Case Title: Rossi v. Rossi

Citation: 319 Ark. 373, 892 S.W.2d 246

Docket Number: 

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1995-02-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
892 S.W.2d 246 (1995) 319 Ark. 373 Robert Leo ROSSI, Appellant, v. Ethel Moore ROSSI, Appellee. No. 94-703. Supreme Court of Arkansas. February 6, 1995. Robert J. Brown, Little Rock, for appellant. William H. Trice III, Little Rock, for appellee. DUDLEY, Justice. The final order was entered in this divorce case on December 27, 1993. A notice of appeal was not filed with the clerk of the court that entered the judgment within thirty days. On April 8, 1994, more than ninety days after the entry of the final order, appellant filed a motion entitled "Rule 60 Motion to Correct Misprision by the Clerk." In the motion, appellant admitted that he had not timely filed the notice with the chancery clerk, but asserted that his courier erroneously delivered the notice of appeal to the circuit clerk's office on January 21, 1994. He asked the chancellor to enter a nunc pro tunc order providing that the notice was filed in the chancery court clerk's office on January 21, 1994. After hearing evidence the chancellor denied the motion. Appellant first appeals from the chancellor's ruling on his motion under Rule 60 of the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure and second, upon condition that we reverse the ruling on the motion, attempts to appeal from the decree of divorce. We affirm the ruling on the Rule 60 motion and do not reach appellant's arguments on the merits of his attempted appeal. Rule 3(b) of the Arkansas Rules of Appellate Procedure provides that "[a]n appeal shall be taken by filing a notice of appeal with the clerk of the court which entered the judgment, decree, or order from which the appeal is taken." Rule 4(a) provides that the notice of appeal "shall be filed within thirty (30) days from the entry of the judgment, decree or order appealed from," with exceptions not applicable to this case. Appellant argues that he substantially complied with Rules 3 and 4. Substantial compliance is not sufficient. The failure to file a timely notice of appeal deprives the appellate court of jurisdiction. Reynolds v. Spotts, 286 Ark. 335, 692 S.W.2d 748 (1985). While it is true that some irregularities in the form of a timely notice of appeal do not deprive the *247 appellate court of jurisdiction, the failure to give the notice in a timely manner is fatal to an appeal. Henderson Methodist Church v. Sewer Improvement Dist. No. 142, 294 Ark. 188, 741 S.W.2d 272 (1987). Here, the courier was an agent or employee of the attorney, and it was his fault that the notice of appeal was not timely filed with the clerk of the court that entered the judgment. Appellant asks us to make an exception in this case because, he contends, a clerical error by the circuit clerk was the reason for his failure to timely give the notice of appeal to the chancery clerk, and, since it was the circuit clerk's error, the chancellor erred in refusing to order that a notice of appeal be entered nunc pro tunc. The request for an exception in this case is without merit. The error was not merely an error by the circuit clerk. It was an error by the attorney. Nunc pro tunc orders are not to correct errors by an attorney. It is the duty of the attorney, not of the clerk, to perfect an appeal. Edwards v. City of Conway, 300 Ark. 135, 777 S.W.2d 583 (1989). If we were to overrule the holding of Edwards, we would lessen the finality of judgments and bring about additional difficulties because one could not look at the record and determine whether a judgment was final. Equally important, appellant asks us to hold that the chancellor erred in refusing to issue a nunc pro tunc order stating that the notice of appeal was timely filed in chancery court. Our standard of review in such cases is well settled. Mitchell v. The Federal Land Bank, 206 Ark. 253, 260, 174 S.W.2d 671, 675-76 (1943). The chancellor did not abuse her discretion in refusing to grant the nunc pro tunc order. A trial court is permitted to enter an order nunc pro tunc when the record is being made to reflect that which occurred but was not recorded due to a misprision of the clerk, but a court may not change the record to do that which should have been done but was not. Canal Ins. Co. v. Arney, 258 Ark. 893, 530 S.W.2d 178 (1975). Here, appellant did not file a notice of appeal with the chancery court clerk within the time allowed, and the chancellor so found. The chancellor even went so far as to state that if appellant had given the court reporter a copy of the notice of appeal within the thirty-day period she might be able to afford relief, but appellant had not timely given the court reporter a copy of the notice of appeal. Under these facts, the chancellor ruled that she could not change the record to do that which should have been done but, in truth, was not done. The chancellor did not abuse her discretion in the ruling. To hold otherwise would require a holding that the chancellor abused her considerable discretion because she did not change the record to reflect something was done