Opinion ID: 1662213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Defendants' jurisdictional attack stems from the district court's order of November 5, 1986, which sustained their demurrers to Schoneweis' original petition and provided that if Schoneweis should fail to file an amended petition within 2 weeks, her suit would stand dismissed at her costs. Schoneweis did not file her amended petition until November 21, 1986, 2 days after the November 19, 1986, deadline purportedly imposed by the November 5 order. Defendants contend that in granting Schoneweis leave to file her amended petition out of time, the district court abused its discretion, as the suit had been dismissed by operation of the earlier order, and the district court thus had nothing before it on which it could act. However, as defendants recognized at oral argument before the division to which this case was originally assigned, this court has declared that conditional orders purporting to automatically dismiss an action upon a party's failure to act within a set time are void as not performing in praesenti, and thus have no force or effect. Snell v. Snell, 230 Neb. 764, 433 N.W.2d 200 (1988); Building Systems, Inc. v. Medical Center, Ltd., 228 Neb. 168, 421 N.W.2d 773 (1988); W & K Farms v. Hi-Line Farms, 226 Neb. 895, 416 N.W.2d 10 (1987); Federal Land Bank of Omaha v. Johnson, 226 Neb. 877, 415 N.W.2d 478 (1987); Lemburg v. Adams County, 225 Neb. 289, 404 N.W.2d 429 (1987). Consequently, as the case was not dismissed pursuant to the court's conditional order and thus was pending before the district court when it extended the time for filing the amended petition, it did not abuse its discretion in permitting Schoneweis to do so. There is, therefore, no merit to defendants' resistance to this court's review of the district court's dismissal of Schoneweis' amended suit.