Case Title: TIM MERCHANT, DICK BLUST, JR. and STEPHEN EARL BARNESKI V. DAVID GRAY, individually and in his official capacity as SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF; THE SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE and THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING

Citation: 

Docket Number: S-07-0060

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2007-12-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
TIM MERCHANT, DICK BLUST, JR. and STEPHEN EARL BARNESKI V. DAVID GRAY, individually and in his official capacity as SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF; THE SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE and THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING2007 WY 208Case Number: S-07-0060Decided: 12/28/2007NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third.  Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so that correction may be made before final publication in the permanent volume.
OCTOBER 
TERM, A.D. 2007

 
 
TIM 
MERCHANT, DICK BLUST, JR. and STEPHEN EARL BARNESKI,

 
 
Appellants

(Plaintiffs),

 
 
v.

 
 
DAVID GRAY, 
individually and in his official capacity as SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF; THE 
SWEETWATER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE and THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF 
SWEETWATER COUNTY, WYOMING,

 
 
Appellees

(Defendants).

 
 
Appeal 
from the DistrictCourtofSweetwaterCounty

The 
Honorable Dennis L. Sanderson, Judge

 
 
Representing 
Appellants:

Mary Elizabeth Galvan, 
Mary Elizabeth Galvan, PC, Laramie, Wyoming; V. Anthony Vehar, Vehar Law Office, 
P.C., Evanston, Wyoming.  Argument 
by Ms. Galvan.

 
 
Representing 
Appellees:

Patrick J. Crank, 
Attorney General; John William Renneisen, Deputy Attorney General; Theodore 
Rafael Racines, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Richard Rideout, Law Offices 
of Richard Rideout, P.C., Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Argument by Mr. Racines and Mr. 
Rideout.

 
 
Before VOIGT, C.J., 
and GOLDEN, HILL, KITE, and BURKE, JJ.

 
 
BURKE, 
Justice.

 
 

[¶1]           
In this employment law 
dispute, Appellants Tim Merchant, Dick Blust, Jr., and Stephen Earl Barneski 
appeal the summary judgment issued against them and in favor of Sweetwater 
County Sheriff David Gray.  We are 
unable to consider this case on its merits, however, because the Appellants did 
not file a timely notice of appeal.  
Accordingly, this Court lacks jurisdiction, and we must dismiss this 
appeal.

 
 
ISSUE

 
 

[¶2]           
The single dispositive 
issue is one first raised by the Sheriff:  
whether this Court lacks jurisdiction because Appellants' notice of 
appeal was not timely filed.

 
 
FACTS

 
 

[¶3]           
Because the background 
facts are not pertinent to this decision, we narrow our focus to the following 
three events:

 
 

·             
On December 18, 2006, 
the district court entered its "Order Granting Defendants' Motions for Summary 
Judgment and Denying Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary 
Judgment."

 
 

·             
On February 1, 2007, 
the district court entered an "Order of Dismissal with Prejudice and Entry of 
Judgment."

 
 

·             
On February 20, 2007, 
the Appellants filed their Notice of Appeal.

 
 
Appellants filed their 
notice of appeal more than thirty days after the summary judgment order was 
entered.  If that summary judgment 
order was an appealable order, then the Appellants' notice of appeal was not 
timely.  If the order of dismissal 
was the appealable order, then the Appellants' notice of appeal was 
timely.

 
 

DISCUSSION

  

[¶4]           
W.R.A.P. 2.01(a) 
provides that "[a]n appeal from a trial court to an appellate court shall be 
taken by filing the notice of appeal with the clerk of the trial court within 30 
days from entry of the appealable order."  
W.R.A.P. 1.03 states that "timely filing of a notice of appeal . . . is 
jurisdictional," and it has long been established that this Court lacks 
jurisdiction over, and must dismiss, an untimely appeal.  See, e.g., MJH v. AV, 2006 WY 89, ¶ 9, 138 P.3d 683, 685 (Wyo. 2006).  W.R.A.P. 
1.05(a) defines an appealable order to include "[a]n order affecting a 
substantial right in an action, when such order, in effect, determines the 
action and prevents a judgment."

 
 

[¶5]           
It is well-established 
that the denial of a motion for summary judgment is not an appealable 
order.  Schmid v. 
Schmid, 
2007 WY 148, ¶ 26, 166 P.3d 1285, 1292 (Wyo. 2007); St. Paul Fire and Marine Ins. Co. v. Albany 
County Sch. Dist. No. 1, 763 P.2d 1255, 1257 (Wyo. 1988).  The 
general reasoning is that, when a motion for summary judgment is denied, the 
parties proceed to trial, and the judgment reached after trial becomes the 
appealable order.  See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. 
Shrader, 882 P.2d 813, 820 (Wyo. 1994).  However, 

 
 
when 
the district court grants one party's motion for a summary judgment and denies 
the opposing party's motion for a summary judgment and the district court's 
decision completely resolves the case, both the grant and the denial of the 
motions for a summary judgment are subject to appeal.

