Title: Coutts v. Crider

State: kansas

Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court

Document:

219 Kan. 692 (1976)
549 P.2d 1019
W.H. COUTTS, JR., Appellant,
v.
VERNA DARLENE CRIDER, a/k/a MRS. GEORGE B. CRIDER, a/k/a VERNA DARLENE MERRYMAN, a/k/a VERNA DARLENE HAYWOOD, a/k/a VERNA DARLENE SCIMECA, Appellee.
No. 47,970

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 8, 1976.
Morgan Metcalf, of Coutts, Coutts & Metcalf, of El Dorado, argued the cause and was on the brief for the appellant.
Allyn M. McGinnis, of McGinnis & McGinnis, of El Dorado, argued the cause and was on the brief for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
MILLER, J.:
This is an appeal by W.H. Coutts, Jr., an attorney and a member of the Bar of this court, from an order of the trial court sustaining a motion to dismiss for want of prosecution. The sole issue is whether the court abused its discretion by sustaining the motion.
The facts are not in dispute. Plaintiff is an attorney in the general practice of law at El Dorado, Kansas. Defendant was his client. Plaintiff performed various legal services for her. He was not paid. He commenced this action by filing a petition in the District Court of Butler County on November 1, 1967. Her answer was timely filed by her attorney, L.J. Bond, on November 20, 1967. The amount sought was $1,251.73. The answer admitted an obligation of $300. Interrogatories were served by both parties, and answers were filed December 5, 1967 and March 7, 1968.
*693 Nothing appears of record in the case from March, 1968 until a motion to dismiss for want of prosecution was filed by Allyn M. McGinnis as attorney for defendant on July 12, 1974. Plaintiff filed a notice of readiness for trial on July 30, 1974.
The defendant's motion to dismiss came on for hearing before the court on July 17, 1974. During the discussion between court and counsel, plaintiff stated that he declined to press the case for trial out of sentiment for the defendant. The court stated that the matter should have been disposed of long ago, but that it desired to hear evidence as to whether or not the defendant would be prejudiced because of the age of the case.
The matter came on for trial November 22, 1974. Plaintiff presented evidence on his petition but presented no evidence as to the reason for delay. Defendant called plaintiff as her witness, and he testified that the only discussions he had relating to settlement were with Mr. Crider and Mrs. Copeland. Mr. Crider, a former husband of defendant, came to plaintiff and attempted to settle the matter before suit was filed, and plaintiff is sure that he returned after suit was filed and stated that "... they were going to raise the money and settle this ..." Mrs. Copeland, a sister of defendant, called plaintiff twice in 1973. Plaintiff recalls telling her that he couldn't talk to her since defendant was represented by counsel. Plaintiff filed a notice of lis pendens in Scott County in 1967 in order to protect himself. Mr. Coutts stated that he wasn't delaying for any reason except he thought the matter would be settled. Out of respect for the defendant he had no desire to push the case. He never talked to the defendant or to her counsel *694 with reference to settlement. Mrs. Copeland testified as to her two futile attempts to secure a settlement figure from plaintiff in 1973. She understood that plaintiff "would look it up and get back to me on the phone. He would call me and let me know what he could do" but no settlement figure was forthcoming. Mrs. Copeland testified that defendant was in relatively good health until 1972 or 1973, when she was in the hospital.
The trial court took the matter under advisement, and on January 17, 1975, wrote counsel as follows:
..............
Following the overruling of his motion for a new trial, plaintiff perfected this appeal.
Plaintiff contends that the trial court committed reversible error and abused its discretion in sustaining defendant's motion to dismiss and in overruling his motion for new trial for the following reasons: (1) that the defendant caused delay in the prosecution by engaging in negotiation and attempts at settlement; (2) that the court caused delay in prosecution in failing to list this action on regular docket calls because of a clerical error and in failing to notify the plaintiff that the case should be tried by a certain date or be dismissed; (3) that the court, having heard the substantive issues involved in the appeal, should have ruled on the merits rather than on the motion; (4) that the defendant presented no defense to the plaintiff's claim; (5) that the defendant presented no evidence that the delay in any way prejudiced her; (6) that the defendant acquiesced in the delay; (7) that the defendant's answer admitted that she owed plaintiff a portion of the prayer; and (8) that the plaintiff's case was proved by substantial competent evidence, which was unrefuted.
K.S.A. 1975 Supp. 60-241 (b) provides that:
Cases decided by this court prior to the enactment of the above statute hold that the power of the courts to dismiss a case for failure to prosecute with diligence is inherent and exists without specific statutory authority. Reddington v. Rank, 176 Kan. 484, 271 P.2d 807; Carter v. State Department of Social Welfare, 186 Kan. 187, 348 P.2d 609. The current approach was set forth in the recent case of Frost v. Hardin, 218 Kan. 260, 543 P.2d 941, where we said:
Taking the plaintiff's arguments in the order presented, he first alleges responsibility on the part of the defendant for part of the delay in that defendant allegedly engaged in negotiation and attempts to settle the suit. It has been stated that:
The record indicates only that the defendant's sister, Ruth Copeland, telephoned plaintiff twice in 1973, five to six years after the action was filed and between six months to a year before the motion was filed, to ask the plaintiff if he would be willing to take less than the amount sued for. Mrs. Copeland stated that the plaintiff said that he would "see what I can do." When he did not further communicate with her, Mrs. Copeland called him two months later at which time he allegedly said "he was sorry he hadn't had time to go into it, but he would get to it and would call back." He never did. In fact, on cross-examination, plaintiff, in discussing these "negotiation efforts and settlement attempts" stated that "I dismissed it largely from my mind.... I dismissed it from my mind by reason of the fact they had counsel of record." He had no discussions with defendant or her counsel regarding settlement.
