Opinion ID: 2607625
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: procedural misadventures

Text: Page Engineering Company (Page) manufactured and sold a strip mine dragline to Bridger Coal Company (Bridger Coal) for its coal production operation. The two corporations remained in contact during Page's periodic inspections of and consultations about the machine's use. During this time, Page came to understand the reeving block equipment was faulty in design and could easily fail, but neglected to warn Bridger Coal. Not surprisingly, the reeving block did fail and brought down the boom. [3] This appeal questions who should pay the $2,536,957 following the catastrophic collapse of the boom caused by the failed reeving block. [4] Suit was filed June 16, 1986 including allegations of the product liability claims of negligence and defective design, and also failure to warn, failure to maintain insurance, and violation of express warranty. Page answered by general denial and affirmative allegations of failure to state a claim, lack of privity, comparative negligence, assumption of risk and unavoidable accident. The lawsuit proceeded normally until July 1, 1987 when the Wyoming attorney for Page suddenly took sick during a discovery deposition and document production being pursued by Continental Insurance Company (Continental) in Chicago, Illinois. Page brought the depositions to a halt even though the ill counsel was not lead counsel and then refused Continental the opportunity to copy documents already produced. Back in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, an ex parte motion was then quickly filed by defendant for a protective order. This motion assured the trial court judge that a motion for Mr. Greenhalgh (Page's Wyoming counsel who became ill during discovery) to withdraw as counsel would be made as soon as new counsel could be retained. That assurance proved to be false since the ill Wyoming counsel never withdrew from the case. A restraining order against continued discovery was issued without any apparent opportunity for response or objection by Continental who had been attempting to pursue deposition and documentary examination discovery from Page's personnel and records in Chicago. With the ex parte protective order deterring discovery in effect, Page filed its motion to dismiss on July 16, 1987, thirteen months after the commencement of the lawsuit. The brief supporting the motion argued that product liability theories would not support a claim for economic loss. Prominently cited was Buckley v. Bell, 703 P.2d 1089 (Wyo. 1985). See McLaughlin v. Michelin Tire Corp., 778 P.2d 59 (Wyo. 1989), Urbigkit, J., dissenting. The trial court gave Continental fourteen days to respond to Page's motion to dismiss (less mailing time) and gave Page fifteen days thereafter to reply. Continental responded, including the contention that the motion to dismiss was untimely and Page filed a reply brief on August 21, 1987. Three days later, Continental filed a motion for leave to file an amended and supplemental complaint. Continental also moved to disqualify the previously ill but never withdrawn local counsel on a conflict basis. The brief supporting this motion stated in part that we were given to believe that discovery was aborted at the Page plant in Illinois because [Wyoming counsel] was withdrawing not only not from this case, but from litigation altogether. The attached transcript to the brief related what occurred in Chicago on June 30, 1987: [WYOMING COUNSEL]: I would like to say for the record that I don't feel I can participate in any depositions for health reasons. I have a history of heart problems.    I don't think I can sit through another deposition today.          I am not physically prepared to sit through any more depositions today.    MR. HENSON: Since you spent the weekend on the treadmill at the gym, I don't know that sitting through a deposition would cause any more stress than that. If you had told us last Friday that you weren't going to be engaging in depositions here, then we wouldn't have spent the weekend preparing for depositions and spent the weekend here.       Mr. Anderson came yesterday at a quarter till 5:00 while we were looking at documents and said that he wanted to get involved in the case and that he was going to have to take some time to become familiar with it and that his client would pay our clients' expenses for having to come back here for these depositions, which were suddenly aborted here at the last minute.       