Opinion ID: 2616183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: This case has been delayed by certain procedural and jurisdictional difficulties. The trial court's judgment dismissing plaintiff's case was signed on August 25, 1986. As it happened, however, the judgment was not entered in the trial court register [2] until August 28, 1986. In the meantime, plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on August 26. Attached to it was a copy of the signed (but not yet registered) August 25 judgment. That notice of appeal was premature; there was not yet a judgment from which an appeal could be taken. Plaintiffs, realizing that their first notice of appeal was premature, filed an amended notice of appeal on September 5, 1986. This notice was correct as to form and was timely. However, another problem existed. ORS 19.033(1) provides: When the notice of appeal has been served and filed as provided in ORS 19.023, 19.026 and 19.029, the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals shall have jurisdiction of the cause, pursuant to rules of the court, but the trial court shall have such powers in connection with the appeal as are conferred upon it by law and shall retain jurisdiction for the purpose of allowance and taxation of attorney fees, costs and disbursements or expenses pursuant to rule or statute.    This court has recognized that the pendency of an appeal deprives a trial court of authority to make substantive rulings, Nickerson and Nickerson, 296 Or. 516, 522-23, 678 P.2d 730 (1984), and the Court of Appeals has long held that, in cases like the present one, filing a notice of appeal divests a trial court of jurisdiction subsequently to enter a judgment see, e.g., Murray Well-Drilling v. Deisch, 75 Or. App. 1, 704 P.2d 1159 (1985). It follows that plaintiffs' appeal of August 25 was not taken from a judgment or other final order, ORS 19.010, but did serve to oust the trial court of jurisdiction so that the actual entering of the judgment on August 28 was ineffectual and the subsequent, September 5, appeal was also premature. There was, as yet, no final, appealable judgment in this case. The foregoing problem was pointed out to counsel at oral argument. Supplemental memoranda were requested and received from the parties. Both parties asked that, rather than dismiss the appeal, this court follow the procedure set out in ORS 19.033(4). That statutory subsection, enacted in 1985 (Oregon Laws 1985, chapter 734, section 5), provides:    (4) Notwithstanding the filing of a notice of appeal, the trial court shall have jurisdiction, with leave of the appellate court, to enter an appealable judgment if the appellate court determines that: (a) At the time of the filing of the notice of appeal the trial court intended to enter an appealable judgment; and (b) The judgment from which the appeal is taken is defective in form or was entered at a time when the trial court did not have jurisdiction of the cause under subsection (1) of this section, or the trial court had not yet entered an appealable judgment. Having determined that the criteria of ORS 19.033(4)(a) and (b) had been met, this court accepted the parties' recommendations and entered an order on September 11, 1986, that gave the trial court leave to enter an appealable judgment. The trial court entered such a judgment on September 19, 1986, and the plaintiffs filed a proper notice of appeal on September 23, 1986. The case is now properly before us. [3]