Opinion ID: 2276741
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Law of the Case Bar to Jurisdiction Rejected.

Text: Toyota raised in the Court of Appeals an argument that the law of the case doctrine prevented the trial court from exercising jurisdiction to rule on or grant CR 60.02 relief. [24] Toyota asserted that the original decision of the trial court dismissing Sergent's action for lack of jurisdiction to hear the disputea decision that was not disturbed by the appellate courtsoperated to block jurisdiction to consider CR 60.02(f) relief by operation of the law of the case. We disagree. We believe that a trial court's jurisdiction to determine whether extraordinary circumstances merit relief from a judgment includes jurisdiction to determine whether extraordinary circumstances also merit application of one of the exceptions to the law of the case doctrine. Toyota cites Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure v. Ryan, [25] as suggesting that the trial court would lack jurisdiction to rule on a CR 60.02 motion under the law of the case doctrine. The holding in that case is inapt. Although the Medical Licensure Board argued that the trial court erroneously ignored the law of the case and lacked jurisdiction to order it to conduct a CR 60.02 hearing, [26] we simply held that a trial court did not have jurisdiction to order the Board to hear a CR 60.02 motion because such motions could only properly be filed in courts and not before an administrative agency such as the Board. Our opinion did not suggest that application of the law of the case doctrine would preclude a court from having jurisdiction to hear a CR 60.02 motion. [27] Furthermore, to the extent that the Court of Appeals' unpublished opinion in Davis-Johnson ex rel. Davis v. Parmelee [28] holds that law of the case would deprive a trial court of jurisdiction to rule on a CR 60.02(f) motion, including the question of whether extraordinary circumstances merit an exception from the law of the case doctrine, it is hereby overruled. In short, we conclude that the law of the case doctrine does not invariably deprive a trial court of jurisdiction to reconsider under CR 60.02(f) an issue already decided if the law upon which the original decision was basedincluding a controlling appellate opinionhas materially changed.