Opinion ID: 1401738
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: correct characterization of the trial court proceedings must precede the court's selection of the standard of review.

Text: ¶ 17 This case presents a procedural imbroglio that makes the assignment of the appropriate standard of review somewhat difficult. Two motions were presented to the trial court. One was defendants' motion to dismiss. The other was Patel's motion for summary judgment. A motion to dismiss may be interposed against a petition to vacate. [9] The purpose of a dismissal motion is to test the law's support for a claim, not the sufficiency of the underlying facts. [10] Where a motion to dismiss tenders facts to be considered by offering materials dehors the pleadings, it is incumbent upon the trial court to treat the motion as one for summary judgment. [11] Defendants' motion to dismiss tendered for consideration in this case an excerpted portion of the transcript of testimony in the Patel I trial. This material's inclusion required the trial court to treat defendants' dismissal motion as a motion for summary judgment. In short, the end result of this procedural exchange confronted the trial court with cross motions for summary judgment. ¶ 18 Summary process is governed by District Court Rule 13. [12] It sets forth in detail the procedures to be followed where there are no fact issues in dispute and judgment may be appropriate as a matter of law. By its very terms, Rule 13 applies to prejudgment issues only. [13] A vacation proceeding under 12 O.S.1991 § 1031 is a legislatively created remedial mechanism in which a litigant seeks not a judgment, but rather relief from a judgment. [14] There are no prejudgment issues in a vacation proceeding. On the contrary, a vacation quest is a postjudgment remedy. It represents neither a common law or statutory claim nor does it result in a judgment which settles the rights between the parties. Because a vacation proceeding is a statute-governed procedure to determine postjudgment issues, summary adjudication process cannot be utilized to decide the matters in contest. [15] This is not to say that an adversary hearing must be afforded in every vacation quest. Although the Rule 13 procedural regime is textually confined to prejudgment issues, there is no legal impediment to the use  in a § 1031 post-judgment vacation proceeding  of acceptable evidentiary substitutes [16] to eliminate from adversary contest any individually and clearly defined fact issue that is claimed as undisputed and shown to be supported solely by inferences consistent with the movant's position in the case. [17] ¶ 19 Removing then, as we do, Rule 13 from the procedural arsenal available in a vacation proceeding, we must treat both Patel's motion for summary judgment and defendants' motion to dismiss/motion for summary judgment as mere cross motions to enter matter for hearing. The trial court's order granting Patel's petition to vacate must hence be viewed as responding directly to Patel's quest for vacation. [18] The appropriate standard of review is to be assigned on that basis. B.