Are you saying that you are withdrawing from the defense of Page Engineering at this point? [WYOMING COUNSEL]: I intend to notify the insurance company that I am withdrawing for health reasons. (Emphasis added.) Based on Page's motion to dismiss and faced with a motion for leave to amend, the trial court granted a non-requested summary judgment on September 1, 1987. The sixteen page decision letter concluded: Rule 12(c), W.R.C.P. provides that on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, if matters outside the pleadings are presented, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment. I don't think it matters much in this case how it is treated. However, the contract, the insurance policy and the subrogation receipts are all before the Court and have been referred to extensively by all counsel. Inasmuch as the parties have briefed the matter as they have, I am going to answer in kind, and treat the case as though a motion for summary judgment had been filed, pursuant to Rule 56, W.R.C.P., and if anyone chooses to do so, and, as provided by Rule 12(b)(c) all parties shall be given reasonable opportunity to present all material made pertinent to such a motion by Rule 56, assuming there is indeed any more to be said. [Wyoming counsel] will please prepare an order granting a motion for summary judgment and a summary judgment, submit it to opposing counsel for approval as to form and to me for signature. Opposing counsel have to and including September 15, 1987 to give such approval, or objections thereto, failing in which it will be deemed they have approved. One last observation. I own a 1978 Oldsmobile on [which] the warranty expired years ago, and I have it insured. Suppose a wheel breaks causing an accident and extensive damage to the car and my insurance company pays me. Is it then subrogated to my claim against General Motors for negligent design? It appears here that plaintiffs don't seem to understand that machines wear out eventually, somewhat like the one hoss shay.[ [5] ] (Emphasis added.) Procedurally, Continental was denied the opportunity to object when the trial court converted Page's motion to dismiss into a summary judgment which should have been foreclosed not only by Pace v. Hadley, 742 P.2d 1283, 1286 (Wyo. 1987) (completion of discovery), but also the summary judgment notice of conversion case of Torrey v. Twiford, 713 P.2d 1160 (Wyo. 1986). The trial judge had decided the case and nothing thereafter would change his decision. In his further decision letter of October 21, 1987, the trial judge explained: I do not believe the decision in Pace v. Hadley (9/22/87) appropriate here. As a matter of fact I do not even agree with Pace, supra . In that case the Supreme Court had no difficulty at all in finding what the facts were, (3rd paragraph, page 1 of slip opinion) but also held that the plaintiffs were not allowed a reasonable time for discovery. If the Court could discern the facts so readily, so could the plaintiffs. In my experience as a lawyer, I never filed a lawsuit until I knew what the facts were as I wanted to be sure I had a cause of action. Today, apparently, the theory is shoot first and ask questions later. The additional discovery requested by plaintiffs is unnecessary and unwarranted. (Emphasis added.) After railing for two full pages against discovery, the trial judge concluded: Plaintiffs' Motion For Continuance of Discovery is denied. [Wyoming counsel] will please prepare an order denying the motion, an order granting Page's motion for summary judgment and a summary judgment, submit it to opposing counsel for approval as to form, and to me for signature. Opposing counsel have to and including November 2, 1987, within which to give such approval, failing in which it will be deemed they have approved. Responding to such an untimely and unjustified decision by the trial court to convert a motion to dismiss into summary judgment without notice, Continental filed a declaration of its counsel in support of the motion to reconsider and the motion to allow the continuance of discovery, a motion for continuance of discovery on September 15, 1987, and a memorandum in support of the motion for continuance of discovery with comprehensive attachments. The trial court entered an order on September 22, 1987 giving Page until October 5, 1987 to file its brief in answer to the motions for continuance and giving Continental until October 12, 1987 to reply. Resolution, of course, was the second decision letter of October 21, 1987 which denied the motion for leave to amend and the motion for a complete discovery and restated a decision which granted a motion for summary judgment which had never been made. We are presented with a very troubling record where a litigant was clearly denied due process and somehow out of that morass, this court is able to perceive that a contractual issue was not created as a matter of partially completed discovery with a motion to file an amended complaint never considered. In view of the obvious resolution by the majority which is, in essence, that due process does not matter if a substantive right might not exist, I will not pursue the subject of the contractual issues of litigation. It should, however, be noted the Wyoming counsel who became ill in Chicago never withdrew and, in fact, did appear for oral argument before this tribunal. It must also be recognized that summary judgment disposition of contractual claims has occurred without completion of discovery in contravention of this court's empirical direction to the same trial judge in the earlier case of Pace, 742 P.2d at 1288.