 
 

Lieberman 
v. Wyoming.com LLC, 
11 P.3d 353, 356 (Wyo. 2000); LVW v. 
J, 965 P.2d 1158, 1161-62 (Wyo. 1998).  In this case, the district court both 
granted the Sheriff's motion for summary judgment, and denied the Appellants' 
motion for partial summary judgment.  
If that order completely resolved the case (or, using the language of 
W.R.A.P. 1.05(a), if it "determines the action"), then it was an appealable 
order.

 
 

[¶6]           
We gleaned the record 
for any issue left unresolved by the district court's summary judgment 
order.  We found none.  Significantly, the Appellants identified 
none.  The first paragraph of the 
district court's order recited that "Defendants' motions for summary judgment on 
all Plaintiffs' claims are 
granted."  (Emphasis added.)  The Appellants' complaint set forth four 
separate causes of action, and the district court's order explicitly addressed 
and rejected each one in turn.  The 
order concluded by granting final judgment:  "IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants' 
Motions for Summary Judgment are GRANTED.  
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary 
Judgment is denied."  This ruling 
left nothing for future consideration, and determined the action.  It was, therefore, an appealable 
order.

 
 

[¶7]           
After granting summary 
judgment, the district court took the additional step of entering an order 
dismissing the case.  The record 
does not explain why the district court entered this superfluous order, and we 
are unwilling to hazard a guess.  
Our conclusion is that the second order was unnecessary and unauthorized, 
and therefore a nullity.  Harding v. Glatter, 2002 WY 124, 
¶ 8, 53 P.3d 538, 540 (Wyo. 2002).  
As a nullity, it could not extend the time or toll the deadline for the 
Appellants to file their notice of appeal.

 
 

[¶8]           
It does appear that 
the district court, sua sponte, 
requested the Sheriff's counsel to prepare the order of dismissal.1  Under a principle sometimes called 
equitable tolling, some courts have held that untimely filings may be excused in 
circumstances where a party has been prejudiced by reasonable reliance on an 
erroneous action taken by the trial court.  
Wyoming 
jurisprudence has soundly rejected this approach.  In Miller v. Murdock, 788 P.2d 614 (Wyo. 
1990), Mr. Miller delayed the filing of his notice of appeal in reliance on the 
trial court's order extending a deadline for filing a motion for new trial.  However, W.R.C.P. 6(b)(2) prohibited the 
extension of a deadline for seeking a new trial.  Because the trial court lacked authority 
to extend the deadline, its "attempted extension was a nullity," and 
Mr. Miller's notice of appeal was therefore untimely.  Id., 788 P.2d  at 
616.  We rejected Mr. Miller's 
assertion that he had justifiably "relied on the district court's mistaken 
extension of time."  Id.

We recognize that in 
federal courts a "unique circumstances" doctrine may operate to permit an appeal 
where it appears that a party was prejudiced by its reasonable reliance on a 
district court's mistaken extension of the filing deadline for a new trial 
motion.  Despite our acknowledgement 
that federal court treatment of parallel federal rules is highly persuasive, we 
decline to extend the "unique circumstances" doctrine to Wyoming cases.  

Id. (internal citation 
omitted).  On that basis, we held 
that Mr. Miller could not properly claim justifiable reliance on the trial 
court's mistake:

It is difficult to 
understand how a party may reasonably rely on a court's error in applying rules 
counsel is charged with knowing.  If 
counsel is aware of the error reliance cannot be reasonable; on the other hand, 
ignorance of the rules is neither reasonable nor excusable. . . . 4A C. Wright 
& A. Miller, Federal Practice and 
Procedure § 1165 at 479-80 (1987).

Id., 
n.2.

[¶9]           
Moreover, the federal 
"unique circumstances" doctrine is less forgiving than the Miller opinion might suggest.  It has been applied, for example, where 
a court gives explicit and wrong instructions to a pro se defendant, Spottsville v. Terry, 476 F.3d 1241 
(11th Cir. 2007), or where the State's conduct actually prevents the petitioner 
from timely filing.  Knight v. Schofield, 292 F.3d 709, 712 
(11th Cir. 2002).  But recently, the 
United States Supreme Court denied equitable tolling where the petitioner moved 
for a 14-day extension of the deadline for filing an appeal, the court 
inexplicably gave him a 17-day extension in violation of the rules of appellate 
procedure and the applicable statute, and the petitioner filed his notice of 
appeal on the seventeenth day.  The 
petitioner's notice of appeal, though filed in reliance on the district court's 
order, was still deemed untimely.  
Bowles v. Russell, 551 
U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 2360, 168 L. Ed. 2d 96 (2007). 

[¶10]       
For these reasons, we 
conclude that the district court's summary judgment order was an appealable 
order; that the district court's second order, dismissing the action, was a 
nullity; that the Appellants' notice of appeal was therefore untimely; and that 
the Appellants may not invoke any equitable tolling or unique circumstances to 
excuse the late filing.  We lack 
jurisdiction, and hereby dismiss this appeal. 

 
 
FOOTNOTES

 
 

1The 
district court's letter request was attached as an appendix to the Sheriff's 
brief, but that does not make the letter part of the record for our review.  However, because the district court's 
action raises important questions, for purposes of discussion we accept the 
Sheriff's assertion that the district court requested the order of 
dismissal.