Title: Harris v. City of Topeka
Citation: 180 Kan. 758, 308 P.2d 88
Docket Number: 40,384
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: March 9, 1957

180 Kan. 758 (1957)
308 P.2d 88
JAMES E. HARRIS, Appellant,
v.
CITY OF TOPEKA, KANSAS, Appellee.
No. 40,384

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed March 9, 1957.
Sam A. Crow, of Topeka, argued the cause, and Jacob A. Dickinson, David Prager, and William W. Dimmitt, Jr., all of Topeka, were with him on the briefs for the appellant.
*759 James H. Hope, of Topeka, argued the cause, and Frederic J. Carman and Malcolm G. Copeland, both of Topeka, were with him on the briefs for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
PARKER, C.J.:
This is an action in which plaintiff seeks to recover overtime for services and labor alleged to have been performed for the City of Topeka. In the court below defendant filed a motion to make the petition more definite and certain in two particulars and to strike certain allegations of the same pleading. When this motion was sustained in its entirety plaintiff, ignoring rulings on other portions of such motion, gave notice that he was appealing from the order sustaining the motion to strike and now seeks review of that particular ruling as a final order.
At the outset, it may be stated, our first question is to determine jurisdiction, i.e., whether the appeal is from an appealable order, and that in determining it we are limited to the record presented, notwithstanding the parties discuss other matters touching the merits of the cause in their briefs and on oral arguments.
All that we have before us on the point now under consideration is to be found in the petition, the motion and the journal entry of judgment.
Omitting formal averments, allegations respecting the status of the parties and the prayer, the petition reads:
"III.
"IV.
"V.
The motion directed against the petition reads:
"MOTION
The trial court's ruling with respect to the motion just quoted is best reflected in the journal entry which, after recitals respecting the date of the hearing, appearances for the parties and arguments by counsel, reads as follows:
Having set forth the entire record it becomes apparent that all three grounds of the motion are directed at paragraph V of the petition and that each such ground was sustained as requested with permission to file an amended petition within fifteen days. Under such circumstances, particularly in view of the fact that under the ruling on the first ground of the motion plaintiff was required to specifically set out the days on which the alleged overtime was earned and in what amount and that the rulings on all three grounds of the motion were made with leave to amend within the period of time heretofore mentioned, we are constrained to hold that the *761 ruling striking the involved portions of paragraph V from the petition was not a final order, within the meaning of that term as defined in G.S. 1949, 60-3303, but on the contrary falls squarely within the established rule of this jurisdiction that rulings on motions to strike and make definite and certain rest in the sound discretion of the trial court and are not appealable unless they affect a substantial right and in effect determine the action. See Barnhouse v. Rowe, 178 Kan. 248, 284 P.2d 618; Vogt v. Drillers Gas Co., 178 Kan. 146, 283 P.2d 442; Meek v. Ames, 175 Kan. 564, 266 P.2d 270, and other decisions cited at page 567 of the opinion. For numerous other cases of like import see Hatcher's Kansas Digest [Rev. Ed.], Appeal &amp; Error, § 20; West's Kansas Digest, Appeal &amp; Error, §§ 78[3], 93. Indeed, to hold otherwise would require us to speculate as to what the trial court meant by holding that the third ground of the motion should be sustained on the basis therein specified and of a certainty would not warrant us in assuming, that in making that ruling while at the same time granting the plaintiff permission to make paragraph V of the petition more definite and certain by amendment in the same particulars, it intended that its order striking such allegations should have the force and effect of determining the action.
Based on what has been heretofore stated we hold that the record discloses no appealable order, hence questions raised in the briefs and on oral arguments cannot be determined and the appeal should be dismissed.
It is so ordered.