Opinion ID: 2614930
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: abandonment of state claims on appeal

Text: The next issue presented is whether Grider abandoned his state claims by failing to raise them in the federal appeals. The Defendants urge that even if the savings period starts from the finality of the appeal as to issues decided in the appeal, Grider did not appeal the federal district court's dismissal of the pendent state claims, and thus Grider was required to proceed by refiling these claims within one-year of the date of the federal district court's dismissal. Grider insists that he did not abandon these appeals, and in fact raised the issues on appeal to the Tenth Circuit. The Tenth Circuit, in its opinion, recognized the presence of pendent state claims but did not address the correctness of the dismissal of those claims in light of the decision it reached. The briefs of the parties in the Tenth Circuit appeal are not before this Court. Other than the Tenth Circuit opinion, there is nothing else in the record to indicate whether the state claims were abandoned. However, the Tenth Circuit opinion makes it clear that the state claims were dismissed only because the federal claims were dismissed and the federal court declined to retain jurisdiction over the pendent state claims. The Tenth Circuit specifically stated that Grider did not intend to waive any state claims, should the RICO claims be reinstated, but rather intended to pursue them under principles of pendent jurisdiction. The parties have not argued that the pendent state issues were separate causes of action rather than alternative theories of recovery. The record indicates that the same operative events which allegedly occurred from 1982 to 1985 gave rise to the RICO theory and the antitrust theory as well as the state-law based theories of fraud and embezzlement. Grider's entire cause of action was based on the series of transactions in which he was allegedly deprived of proceeds from oil operations. Based on this and the Tenth Circuit opinion, we conclude that Grider did not abandon his right to pursue the state claims.