Opinion ID: 1799699
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Determination of success on appeal

Text: Mr. Coleman admitted that he was negligent in failing to file the record on appeal in a timely manner, but he urged that an appeal would not have been successful. The Trial Court held that whether an appeal would have been successful is a question of law for the court, not the jury, to decide. The Sturgises challenge that ruling, citing McDonald v. Eubanks, 292 Ark. 533, 731 S.W.2d 769 (1987). In that case, the McDonalds hired an attorney to represent them in a personal-injury suit as plaintiffs. They lost their case, and the attorney failed to file an appeal. The McDonalds sued the attorney for negligence, and the attorney moved for summary judgment, claiming that the case was unwinnable on appeal. His motion was accompanied by affidavits from two other lawyers who supported that position. The Trial Court granted the summary-judgment motion, and the McDonalds appealed. We reversed and remanded because the conclusory statements made in the affidavits submitted in support of the motion were only conclusory. In other words, construing the facts most favorable to the nonmovants, the McDonalds, the attorney's evidence was insufficient. We did not hold that the chance of success on appeal was an issue for a jury. The majority rule is that the matter of proximate cause for failure to file an appeal is a question of law to be determined by a judge, not a jury. In Daugert v. Pappas, 104 Wash.2d 254, 704 P.2d 600, 603 (1985), the Washington Supreme Court held that the determination of what decision would have followed if the attorney had timely filed the petition for review is a question of law for the judge, irrespective of whether the facts are undisputed. See also Millhouse v. Wiesenthal, 775 S.W.2d 626 (Tex.1989), and Charles Reinhart Co. v. Winiemko, 444 Mich. 579, 513 N.W.2d 773 (1994). The Reinhart case, citing cases from Oregon, California, Illinois, New York, Louisiana, Minnesota, Arizona, Ohio, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin, notes that at least nineteen jurisdictions directly addressing the issue have found it to be one of law, and no reported decisions have held otherwise. 513 N.W.2d at 783. Although we have no Arkansas case directly on point, we held in Anthony v. Kaplan, 324 Ark. 52, 918 S.W.2d 174 (1996), that an attorney's failure to file a motion to set aside an arbitration award in the proper forum was not shown, as a matter of law, to have been the proximate cause of the appellant's damages. We consider that decision and the majority rule to which we have referred above to be correct because the prospect of success or lack of it in a judicial proceeding poses an issue upon which the expertise of the court is needed for decision.