Court Opinion

ID: 9635952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:11:00.066758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:39.395043
License: Public Domain

Robert H. Dudley, Justice, concurring. I concur in denying relief to the appellants, but I would do so by dismissing the appeal because the appellants’ abstract is flagrantly deficient. In cases where an appellant has made no meaningful effort to comply with Rule 9 of the Rules of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, it has been our longstanding practice to either affirm or dismiss the appeal without considering the merits. In this case, appellant has made no meaningful effort to comply with Rule 9. The essential facts involved in this appeal are that appellee Twin City Bank loaned money to appellant Forrest City Machine Works, Inc. The loan was guaranteed by Mallard Farms Holding Company and David A. Hodges. Forrest City Machine Works defaulted on the loan, and the bank filed suit. Forrest City Machine Works, Mallard Farms, and David Hodges filed lender’s-liability counterclaims. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Twin City Bank on the counterclaims, and Forrest City Machine Works, Mallard Farms, and David Hodges appeal from the granting of summary judgment. That is all there is to this appeal. Yet, the appellants’ abstract is 1,192 pages long, with much of it being single spaced. To give a graphic illustration of the length of the abstract, is was necessary for the appellants to divide it into five volumes, and the five volumes are approximately five inches thick. While some cases require such a voluminous abstract, this one does not. Rule 9(d) of the Rules of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals provides that the appellant’s abstract should consist of an impartial condensation “of only such material parts of the pleadings, proceedings, facts, documents, and other matters in the record as are necessary to an understanding of all questions presented to the court for decision.” (Emphasis added.) The abstract must be “double spaced, except for quoted material, which may be single spaced and indented.” Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 8(a). The abstract first sets out the pleadings. The first pleading contained in the abstract is the complaint. While there is no appeal from the judgment granted on the complaint, it should have been abstracted, not quoted verbatim over five single-spaced pages. The loan agreement attached to the complaint is quoted in full, and it covers thirty additional pages. It is not necessary to an understanding of the appeal. The answer and counterclaim, which are material, are quoted verbatim in seven single-spaced pages. A motion for summary judgment is copied verbatim. A motion to disqualify counsel, which is not material in any way, is copied verbatim on two single-spaced pages. A motion asking to schedule a hearing in the trial court is quoted. Again, it has nothing to do with an understanding of the issues in this appeal. A memorandum brief to the trial court is quoted in full in single space. It is not a pleading that is material to this appeal. A response to the motion to disqualify is set out in full. It is not material to the issues on appeal. A memorandum brief on the motion to disqualify is quoted in full on single-spaced pages. Twin City Bank’s motion for summary judgment is set out. It is material and is properly included in the abstract. However, immediately after the motion, there appears a verbatim copy of the brief in the trial court in support of the motion. The trial brief is not a pleading that is material to this appeal. An immaterial objection to the form of an order is set out in full, and a brief in support of the response to the motion for summary judgment is quoted verbatim over six and one-half single-spaced pages. Neither of those is properly included in the abstract. An immaterial order scheduling a hearing is set out. Another copy of a brief to the trial court is set out in full. It is not a pleading material to the issues on appeal. A hearing on various motions was held by the trial court. At that time, the trial court heard only argument of counsel; there was no testimony. Yet, the complete copy of the transcript of the hearing is quoted verbatim on twenty-four single-spaced pages. It is not abstracted in any way. Its length in pages is condensed only by converting the double spacing of the transcript to single spacing in the abstract. Additional parts of the immaterial motion to disqualify are quoted. An amended answer and counterclaim are quoted. They are material, but the pages quoted verbatim are single spaced. A motion of Robert A. Mosbacher, Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, to substitute as plaintiff and his brief thereon are quoted in full. A motion to strike the Secretary’s motion is quoted in full. Again, none of this is material to the appeal. A brief by the Secretary of Commerce is quoted in full over nine single-spaced pages, and the exhibits to the brief are quoted. Again, it is not material. The first condensation, or abstract, does not begin until page 165, and it is the condensation of a deposition. However, much of it is not material to the appeal. Another hearing was held on January 24,1991. Again, there is no condensation of the proceeding. Instead, there is a verbatim single-spaced copy of the transcript. Pages 346 through 375 contain a verbatim single-spaced copy of a transcript of a hearing in federal district court. Pages 388 through 404 consist of a single-spaced verbatim copy of the Secretary of Commerce’s response to a motion for summary judgment made by Forrest City Machine Works, Mallard