Title: Browne v. State Farm Inc.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 312, 2022
State: Delaware
Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court
Date: October 4, 2022

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
CECIL BROWNE, 
 
Plaintiff Below, 
Appellant, 
 
v. 
 
STATE FARM INC., KATIE 
HELMBERGER, COLLEEN 
HIGGINS, JOHN A. WILLIAMS, 
AND BARBARA WILLIAMS, 
 
Defendants Below, 
Appellees. 
§ 
§  No. 312, 2022 
§ 
§ 
§  Court Below–Superior Court 
§  of the State of Delaware 
§   
§   
§  C.A. No. N20C-10-269 
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
 
 
Submitted: September 29, 2022 
Decided: 
October 4, 2022 
 
Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA and VAUGHN, Justices. 
 
 
ORDER 
 
After consideration of the notice to show cause and the appellant’s response, 
it appears to the Court that: 
(1) 
On August 30, 2022, the Court received the plaintiff-below/appellant’s 
notice of appeal from a Superior Court commissioner’s order summarily granting 
defendant-below Colleen Higgins’s motion to dismiss with prejudice.  The Senior 
Court Clerk issued a notice to the appellant to show cause why this appeal should 
not be dismissed for the Court’s lack of jurisdiction to consider an appeal taken 
directly from a Superior Court commissioner’s order. 
 
 
2 
 
(2) 
The appellant has responded to the notice to show cause and argues that 
the Superior Court commissioner erroneously granted Higgins’s motion to dismiss.  
The appellant does not, however, address the Court’s lack of jurisdiction to hear the 
appeal.  It is well-settled that this Court is without jurisdiction to hear an appeal taken 
directly from any order issued by a master or commissioner of a trial court1 and that 
the right to review of a Superior Court commissioner’s order is to a judge of the 
Superior Court.2  Accordingly, this appeal must be dismissed.   
(3) 
Although this Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this appeal, it does not 
appear that the order was submitted to a Superior Court judge for review as required 
in case-dispositive matters by Superior Court Civil Rule 132(a)(4).3  Accordingly, 
the appellant should be given the opportunity to file written objections to the 
commissioner’s order. 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED, under Supreme Court Rule 29(b), 
that the appeal is DISMISSED.   
BY THE COURT: 
 
 
/s/ Karen L. Valihura 
Justice 
 
1 See Johnson v. State, 884 A.2d 475, 478-79 (Del. 2005). 
2 See Del. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 132(a)(4). 
3 Id. (granting commissioners the “power to conduct case-dispositive hearings … and to submit to 
a judge of [the Superior] Court proposed findings of fact and recommendations for the disposition, 
by a judge, of any such case-dispositive matter”).