Case Name: Rudy JONES, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1982-12-15
Citations: 423 So. 2d 520
Docket Number: No. 81-1448
Parties: Rudy JONES, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: ORFINGER, C.J., and DAUKSCH, FRANK D. UPCHURCH, Jr., and SHARP, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 423
Pages: 520–524

Head Matter:
Rudy JONES, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 81-1448.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Dec. 15, 1982.
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Cynthia Karl-Stamm, Asst. Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Sean Daly, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
ON EN BANC RECONSIDERATION OF MOTION TO DISMISS
COBB, Judge.
The State of Florida moved to dismiss the instant appeal on the ground that the appellant's notice of appeal stated it was:
. to review the Order, Judgment or Decree of the Circuit Court of Orange County, Florida, bearing the date of the 17th day of September, 1981, and rendered on the 17th day of September, 1981. The nature of the order appealed from is the Order of denial on motion to suppress .
The appellant, Rudy Jones, had been charged with carrying a concealed weapon; his motion to suppress the revolver as evidence was denied by an order dated September 17, 1981. Thereafter, he pled nolo contendere to the charge, stating that he was:
. specifically preserving his right to appeal the motion to suppress which was denied . at an earlier date after a hearing on the matter.
The trial court rendered its order withholding adjudication of guilt and placing the defendant on probation on December 17, 1981. The state argued that the appeal should be dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction because under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(b)(1), the denial of a motion to suppress is not an appealable order. As contended by the state, the appeal should have been from the court's order granting probation.
The appellant, on the other hand, while acknowledging that technically he should have appealed the final order, argued Rule 9.040(d), which provides:
At any time in the interest of justice, the court may permit any part of the proceeding to be amended so that it may be disposed of on the merits. In the absence of amendment, the court may disregard any procedural error or defect that does not adversely affect the substantial rights of the parties.
The appellant pointed out that the appeal was timely, and also relied upon the case of Simpson v. State, 418 So.2d 984 (Fla.1982), wherein the Florida Supreme Court urged that the courts of this state "should seek to avoid, not foster a hypertechnical application of the law." This court denied the motion to dismiss without prejudice. Now, pursuant to a unanimous vote of the assigned panel acting on its own motion, we reconsider this issue en banc in order to eliminate any lack of uniformity in prior orders or decisions of this court concerning the issue of defective notices of appeal.
The basic rules to be considered in respect to the question of whether or not to dismiss a defective appeal, whether such consideration is prompted by motion of the adverse party or is made sua sponte, have been delineated by decisions of the Florida Supreme Court. The purpose of the notice of appeal is to disclose to an adverse party that an appeal from an appealable order, judgment or decree of the trial court is intended. Milar Galleries, Inc. v. Miller, 349 So.2d 170 (Fla.1977). The test for determining the sufficiency of a notice of appeal is whether it gives the adverse party and the appellate court sufficient information to identify with a reasonable degree of certainty the order or judgment intended to be appealed. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Holt, 80 So.2d 354 (Fla.1955). The party seeking dismissal must allege and show some prejudice or inconvenience caused by the deficiency in the notice. Brown v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., 267 So.2d 78 (Fla.1972).
Basically, we are in agreement with the observation in the majority opinion in the recent case of Puga v. Suave Shoe Corp., 417 So.2d 678 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982):
. [I]n accordance with the welcome policy that appellate, like other judicial proceedings, should be determined on their merits, instead of upon irrelevant technicalities, our supreme court has determined — by both its decisions and its enactment of the governing rules of appellate procedure — that non-jurisdictional and non-prejudicial defects in the notice or other steps in the appellate process are not grounds for dismissal.
Puga, 417 So.2d at 679. We also concur with the Puga opinion's approval of the commentary on Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.110(d), to the effect that "the Advisory Committee intended that defects in the notice would not be jurisdictional or grounds for disposition unless the complaining party was substantially prejudiced."
Nevertheless, we cannot agree with the sweeping dicta in the Puga majority opinion which would amend or abrogate Rules 9.110(d) and 9.900(a), as pointed out by the concurring opinion of Chief Judge Hubbart in that case. The Puga case dealt with post-judgment orders denying a motion for new trial and a renewed motion for directed verdict. As pointed out therein, the preferred course is to treat such technical errors as harmless where the appellee has not been prejudiced by the error, and to consider the appeal as if it were from the underlying judgment. See State ex rel. Poe v. Allen, 196 So.2d 745 (Fla.1967). As pointed out by Judge Hubbart's concurrence in Puga, it is "well-established Florida law that a notice of appeal, together with the supporting record, must reveal an intent to appeal from a particular appeala-ble trial court order — as opposed to a generalized intent to appeal something upon the filing of a notice of appeal and the payment of a filing fee." See also Milar Galleries, Inc.; Robbins v. Cipes, 181 So.2d 521 (Fla.1966).
We believe that the same principles and the same reasoning that apply to notices of appeal erroneously designating a non-appealable post-judgment order rather than the underlying judgment should apply equally to pre-judgment orders where there is no prejudice to the appellee, and the notice, coupled with the supporting record, reveal the intent of a noticing party to appeal from an appealable order or judgment. In the instant case it is clear that the appellant seeks review of the final judgment resulting from his nolo conten- dere plea while reserving for appellate review the legal issues raised by the denial of his previous motion to suppress. No prejudice has been shown or claimed by the state.
In response to the dissent's ad hominem indictment of this majority view on grounds of "intellectual integrity," we merely observe that judicial integrity requires recognition of the doctrine of stare decisis (i.e., the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court are binding on this court) and Rule 9.040(d), which was promulgated by the Supreme Court. Moreover, it is intellectually inescapable that all parties to the instant appeal understood that the defendant's plea, which terminated the proceedings below, was intended to facilitate an appellate determination on the merits of the issues raised by the trial court's denial of the suppression motion. Disagreement with Judge Cowart does not reflect, ipso facto, a lack of integrity.
At this time we expressly do not consider the difficult related problem presented by a purported appeal from a non-judicial act, and do not reaffirm or recede from that line of cases represented by our recent decision in McAllister v. State, 418 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982). We also note, of course, that the principles discussed in this opinion do not relate to purported appeals wherein the notice of appeal is untimely.
Accordingly, upon en banc reconsideration of the state's motion to dismiss, the same is
DENIED.
ORFINGER, C.J., and DAUKSCH, FRANK D. UPCHURCH, Jr., and SHARP, JJ., concur.
COWART, J., dissents with opinion.