trust, set up in 1942, holds virtually all property in Hildale, Utah; Colorado City, Ariz.; and Bountiful, British Columbia. Third District Judge Denise Lindberg has directed the case since 2005, when the trust was taken away from sect control amid allegations of mismanagement.

Orders that the sect wants stayed include rulings that authorized the sale of Berry Knoll Farm in Colorado City, Ariz.; sealed filings related to the trust's future; and barred sect members from joining the trust case.

The petition, filed by Stephen C. Clark, also asked that the option to repurchase the "irreplaceable" dairy cows, be extended indefinitely. Fiduciary Bruce R. Wisan, who manages the trust, sold the heifers earlier this year.

Without a stay, the sect risks "immediate irreparable harm by the loss of unique trust property" designed to meet beneficiaries' needs, the petition states. The reformed trust and its secular management also make it impossible for FLDS members to exercise a central tenet of their religion: organizing their lives in a communal "Holy United Order."

The sect filed a similar petition in October but says emergency action was needed now because of recent directives that "escalate [the court's] arbitrary and capricious abuse of discretion."

That included an order entered by Lindberg on Dec. 24 that sealed filings related to the trust's future, which was made with no notice, hearing or findings and deprives the sect and public from knowing what is happening in the case, the petition says.