Opinion ID: 2571717
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusal To Reopen Gilbert's Second Case

Text: The superior court dismissed Gilbert's second case seven months after it was filed, specifying that the dismissal was for failure to serve process and was without prejudice. But the court later denied Gilbert's repeated efforts to reopen the case after she made further attempts to serve process. Gilbert challenges these rulings, arguing that she eventually rectified any errors in her original service. Gilbert further asserts that Nina Plaza's attorney, James Hanlon, manipulated the rules of procedure to avoid service of process: Hanlon claimed service to him was improper even though he filed an entry of appearance to represent [the defendants] and was representing them in [the earlier filed case] at the time he was served with [the second complaint]. In response to these arguments, Nina Plaza does not deny that Gilbert eventually managed to make proper service. Instead, it argues that Gilbert's second complaint was properly dismissed as an impermissible attempt to circumvent the superior court's earlier dismissal of her first suit. Since Gilbert refiled the same case, Nina Plaza contends, [d]enial of [her] motion to reopen was proper given the fact that [she] had already appealed Judge Sanders' dismissal of her original case. However, despite Nina Plaza's suggestion to the contrary, the superior court did not view Gilbert's second complaint as an impermissible reiteration of her first complaint. Instead, the court specified that it dismissed the second case on the ground of lack of service and that the dismissal was without prejudice. The superior court rebuffed Gilbert's later efforts to reopen for the same reason solely because the court believed that Gilbert had still failed to make proper service. Furthermore, the record refutes Nina Plaza's portrayal of Gilbert's second complaint as an effort to circumvent the superior court's dismissal of her first complaint. Gilbert filed her second complaint on June 9, 2000, over two weeks before the superior court dismissed her first case on June 26. And although the basic claims in both cases were nearly identical, Gilbert apparently intended the second complaint to address conduct that allegedly continued to occur after she had filed the first complaint. At a pretrial conference in the first case, for example, Gilbert alerted the court that, to preserve her civil rights claims, she would be filing a second complaint to cover developments occurring since her first complaint was filed. Accordingly, Nina Plaza's characterization of the second complaint finds no support in the record. We thus turn to the merits of Gilbert's contention that she cured her original failure to serve process and therefore should have been allowed to reopen her second case. The record indicates that by the time Gilbert filed her first motion to reopen the case, Nina Plaza and Steven Simonka had received actual notice of Gilbert's complaint. Attached to Gilbert's first motion to reopen was a certificate of service stating that Gilbert had delivered the complaint by certified mail to James Hanlon, the attorney for both Nina Plaza and Simonka. After receiving the complaint, Hanlon entered a conditional appearance on behalf of the defendants to contest Gilbert's attempt to serve process. He claimed that serving the complaint on him had been improper because Nina Plaza and Simonka had not yet retained him as counsel in the second case. Although challenging Gilbert's earlier service on him as premature, Hanlon undertook future representation of the defendants in the second case, asking that all subsequent pleadings concerning the case be mailed to him. Thus, assuming that Gilbert's initial service on Hanlon was improper, by the time Gilbert filed her third motion to reopen the case she had undisputedly succeeded in making proper service: by then she had sent by certified mail copies of the lawsuit, summons, certificate of service, [and] motion to reopen to both the defendants and James Hanlon. Hanlon acknowledged receiving these documents and represented Nina Plaza and Simonka in the second case when he received them. [9] Accordingly, the record establishes beyond doubt that Gilbert ultimately cured any defects in service of process. Because Gilbert's motions to reopen the case were denied only because the court believed that service had not been properly made, we hold that it was error to deny reopening. And because of this error, we further hold that the superior court's award of prevailing-party attorney's fees to Nina Plaza and Simonka must be vacated.