Plaintiff made no attempt at settlement at all and the efforts of Mr. Crider and Mrs. Copeland long before the motion to dismiss was filed represent the only negotiation efforts by anyone on the defendant's side. It can hardly be said on the basis of this record that the delay here was caused by "arrangements between the parties looking to a settlement." If it can be said that these meager communications in any way amount to attempts at settlement they were certainly abandoned long before the motion to dismiss for want of prosecution was filed. As 27 C.J.S. Dismissal & Nonsuit § 65 (3) c, p. 444, states:
Mrs. Copeland's two telephone calls cannot be said to amount to mutual bona fide efforts to compromise. Nor does the inaction of the plaintiff evidence a reasonable belief, induced by the nature of the negotiations, that a trial could be avoided, so that it could be said that the ruling of the court in dismissing the action was an abuse of discretion.
Next the plaintiff argues that the defendant caused and acquiesced in the delay in bringing the case to trial in that she was ill.
While defendant's illness was apparently quite serious, the record indicates that the defendant did not become ill until sometime in 1972, approximately four to five years after this action was filed. No evidence appears as to how the plaintiff was handicapped in preparing or presenting his case by such illness. The only discovery attempted was completed in 1968. The record does not support this contention.
Plaintiff's next specification of error is that because of the inadvertent filing of a journal entry from another case in this case file, plaintiff was never notified by the court that the case had to be tried by a certain date or it would be dismissed.
Plaintiff, however, insists that the facts of this case require application of the law set forth in Reddington v. Rank, supra. That case involved an appeal to the district court from a Wichita city court judgment denying plaintiff recovery for damages allegedly received in an automobile accident. Plaintiff filed its appeal on October 10, 1949. On November 5, 1949 defendants moved to reform the pleadings and to strike certain paragraphs of the bill of particulars, which motion was granted on May 28, 1951. On July 17, 1951, plaintiff filed a new bill of particulars in conformity with the court's order and requested that defendants file an answer. They did not do so. On October 7, 1953, the district court, on its own motion and without explanation, dismissed the action. On October 20, 1953, the court overruled plaintiff's motion to reinstate. Plaintiff insisted that the action could not have been dismissed on any of the statutory grounds of G.S. 1949, 60-3105, predecessor statute to K.S.A. 1975 Supp. 60-241.
Plaintiff here attempts to make the cases analogous and quotes from Reddington, wherein this court stated:
The situation in Reddington is readily distinguishable from the instant case. In the first place no statutory provision allowed the court to dismiss an action except for failure of the plaintiff to appear for trial, for want of necessary parties, for want of prosecution on application of some of the defendants, or for disobedience by the plaintiff of a court order. G.S. 1949, 60-3105. None of those circumstances were present in Reddington. Our current statute, K.S.A. 1975 Supp. 60-241 (b), permits dismissal by the court on motion of the defendant for failure of the plaintiff to prosecute, and that is what took place here. In addition, while Reddington was four years old when dismissed, there had been action taken as recently as two years earlier at which time the plaintiff had asked the defendant to reply to his bill of particulars. In the intervening two years before dismissal the defendant had not responded. Reddington was dismissed on the court's own motion, without notice, at a time when the defendant was two years in arrears in filing a reply. Here the plaintiff filed his petition, the defendant answered, and the plaintiff took no affirmative action to prosecute for almost seven years. As Reddington also pointed out:
No abuse of discretion has been shown by the action of the trial court here. The Reddington case should be limited to its particular facts.
Next plaintiff contends that the court erred in dismissing the cause for want of prosecution after hearing all of the evidence on the merits. When a court has pending before it a motion by the defendant to dismiss the action, the fact that it receives evidence that goes to the merits of the plaintiff's cause of action does not *699 prohibit the court from ruling favorably upon the motion to dismiss. The trial court here forewarned plaintiff that he would hear all evidence and then rule first on the motion to dismiss. The plaintiff's complaint in this regard is without merit.
Likewise the fact that the defendant failed to present a defense to plaintiff's claim is not material to the matter of dismissal now before us. The motion to dismiss was granted. That disposed of the action; the merits were not determined and are not here in issue.
Plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in dismissing the cause in that defendant's answer admits that she owes a portion of the amount claimed by the plaintiff. That admission stood for over six years, during which time plaintiff filed no motion for partial summary judgment and took no steps toward trial. As the defendant points out, however, this matter was not raised when the motion to dismiss was argued nor was it raised in the motion for new trial. It is not properly before this court.
Finally, plaintiff complains that the defendant presented no evidence that the delay caused her harm or prejudice. But the plaintiff makes no showing that actual prejudice must be demonstrated before dismissal is proper. Though the trial court, in its initial hearing on the motion, made comments that tend to support plaintiff's present position, we note that K.S.A. 1975 Supp. 60-241 (b) makes no reference to a requirement that the defendant demonstrate actual prejudice from the delay in prosecution before defendant's motion to dismiss will be granted. Defendant, while not citing any cases from this jurisdiction on point, does point to a Nevada case, Northern Ill. Corp. v. Miller, 78 Nev. 213, 370 P.2d 955, wherein the court noted:
In summary, we note that:
*700 We conclude that the trial court did not err in sustaining defendant's motion, and in dismissing this action after a delay of over six years. We agree with the statement of the trial court that the primary responsibility for the prosecution of a case lies ultimately upon the plaintiff. Here plaintiff failed to discharge that responsibility and established no well founded reason for not doing so.
The judgment is affirmed.
FATZER, C.J., not participating.