Court Opinion

ID: 9448149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:24:23.932571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:18.641066
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
A problem of jurisdiction, not heretofore mentioned during the course of this appeal, has been brought to our attention in petitions for rehearing.
In the court below this case was submitted to the jury on special interrogatories. The answers of the jury were such as to require judgment for the defendant United States Lines Co. on the principal claim. With the United States Lines Co. thus relieved of liability, it followed as a matter of course that the claim of the United States Lines Co. against Hogan for indemnity became groundless. Accordingly, on April 25, 1960, the trial judge filed a single order, entered by the clerk the following day, that “judgment is hereby entered in favor of defendant, United States Lines Company, in the original action, and against plaintiff, William Knox, with costs to the defendant, and the third-party action between United States Lines Company and T. Hogan Corporation is hereby dismissed”.
Within ten days thereafter, the plaintiff filed a proper motion for a new trial on the principal claim and the same day the United States Lines Co. filed a precautionary motion “to set aside the judgment of dismissal entered in the third-party action and to grant a new trial in the said third-party action, in the event that a new trial is granted in the original action”. In due course the court denied plaintiff’s motion for a new trial on *360the principal claim. Perhaps through inadvertence, perhaps because United States Lines requested a new trial on the third-party claim only if a new trial should be granted in the original action, no order was made disposing of the motion for a new trial of the third-party claim. This undecided motion is now called to our attention for the first time as the basis for an argument that the judgment below lacked appealable finality.
It is clear that when the timely motions for new trials were filed the judgment of April 25th on the claim and the third-party claim ceased to be final. Moreover, the disposition of only one of these motions could not make the judgment on either claim final because, under Rule 54(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., in litigation involving multiple claims judgment on one claim cannot become final until' final disposition of all claims. The undecided motion for a new trial prevents the judgment on the third-party claim from being final and under Rule 54(b) the pendency of the third-party claim prevents judgment on the principal claim from being final. Although the foregoing analysis is highly technical, we think it is unavoidable and controlling. It follows that we lack jurisdiction to entertain this appeal.
At the same time, it seems proper to point out the situation that will exist after this appeal is dismissed. When the case is returned to the District Court the judgment on the principal claim and the judgment on the third-party claim will both lack finality because of the pendency of the motion for a new trial on the third-party claim. It will, therefore, still be within the power of the District Court to reconsider its judgment on both claims and to grant new trials, if it shall deem such action proper. Although the views prematurely expressed in our original opinion on this appeal will have no binding effect upon the trial judge, he may properly consider whether the reasoning in that opinion has merit when he decides whether to grant new trials on the claim and the third-party claim.
After due consideration of the new matter raised in petitions for rehearing it is hereby ordered that the judgment of reversal, requiring new trials in this case, shall be vacated. Thereafter, this appeal shall be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.