when, in truth, it was not done. Affirmed. HOLT, C.J., and BROWN, J., dissent. ROAF, J., not participating. BROWN, Justice, dissenting. The majority has decided that Robert Rossi's notice of appeal was untimely filed. The majority concludes that although the notice was filed within thirty days of the decree in the correct county, it was filed in the circuit clerk's office and never received in the chancery clerk's office within the required time period. Because this obvious inadvertence could have been corrected had standard courthouse procedures been followed, I *248 would deem the notice timely filed. To do otherwise is to penalize a party, even when clerical error is partially the reason for the defect. At the hearing on this matter, Susan Inmon, then supervisor of the Civil-Criminal Department of the Pulaski County Circuit Clerk's Office testified: This case is sufficiently analogous to the circumstances of Linder v. Howard, 296 Ark. 414, 757 S.W.2d 549 (1988) for that case to be precedent. In Linder, the plaintiff filed her complaint arising out of a car accident in the chancery clerk's office one day before the statute of limitations was to run. After the limitations period ran, the mistake was caught, and the transfer to the circuit clerk's office was made. The defendant moved for summary judgment on the limitations issue, and the circuit court granted the motion. We reversed on appeal on the basis that Ark. Code Ann. § 16-57-104(a) (1987) contemplates a transfer to the proper docket when erroneous filings are made. Hence, the statute of limitations was tolled by the inadvertent commencement of the action in chancery court. In the case before us, Rule 60(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure reads: It was clearly a mistake for the courier service to file the notice of appeal with the *249 circuit clerk. But it was also a clerical mistake to log the notice of the appeal in that court. It was further a clerical mistake to "X" out the file mark and void the filing without notifying appellant's counsel. It was, finally, a mistake for courthouse procedures not to have been followed to rectify the mistake. The notice should immediately have been transferred to chancery court in accordance with the established practice testified to by Ms. Inmon. Rather than that occurring, somehow the "X'ed out" version of the notice of appeal appeared on the court reporter's desk after the 30-day period had run. Other jurisdictions have avoided the harshness of the result reached in this case. See, e.g., Alfonso v. Dept. of Environmental Regulation, 616 So. 2d 44 (Fla.1993); People v. Greathouse, 742 P.2d 334 (Colo.1987). In Alfonso, the Florida Supreme Court retreated from prior caselaw and held that a notice of appeal filed in the court of appeals rather than the trial court, though the wrong court, appropriately invoked appellate jurisdiction. The Supreme Court directed that the notice of appeal be transferred to the correct clerk with the date of filing being the date the document was filed in the wrong court. Appellate courts have not dismissed appeals even when the notice of appeal was mistakenly filed in the wrong county (Sinicropi v. Town of Indian Lake, 148 A.D.2d 799, 538 N.Y.S.2d 380 (1989)), or when the court clerk erroneously filed and docketed a notice of appeal filed in the wrong division of that court (In re Estate of Tague, 33 Ohio App.3d 142, 514 N.E.2d 910 (1986)) or, again, when the notice was filed in the appellate court rather than the trial court (Resolution Trust Corp. v. Foust, 177 Ariz. 507, 869 P.2d 183 (Ariz.App. Div. 1 1993)). This is not a case, however, where the party filed a notice of appeal in the appellate court rather than the trial court. It is a case where the party correctly filed in the trial court, but in the wrong trial court, and courthouse procedures were not followed to remedy the mistake. The case is most analogous to the facts of In re Estate of Tague, supra, where the appellate court looked to clerical error to reach the correct result. The majority avoids the fairness issue that permeates this case when it hinges its decision on the movant's mention of nunc pro tunc relief in his motion. Neither party argues that issue on appeal. And what the movant clearly requested from the court was that the notice of appeal be placed of record in the chancery case and considered as timely filed. The chancery court considered the motion in that vein and made no mention of a nunc pro tunc problem in its order. Rather, the court's decision was premised on the appellant's failure to comply substantially with the Appellate Rules and because of insufficient proof. The court stated: In this matter, it is all too clear that a clerical misprision occurred. Because of the uncontroverted facts, the decision in this case turns on the question of whether a blind adherence to Ark.R.App.P. 3(b) is appropriate under these facts. I do not believe that it is. We should treat the error in this case, which was the shared responsibility of several parties, for what it wasan inadvertence, a misprision, a technical defectand reach the merits of this appeal. I respectfully dissent. HOLT, C.J., joins.