Opinion ID: 1643072
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Plaintiffs' Motion to Dismiss the Appeals

Text: The plaintiffs argue that this Court does not have jurisdiction to address these appeals because, they say, the appeals were not timely filed. See, e.g., Schiffman v. City of Irondale, 669 So.2d 136 (Ala.1995); Greystone Close v. Fidelity & Guar. Ins. Co., 664 So.2d 900 (Ala.1995)(both holding that failure to timely file a notice of appeal deprives this Court of jurisdiction over the appeal). The plaintiffs contend that the appeals are not timely under Rule 4, Ala. R.App. P., which provides generally that a notice of appeal must be filed within 42 days of the date of the entry of the judgment or order appealed from, and Ala.Code 1975, § 6-6-15, which provides: Either party may appeal from an [arbitration] award under this division. Notice of the appeal to the appropriate appellate court shall be filed within 10 days after receipt of notice of the award and shall be filed with the clerk or register of the circuit court where the action is pending or, if no action is pending, then in the office of the clerk or register of the circuit court of the county where the award is made. The notice of appeal, together with a copy of the award, signed by the arbitrators or a majority of them, shall be delivered with the file of papers or with the submission, as the case may be, to the court to which the award is returnable; and the clerk or register shall enter the award as the judgement [sic] of the court. Thereafter, unless within 10 days the court shall set aside the award for one or more of the causes specified in Section 6-6-14, the judgment shall become final and an appeal shall lie as in other cases. In the event the award shall be set aside, such action shall be a final judgement [sic] from which an appeal shall lie as in other cases. The plaintiffs assert that although the News complied with § 6-6-15 by initially filing notices of appeal on January 8, 2003, there was no final judgment in the cases until January 23, 2003, 10 days after the clerk of the circuit court had entered the awards as the judgments of the circuit court. Our law is settled that, with the exception of certain situations specified in Rule 4(a), Ala. R.App. P., and Rules 5 and 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., but not present in these cases, an appeal will lie only from a final judgment. BE & K, Inc. v. Baker, 875 So.2d 1185 (Ala.2003); Gilbert v. Nicholson, 845 So.2d 785 (Ala.2002). Thus, the plaintiffs contend that the notices of appeal filed by the News were not from a final judgment, and because the News filed no subsequent notices of appeal after the judgment was entered and became final, the 42-day period for filing an appeal under Rule 4, Ala. R.App. P., lapsed without the filing of a notice of appeal, and these appeals are untimely. The plaintiffs support their argument by referring to the special writing by Judge Murdock in Sanderson Group, Inc. v. Smith, 809 So.2d 823 (Ala.Civ.App.2001). In that case, the Court of Civil Appeals considered the timeliness of an appeal from an arbitration award that had been filed within 42 days of the entry of the final judgment on the award but not within 10 days of the entry of the final judgment. The Court of Civil Appeals determined that the effect of the 42-day appeal period allowed by Rule 4, Ala. R.App. P., was to expand the 10-day period specified under § 6-6-15, so that the appeal in that case was timely filed. Writing specially, Judge Murdock stated: Rule 4(a), Ala. R.App. P., provides, in pertinent part: `(1) Except as otherwise provided herein, in all cases in which an appeal is permitted by law as of right to the supreme court or to a court of appeals, the notice of appeal required by Rule 3[, Ala. R.App. P.,] shall be filed with the clerk of the trial court within 42 days (6 weeks) of the date of the entry of the judgment or order appealed from .... `(2) If a timely notice of appeal is filed by a party, any other party may file a notice of appeal within 14 days (2 weeks) of the date on which the first notice of appeal was filed, or within the time otherwise prescribed by this rule, whichever period last expires.' (Emphasis added.) In the case of an arbitrator's award, the `judgment or order appealed from' is the final judgment of the court based on that award, not the award itself. Moss v. Upchurch, 278 Ala. 615, 619, 179 So.2d 741, 744-45 (1965). While § 6-6-15, Ala.Code 1975, still provides the right of appeal from a judgment based on an arbitrator's award and makes Sanderson's appeal one `permitted by law as of right,' the time for taking that appeal has been modified by virtue of and consistent with the above-quoted language in Rule 4(a)(1), Ala. R.App. P. As a result, not only has the time period for an appeal in connection with an arbitration award been expanded from the 10 days provided under § 6-6-15 to 42 days, that time period now begins to run under Rule 4(a)(1) from the date of entry of final judgment by the circuit court based on the arbitrator's award, rather than from the date of receipt of the arbitrator's award as stated in § 6-6-15. 809 So.2d at 832 (Murdock, J., concurring specially in part, concurring in the result in part, and dissenting in part). In considering the argument advanced by the plaintiffs, we are mindful of the overriding policy governing our application of the Rules of Appellate Procedure, that [t]hey shall be construed so as to assure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every appellate proceeding on its merits. Rule 1, Ala. R.App. P. It is undisputed that the News filed its notices of appeal in compliance with the requirements of § 6-6-15. We note further that Appendix II (Statutes and Rules Superseded) and Appendix III (Statutes Modified) to the Rules of Appellate Procedure do not list § 6-6-15 as among those statutes which have been superseded or modified by those rules. Thus, by adopting the view advocated by the plaintiffs we would invalidate the procedure set out by the Legislature to govern an appeal from an arbitration award, without there being any notice in the rules to that effect. In H.L. Fuller Construction Co. v. Industrial Development Board of the Town of Vincent, 590 So.2d 218 (Ala.1991), the notice of appeal was filed pursuant to § 6-6-15 before the trial court had entered a judgment on the arbitrators' award, and this Court remanded the case for the trial court to enter the final judgment; on return to remand, this Court considered the merits of the appeal. No additional notice of appeal was required to be filed after the entry of the final judgment on remand. In Pruett v. Williams, 623 So.2d 1115 (Ala.1993), the Court accepted a notice of appeal filed pursuant to § 6-6-15, after an arbitrator's award but before the entry of the award as a judgment of the circuit court, reasoning that when the award was later entered as a judgment of the circuit court, and the 10-day period provided by § 6-6-15 lapsed without the judgment's being set aside, the judgment became final and the arbitration award appealable. 623 So.2d at 1116. Compliance with the statute made the award final and appealable when the trial court later entered its judgment upon the arbitrator's award. The implicit recognition of the timeliness of the appeals in Fuller Construction and Pruett comports with the policy underlying the provision of Rule 4(a)(4), Ala. R.App. P., that [a] notice of appeal filed after the announcement of a decision or order but before the entry of the judgment or order shall be treated as filed after the entry and on the day thereof. Accordingly, we conclude that the notices of appeal filed by the News pursuant to § 6-6-15 became effective when the judgment on the arbitrators' award was entered and were thus timely filed. The plaintiffs' motion to dismiss the appeals as untimely is denied.