Title: West v. Ind. Ins. Co.
Citation: 247 N.E.2d 90, 253 Ind. 1
Docket Number: 469S90
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: April 30, 1969

253 Ind. 1 (1969)
247 N.E.2d 90
WEST ET UX.
v.
INDIANA INSURANCE CO.
No. 469S90, 20785.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed April 30, 1969.
*2 Walter Nowicki, Edward J. Raskosky, George Kohl, Paul K. Gaines, all of Hammond, for appellants.
Dale E. Custer, Stults, Custer &amp; Kuzman, of Gary, for appellee.
HUNTER, J.
Appellants initiated this action to recover damages for the alleged breach of a contract of insurance. The Newton Circuit Court entered summary judgment in favor of the appellee insurer. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court without a discussion of the merits, holding that the appellants had failed to supply a sufficient recital of the record in their brief, as required by Supreme Court Rule 2-17. West v. Indiana Insurance Company (1968), 143 Ind. App. 298, 240 N.E.2d 86. The appellants petitioned the Appellate Court for a rehearing and for leave to amend their brief to conform to requirements of Rule 2-17, as interpreted by that court. Both of these petitions were denied. This court, by a three-to-two majority, denied the appellants' petition to transfer, and they have now petitioned this court for a rehearing on this ruling. This petition raises two questions which must be decided by this court:
Supreme Court Rule 2-22 governs applications for rehearings:
We see nothing in this rule to prevent this court from entertaining a petition for rehearing on a denial of transfer. The object of allowing a losing party the opportunity to file a petition for rehearing is to permit him to point out mistakes of law or fact which said party contends were made by the court in arriving at its decision. Stillabower v. Lizart (1959), 130 Ind. App. 65, 161 N.E.2d 195. A rehearing is a procedure by which a court can recognize and correct errors in its original ruling. There is no less likelihood that the Supreme Court will commit an error in denying a petition to transfer than there is when it grants such a petition. Furthermore, this court has often recognized a petition for rehearing filed by the respondent after a petition to transfer has been granted. It does not seem to be an equitable procedure to deny the petitioner this same procedure when we deny the petition to transfer. Finally, although this court has apparently never granted a petition for rehearing on a denial of a petition to transfer, it has considered these petitions on their merits and has published written opinions indicating such a consideration. Biel v. Kirsh (1959), 240 Ind. 69, 72, 161 N.E.2d 617. Baker v. Mason (1968), 253 Ind. 348, 242 N.E.2d 513. There is no reason why this court can not grant a rehearing on the denial of a petition to transfer, *4 and we should do so when made aware of an error in our original ruling.
We now turn to the merits of this petition. In 1940, when Supreme Court Rule 2-17 was first adopted, the brief filed by an appellant was required to contain "[A] concise statement of so much of the record as fully presents every error and exception relied on, referring to the pages and lines of the transcript." This portion of Rule 2-17 was extensively amended, effective February 1, 1967, and now reads as follows:
All of the briefs in the case at bar were filed after the effective date of this amended rule.
There has been no decision by this court interpreting this language, but two propositions may fairly be drawn from a literal interpretation of the new rule.
In the case at bar, the summary statement of the record in the appellee's brief reads as follows:
The appellee, in his brief, has found it necessary to mention only one document in addition to those set forth in appellants' *6 brief. His main criticism of the appellants' brief is that it is argumentative, not that it is incomplete.[*] Thus, unless the appellants have failed to make a good faith attempt to set forth that portion of the record which they believe to be pertinent to the issues involved, their summary statement of the record "shall be taken to be accurate and sufficient for a full understanding of the questions presented...."
We now turn to this portion of the appellants' brief to determine whether a good faith effort has been made to comply with Rule 2-17.
