Opinion ID: 2639129
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Postremand Summary Proceedings Are Inconsistent With the Court's Mandate

Text: ¶ 16 At the postremand stage, i.e., after this court's mandate has been transmitted and spread of record, the trial court is duty-bound to comply with its terms by a careful consideration of the opinion on which it is based. [25] If the trial court should fail to do so, the mandate's enforcement may be sought from this court by an original proceeding for a writ of mandamus to compel scrupulous obedience at nisi prius. [26] ¶ 17 While COCA's Smedsrud I pronouncement tracked solely the premises-liability claim, [27] the postremand summary proceedings targeted largely, if not exclusively, an enigmatic and tempting COCA footnote comment [28] by setting in motion a quest for decisional process utterly dehors Smedsrud's premises-liability theory. Those proceedings concentrated solely on Owner's sought-to-be-substituted theory of construction-related defects, which the plaintiff did not choose to advance on remand in lieu of his own premises-liability framework. Owner emerged victorious when he succeeded in supplanting Smedsrud's legal predicate for the claim and in substituting another theory  that of construction defect  on which he could prevail with his § 109 defense. [29] The summary disposition for the defendant was in plain disobedience of the clear terms of the earlier mandate [30] and contrary to the general principle that everyone  be it plaintiff, third-party plaintiff or counterclaimant  is entitled to press a claim on one's chosen theories. [31]