Farms, and David Hodges. Again, this has nothing to do with this appeal. Pages 404 through 634 are verbatim copies of partial transcripts from the federal district court. There is no condensation, or abstract, of this 230 pages of testimony taken from a transcript,- and it is all single spaced. Pages 635 through 717 are single-spaced verbatim responses to interrogatories. Almost none of the responses have anything to do with the issues on appeal. For example, twenty-one of the pages of the responses are listings of potential witnesses who might be called if the case had been tried. Pages 980 to 992 consist of a verbatim copy of the Secretary of Commerce’s response to Forrest City Machine Works’s, Mallard Farms’s and David Hodges’s motions for summary judgment. Again, this is immaterial to this appeal in which Forrest City Machine Works, Mallard Farms, and David Hodges are appealing from the summary judgment dismissing their counterclaim for lenders’ liability against Twin City Bank. Pages 995 through 1051 contain a single-spaced reproduction of the transcript of a hearing held on August 22, 1991. The transcript is the redaction of the oral arguments made by counsel. It does not include any testimony, and is not necessary to an understanding of the case. Pages 1065 through 1073 contain a verbatim copy of a motion by the Secretary of Commerce, and, again, it is immaterial. Pages 1077 through 1100 are a verbatim single-spaced copy of the transcript of another hearing in the federal district court. The hearing is material, but none of the transcript is abstracted. The only condensation is in the number of pages, but this is done by converting the abstract to single-spaced pages. Pages 1106 through 1116 contain verbatim copies of motions by the Secretary of Commerce. Most of the remaining pages of the abstract contain verbatim quotes from trial briefs and are not pleadings necessary to an understanding of the issues on appeal. In summary, the bulk of the material contained in the abstract is not necessary to an understanding of the issues on appeal. Rule 9(d) mandates that an abstract be of only such material parts of the pleadings, proceedings, facts, documents, and other matters in the record as are necessary to an understanding of the questions presented to the court for decision. Most of the abstract is single spaced, and our rule requires that it be double spaced, except for quotations, which must be indented. Finally, very little of the record is truly abstracted. The transcripts of testimony from various courts are not abstracted. They are quoted verbatim single spaced. The only abstract of testimony in the first person is contained in the abstract of two depositions, but those depositions are of questionable materiality. It is true, as set out in the majority opinion, that there was some condensation of the record because the original record, including exhibits, ran slightly over 3,500 pages, while the abstract covers 1,192 pages. Nevertheless, although it is also true that some matters have been omitted from the abstract entirely, there was no reasonable basis for including those matters in the first place, and much of the significant reduction in the number of pages was the result of single spacing the abstract in violation of our rules. Other condensation was the result of including more documents on one page in the abstract than in the record. For example, if there were two letters in the record that covered a page and a half each, those two letters would take up four pages in the record. However, appellants included the letters in the abstract without any space between them so that they would only take up three pages. That is not the type of condensation contemplated by Rule 9. The appellants simply made no meaningful effort to comply with Rule 9. Their abstract is flagrantly deficient, and I would follow our longstanding practice and dismiss their appeal. Similar cases in which we have dismissed the appeal are the following: Rose City Property Owners’ Ass’n v. Thorne, 299 Ark. 29, 770 S.W.2d 655 (1989); Coffelt v. Arkansas State Highway Comm’n, 289 Ark. 348, 712 S.W.2d 283 (1986); Oaklawn Jockey Club, Inc. v. Jameson, 280 Ark. 150, 655 S.W.2d 417 (1983); Harris v. Arkansas Real Estate Comm’n, 274 Ark. 537, 627 S.W.2d 1 (1982); Gray v. Ouachita Creek Watershed Dist., 239 Ark. 141, 387 S.W.2d 605 (1965). Aside from the obvious reason for this concurring opinion, there are underlying reasons. First, if each judge on this court is to be able to read all of the briefs submitted to us each week, we must enforce Rule 9. It took about twelve hours to read the abstract and the briefs in this case, and this case was only one of nine that were submitted on one particular submission date. If the abstracts submitted in the other cases had also been flagrantly in violation of the rule, we could not possibly have had a multi-judge review of each case, and a multi-judge review is the very foundation of our appellate review system. Second, courts do a disservice both to the public in general and to the members of the bar when we fail to hold practicing lawyers to a high standard of professional service. In the past, we have tried to hold practicing lawyers to such a standard. Third, Rule 9 and its predecessor rules have been with us for many years. It is not a new rule. The majority opinion does a disservice to those practicing lawyers who have met the standard over the years, and it does an injustice to those lawyers who have previously had their cases dismissed for failure to comply with Rule 9. Accordingly, I wish to disassociate myself from the last sentence of the majority opinion. I would dismiss this appeal because of a deficient abstract.