Opinion ID: 2611079
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: parties to the appeal

Text: The issue here is whether individual defendants Gary Bryant and Larry Phillips should be permitted to appear as parties appellant. Each has filed a request to be so designated. Bryant filed a document styled Request to Include Party as Appellant on February 17, 1988. Phillips filed his Application to Enter Appearance and Request to be Included as Party Appellant on February 19, 1988. The plaintiff/appellee Bane responded by showing no objection to Bryant's being included as a party appellant, but objects to any appearance by Phillips as being untimely. Throughout the entirety of these proceedings the same attorney represented both the firm known as Anderson, Bryant & Co. and its President, Bryant. Phillips was represented by other counsel. According to an uncontested affidavit filed in this court by the attorney for the firm and Bryant, all pleadings in the appeal were filed on behalf of those two, but not Phillips. Bryant's request that he be included as an appellant in his action is misstated. Under the thirty day requirement of 12 O.S. 1981 § 990 it is too late for him now to become an appellant. However, if he acquired that status upon his attorney's filing the initial petition in error, this court should treat his request as one to amend the petition in error to reflect his correct status. Counsel for the firm and Bryant timely filed a petition in error in the statutory form. We must determine which parties were contemplated for inclusion in that document. The style of the petition in error includes only Anderson, Bryant & Co.; Gary Bryant's name is not there. However, one of the assignments of error in the petition complains of the trial court's failure to dismiss the defendants Gary Bryant and Larry John Phillips as party Defendant. Another complains of the jury's action in assessing punitive damages against Gary E. Bryant and Larry John Phillips. Further, in eleven other places in the petition in error, the language complains of errors affecting the defendants, or that the defendants' motions were overruled, etc. In short, it does not read like an appeal lodged by a single employer defendant. A party may assert his own legal rights, but not those of third parties. Wilson v. Gipson, 753 P.2d 1349, 1356 (Okla. 1988). Thus, it would appear these assignments of error are either made erroneously because Gary Bryant and/or Larry John Phillips are not parties appellant, or that they are properly included because Bryant and Phillips are parties appellant and only their names were inadvertently omitted from the style. The latter proposition is partially correct. The petition in error was filed on January 12, 1987. On March 13, 1987, the trial court heard a motion for attorney's fees and costs, and the court's order is attached to the amended petition in error. The court made the following finding; 5. That there is an appeal pending in the captioned case brought by the defendants Anderson, Bryant & Co., and Gary E. Bryant, and that this order is without prejudice to the right of Plaintiff to make application for her attorneys' fees and costs incurred subsequent to November 19, 1987, and throughout the appeal. (emphasis supplied) The trial court thus made a finding that two parties had appealed, Anderson, Bryant & Co. and Gary E. Bryant. The order was approved by attorneys for plaintiff/Bane as well as the two named defendant/appellants. No party has expressly attacked this finding by the timely filing of a petition in error. See, 12 O.S. Supp. 1986, Ch. 15, App. 2, Rule 1.11(d). Bane does not object to Bryant's name being added to the petition in error, but that is not controlling; parties may not confer this court's subject matter jurisdiction by consent. Merchants Delivery v. Joe Esco Tire Co., 497 P.2d 766 (Okla. 1972). However, a petition in error was timely filed which invoked this court's appellate jurisdiction, requiring us to determine from the record whether the material contained in that petition is legally sufficient to indicate that Bryant is and always has been a party appellant. Form does not rule over substance in evaluating documents filed in this court. Matter of B.C., 749 P.2d 542, 544 (Okla. 1988). We hold that the substance of the assignments of error, when viewed in light of counsel's affidavit and the trial court's finding, indicates that Gary E. Bryant was at all pertinent times a party appellant, but that his name was inadvertantly omitted from the style of the timely filed petition in error. A petition in error may be amended pursuant to Rule 1.17. We deem Bryant's Request to be an amendment to his original petition, and allow the style to be corrected to reflect Bryant's status as a proper party appellant. Counsel for Phillips, however, never filed a petition in error. Instead he filed his Request, not in the statutory form of a petition in error, and well beyond the time limit allowed during which an aggrieved party may appeal. Our constitution provides that one may only invoke this court's jurisdiction in the manner provided by law. Okla. Const. Art. 7, § 4. The applicable statute prescribes the manner for lodging an appeal and provides: An appeal to the Supreme Court may be commenced from an appealable disposition of a court or tribunal by filing with the Clerk of the Supreme Court a petition in error, within thirty (30) days from the date of the final order or judgment sought to be reviewed. 12 O.S. 1981 § 990. In response to Phillips' application to be included as an appellant, the plaintiff submitted an affidavit signed by opposing counsel which explained that the only appellants were the firm and Bryant individually. Further, the Phillips' Request does not contain the substantive material required for a petition in error. We find that Phillips has failed to invoke our jurisdiction, and is not a party to these proceedings.