Thus, the only entries in the entire transcript which directly relate to the issues on appeal and which were not at least identified and summarized in the appropriate section of the appellants' brief were the "Appellee's Reply to Appellants' Reply to the Motion for Summary Judgment" and two affidavits filed by the appellee in support of its motion for summary judgment. It is significant that neither of these affidavits were filed with appellee's original motion and that neither of them were mentioned by either party on appeal.
The Appellate Court gave a summary of all the items in the transcript which might have been considered relevant by the trial court in ruling on the motion for summary judgment:
Of the more than thirty different pleadings, motions, exhibits, and affidavits which might have been considered relevant *11 by the trial court, the appellants identified and summarized all but three of them in their summary statement of the record. The appellee only adds one of these three items to the summary in his own brief.
In view of the foregoing, it cannot be said that the appellants failed to comply with Rule 2-17. They set forth that portion of the record that they believed pertinent, and, in so doing, apparently satisfied their adversary with their thoroughness except for the one additional pleading: a reply to a reply to a motion.
In its judgment, the trial court stated that it could find "no Indiana decision directly in point on the issues presented" in the motion for summary judgment. In other words, the issues presented involve questions of law on which there is apparently no prior Indiana authority. As the Appellate Court observed in its opinion, "... both parties exhaustively and ably treat the issue presented by the merits of this cause...." Since the questions are ones of first impression and have been adequately argued by both parties, the decision should be based on the merits and not on a procedural technicality.
In Motorists Mutual Insurance Company v. Johnson (1964), 245 Ind. 315, 198 N.E.2d 606, this court was faced with a similar situation. The Appellate Court had dismissed an appeal because the appellant, in his brief, had failed to set out an insurance contract in its entirety. The Supreme Court reversed this decision and remanded the cause to the Appellate Court for a decision on the merits. The court reasoned:
It should be remembered that this decision was made prior to the 1967 amendment of Rule 2-17 which still further simplified the procedure and relaxed the formalities required in an appellate brief.
In the case at bar, the Appellate Court dismissed the appeal using the following language to support their decision:
If the "sufficent record," referred to above, means that "all the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, and exhibits" which the Appellate Court deems relevant must be "set forth in their entirety" in the appellant's brief, we must disagree. In the case at bar, this would have required the duplication of over 120 pages of transcript. If the "sufficient record" referred to by the Appellate Court means that an appellant must at least identify and summarize all the record which he believes to be pertinent, then we assert that this is what the appellants have done in the instant case.
Following this court's decision in Motorists Mutual v. Johnson, we remand this cause to the Appellate Court for further proceedings and a decision on the merits.
*13 Rehearing granted.
Cause remanded to Appellate Court.
Arterburn and Jackson, JJ., concur.
Givan, J., dissents with opinion in which DeBruler, C.J., concurs.
GIVAN, J.
I dissent from the majority opinion for the following reasons: I have carefully examined the appellants' brief which was filed in the Appellate Court and have studied Judge Faulconer's opinion.
Upon examining the brief, I fail to find any mention of or even a summary of one of the two affidavits filed by the appellee in support of its motion for summary judgment. I find no mention of or any summary of the content of four exhibits which were filed with appellee's motion for summary judgment.
I do not find any mention of or any summary of the content of two additional affidavits filed by the appellee after the appellant had filed his reply to the motion for summary judgment.
I, therefore, agree with the opinion written by Judge Faulconer. I do not see how the Appellate Court or this Court could pass upon the Trial Court's decision on the motion on summary judgment without having examined the foregoing items which are totally absent in appellants' brief.
I would, therefore, deny transfer.
DeBruler, C.J., concurs in dissent.
NOTE.  Reported in 247 N.E.2d 90.
[*]  It is interesting to note that the appellees did file a motion to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that the transcript, and not the appellants' brief, was incomplete. The Appellate Court properly permitted the appellants to use a writ of certiorari to complete the transcript and denied the appellee's motion to dismiss the appeal. Apparently, omitting part of the record from the transcript was regarded as a more harmless and amendable error than omitting part of the record from the brief.