Opinion ID: 1169302
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appellant's brief

Text: Rule 5.05, W.R.A.P., states in pertinent part: Except by permission of the court, principal briefs shall not exceed 50 printed pages by letter press or 70 pages by any other process of duplicating or copying, exclusive of pages containing the table of contents, tables of citations, and any addendum containing statutes, rules, regulations, etc. Appellant's brief is 77 pages long, seven pages over the limit. Pages 19 through 57 consist solely of quotations of the transcript rearranged to suit appellant. Many of the quotations simply repeat appellant's statement of facts which already contain record references. This court is perfectly capable of reading the original transcript, taking special note of the portions cited in the briefs. And, even discounting the 38 pages of repetitious facts, it is hard to see why it took appellant 39 additional pages to present his arguments. The issues were simple enough to allow RG to make his point in 16 pages. These documents are called briefs for a reason. We will not overlook appellant's violation of both Rule 5.05 and common sense. We have deliberately ignored pages 71 through 77 of appellant's brief which deal with the abandonment issue and the best interests of the child. This sanction is specifically mentioned in Rule 1.02, W.R.A.P., which states in part: The failure to comply with any other of these rules or any order of court does not affect the validity of the appeal, but is ground only for such action as the reviewing court deems appropriate, including but not limited to    refusal to consider the offending party's contentions   .