Opinion ID: 2517590
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: DeNardo Waived His Claims of Breach of the Covenant of Habitability and Negligence.

Text: Because DeNardo asked the superior court to dismiss his claims of breach of the covenant of habitability and negligence, he is precluded from asserting that it was error to dismiss those claims or that he should be allowed to pursue them on remand. DeNardo seems to argue that it would be a waste of judicial resources to require plaintiffs to continue to litigate suits they know they will lose. Some jurisdictions permit a party to consent to entry of an adverse judgment to facilitate an appeal. The California Supreme Court has held that [i]f consent [to an adverse judgment] was merely given to facilitate an appeal following adverse determination of a critical issue, the party will not lose his right to be heard on appeal. [4] But this view is held in a minority of American jurisdictions. [5] In Alaska we recognize a  Cooksey plea by which a criminal defendant does not contest conviction conditioned upon the right to appeal on a reserved issue. [6] We have never recognized a civil analogy to a Cooksey plea or held that entry of a consent judgment to facilitate an appeal would permit such an appeal. But even if we had, we would not apply those procedures here. DeNardo did not consent to judgment while preserving an issue; he moved to dismiss without reservation. He apparently thought that his habitability and negligence claims against the landlord were doomed without his battery, trespass, and nuisance claims. But those claims were distinct from his claims that the landlord failed to provide a habitable residence or was negligent. DeNardo should have proceeded to trial on the habitability and negligence claims if he wanted to litigate or preserve them; upon entry of a final judgment after trial he could have appealed, or cross-appealed, any adverse final or interlocutory rulings. Because DeNardo instead asked the court to dismiss his habitability and negligence claims and did not attempt to preserve them, he may not appeal from the order granting his own motion.