Opinion ID: 1765903
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Before reaching the merits of Stanley's appeal, we must first determine whether John Crane has a right to appeal from the grant of the new trial and from the denial of the J.N.O.V. A litigant does not have a vested right to a review by an appellate court; rather he obtains a right to appeal, if at all, by grace of statute. State v. Seminole Bottling Co., 235 Ala. 217, 178 So. 237 (1938); Lewis v. Martin, 210 Ala. 401, 98 So. 635 (1923); State v. Bibby, 47 Ala.App. 240, 252 So.2d 662 (1971). Section 12-22-2, Code of Ala.1975, entitles litigants to appeal to this Court from any final judgment: From any final judgment of the circuit court or probate court, an appeal lies to the appropriate appellate court as a matter of right by either party, or their personal representatives, within the time and in the manner prescribed by the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure. (Emphasis added.) This statute embodies our time-honored rule that a final judgment is an essential precondition for appealing to this Court. Cates v. Bush, 293 Ala. 535, 307 So.2d 6, 8 (1975). Generally, the absence of a final order precludes us from exercising our jurisdiction. Id. However, this rule is not absolute. For instance, § 12-22-2 does not prohibit this Court from exercising its rule-making authority to allow appeals from certain interlocutory orders. See, e.g., Rule 4(a)(1) and Rule 5 A.R.App.P. Similarly, the legislature has also provided that appeals may lie from either the grant or the denial of a motion for a new trial, in spite of the fact that the granting of a new trial suspends the finality of the judgment entered prior to the granting of the motion. Ala.Code (1975), § 12-22-10. Section 12-22-10, in pertinent part, states: Either party in a civil case ... may appeal to the appropriate appellate court from an order granting or refusing a motion for a new trial by the circuit court. It is against the background of these statutes and rules, therefore, that we consider whether John Crane may appeal to this court and assert as error the denial of its motion for J.N.O.V. Section 12-22-10, by its literal terms, addresses only the post-judgment motion for a new trial. Absent the statute (as is the case in the federal system, see Lowe v. General Motors Corp., 624 F.2d 1373 (5th Cir.1980)), the granting of a new trial (which is an interlocutory order) will not support an appeal; and an alleged trial error would have to await the completion of a second trial, and thus a final judgment, before it could be reviewed on appeal. Given the statute, an interlocutory order granting a new trial is appealable. Because the trial court granted a new trial, it would appear that John Crane's appeal from the adverse ruling denying its motion for J.N.O.V. is a futile attempt to have this Court review an interlocutory order. Indeed, an order denying a J.N. O.V. motion, standing alone, would be a final judgment and subject to review by way of an appeal; but, when coupled with the order granting a new trial, as in this case, the denial of J.N.O.V. is not a final judgment, and, as such, it is not appealable. Thus, it would seem that John Crane's successful motion for a new trial aborts its right of appellate review of its unsuccessful motion for J.N.O.V. Despite its logic, we find this analysis of the issue to be overly technical. While we cannot reject, out of hand, the objective fact that the denial of the J.N.O.V. motion is interlocutory in face of the granting of the new trial motion, we are not compelled to the conclusion that the J.N.O.V. denial is not an appealable order. Rather, prudence dictates that we re-examine the purpose and intent (and thus the spirit) of the statutory exception embodied in Code 1975, § 12-22-10. The answer, we believe, is found in the historical evolvement of our present A.R.Civ.P. 50the procedure for treating the sufficiency of the evidence on the one hand and the weight of the evidence on the other. Alabama practice and procedure before the adoption of the present rules of civil procedure made no clear demarcation between these two concepts, as evidenced by the many cases that reversed the judgment for insufficiency of the evidence but remanded the case for a new trial. Neither of the two methods used to test sufficiencydemurrer to the evidence and the affirmative chargeever evolved into a clearly defined mandate for the rendering of judgment for the successful movant in a post-judgment or appellate review. Indeed, the classical post-judgment method for testing the propriety of rulings with respect to sufficiency was the motion for a new trial. With the advent of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, the evolutionary process culminated in the clearly defined procedure now provided in Rule 50. Whether the directed verdict/J.N.O.V. concept is denominated as a new creature or as an old creature with new clothing and a new name is of little more than academic interest. Of practical significance, however, is the anomaly created by the literal reading of § 12-22-10, which has not been amended to include J.N.O.V., along with new trial, for purposes of appealability. The serious consequences of this dilemma are obvious. Conceivably, the movant could suffer a series of adverse rulings on his J.N.O.V. motion in multiple trials of the same case; and, because he was successful in obtaining a new trial in each instance, he could not obtain appellate review of the adverse ruling on his J.N.O.V. motion until the completion of three trials. See Code 1975, § 6-8-104. Surely, it is no answer to suggest that the movant could forgo his alternative new trial motion in order to obtain finality of the J.N.O.V. ruling. Not only are these consequences not in keeping with the spirit and intent of the new trial rule provided in § 12-22-10, allowing an appeal from an interlocutory order, but the result of not including J.N. O.V. within the embrace of the statute's appealability concept runs counter to the mandate of A.R.Civ.P. 1, which states: (c) Construction. These rules shall be construed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action. It would be the height of irony to use the granting of the motion for a new trial to defeat finality of the J.N.O.V. denial, and at the same time not to use the statutory new trial right of appeal to permit appellate review of the J.N.O.V. denial. Additionally, we note that a holding in favor of appealability would not violate the fundamental principle of appellate review that prohibits review of an issue not ruled upon by the trial court. Indeed, the post-judgment J.N.O.V. motion was presented to the trial judge and was denied. We hold, therefore, that John Crane's appeal, testing the court's ruling on the J.N.O.V. motion, is properly before this Court for review. For the sake of clarity, we note that John Crane, as the successful movant, has no right to appeal from the grant of the new trial, as it has attempted to do. Kemp Motor Sales, Inc. v. Lawrenz, 505 So.2d 377 (Ala. 1987); Osborn v. Johns, 468 So.2d 103 (Ala.1985); Champion v. Central of Georgia Ry., 165 Ala. 551, 51 So. 562 (1910); Karter v. Peck, 121 Ala. 636, 25 So. 1012 (1899).