Court Opinion

ID: 9558363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:08:26.626595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:59.895543
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting from the court’s decision to grant certiorari for review of the certified interlocutory order tendered in this cause.
¶1 The question before the court — certified for our review under the provisions of 12 O.S.1991 § 952(b)(3)1 — is whether contempt will lie for the collection of past due and unpaid support alimony that has been commuted to a judgment at law.
¶2 I recede from the court's decision to grant certiorari. The question certified presents a purely procedural issue. It does not affect (however minimally, tangentially or obliquely) any substantive rights of either the alimony obligee or those of the alimony obligor. Because we are asked to pronounce what methods are the obligee’s due for collection of delinquent support alimony that stands transformed into a judgment at law, no issue on the merits is presented. The question clearly lies dehors this court’s § 952(b)(3) cognizance.2- I would hence deny the petition for certiorari because it tenders for decision a question collateral to the merits of the obligation sought to be enforced in the proceedings below.
I
THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION
¶3 The plaintiff (ex-wife) is the obligee of an order for payment of support alimony, which stands commuted to judgment for the amount of past due and unpaid installments. She instituted contempt proceedings for nonpayment of the delinquent arrearage due for a period between 1990 and 1993. The ex-husband moved in limine for exclusion from the evidence to be offered at trial any delinquent installments which had been reduced to judgment. He argued that a judgment’s enforcement by contempt would offend his constitutional protection from imprisonment for debt. The trial court sustained the ex-husband’s argument, declaring that alimony arrearage, once commuted to judgment, may not be enforced by contempt. It is this ruling that was certified for our review under § 952(b)(3) by the trial judge’s interlocutory order now before us.
II
¶4 THE STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS FOR THE SUPREME COURT’S REVIEW OF A CERTIFIED INTERLOCUTORY ORDER
¶5 A proceeding to review a certified interlocutory order must meet the strictures of 12 O.S.1991 § 952(b)(3)3 and the standards imposed by Rules 1.50-1.56.4 The provisions of § 952(b)(3) plainly require that the interlocutory order certified for our review affect a substantial part of the merits of the controversy.5 First and foremost to be considered here is the question whether this case presents an issue on the merits of the controversy. Unlike the court’s pronouncement today, I would answer this critical question in the negative.
*521III
¶6 THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE LEGAL TERM “MERITS”
¶7 The term “merits” (“on the merits”) arrived in the Anglo-American legal tradition before the end of the writ era.6 When the English pleading, system came to be abandoned during the mid-nineteenth century, “cause of action” replaced the “writ.”7 In the course of this transition from the earlier procedural regime to the latter, “merits” entered legal parlance clothed in a new garb. All issues that address the elements of a “cause of action” and of the available defenses constitute the merits of the case. Once a cause of action has been determined, there can be no issue left for resolution on the merits.8 Pure postjudgment enforcement *522procedure lies dehors the merits.9 This case, which is about a long-adjudged obligation’s methods of postjudgment enforcement, is here for decision on an issue clearly collateral to the interspousal obligation’s merits.
IV
¶8 THE DEFINITION TO BE GIVEN “MERITS” IN THE § 952(b)(3) SENSE MUST ACCORD WITH THAT WORD’S GENERAL MEANING AT COMMON LAW
¶9 The word “merits” has a well-defined meaning in law. What is on or dehors the merits depends on whether the issue at hand affects one or more elements of the claim for relief or those of the defenses that may be interposed against it.10 Neither the title given an instrument by which the issue is tendered nor the stage of the process at which that issue was raised below can conclusively determine whether the question is on or off the merits.11 Issues of fact or law on the merits are typically raised by the pleadings.12 Occasionally, these matters do arise inferentially on motion which, to an untrained eye and sans careful analysis, might eclipse the merit-laden kernel of the allegation.13
¶10 Matters of practice, procedure and evidence are not embraced within the term “merits”.14 They simply do not affect a litigant’s substantive rights in the elements of a claim or defense.15
V
¶11 THE DEFINITION TO BE GIVEN THE TERM “MERITS,” WHICH IS FOUND IN 12 O.S.1991 § 952(b)(3), MUST BE EXACTLY THE SAME AS THAT ACCORDED THE IDENTICAL WORD IN OTHER STATUTORY LOCATIONS
*523¶12 Words in a statute are to be understood in their ordinary legal sense.16 Whenever a statute uses, without defining, a common-law term, it is presumed that the legislature meant that term to have its technical meaning.17 Unless a contrary intention is plainly shown, the meaning of a word is deemed to be the same no matter where it appears in a statutory compilation.18
¶13 We must accept that the word “merits,” which is found in § 952(b)(3), is used there in its technical common-law sense. The same term also is present in other parts of our law’s corpus.19 Among various provisions that bear this word is the savings statute, 12 O.S.1991 § 100,20 which authorizes the recommencement of an. action that failed “otherwise than on the merits.”21 Although the term merits is not defined in § 100, it is apparent from the face of the section’s provisions that it is used there in the strict common-law sense.22 We are duty-bound to confine the meaning of “merits”, found in § 952(b)(3), in the very same manner as that which was developed by our § 100 jurisprudence.23 In short, the court’s construction of *524“merits” — for its application to § 952(b)(3)— must not vary one iota from that word’s meaning elsewhere in Oklahoma’s statutory compilation. Any departure from these strictures would foist upon our law inconsistent and aberrational jurisprudence. Today’s pronouncement is fraught with that flaw.
VI
¶14 ALTHOUGH AN ISSUE ON THE MERITS MIGHT BE TENDERED IN A POSTJUDGMENT PROCEEDING, THIS CASE PRESENTS A POSTJUDGMENT ISSUE THAT IS PURELY COLLATERAL TO THE MERITS OF THE ADJUDGED INTERSPOUSAL ALIMONY OBLIGATION
¶15 The question sought to be presented in this case is not one “on the merits of the controversy.” Instead, it tenders for this court’s review a purely procedural point that arose at the postjudgment enforcement stage of the obligation.24 Practice and procedure govern and define the methods by which the substantive law is effected and enforced.25 Enforcement norms are remedial in nature. They have no bearing on the merits of a controversy,26 The relief sought here clearly falls into the realm of adjective law. It lies beyond this court’s § 952(b)(3) cognizance to review certified issues on the merits of a controversy.
SUMMARY
¶16 The provisions of § 952(b)(3)27 plainly require that an interlocutory order certified for this court’s review affect a substantial part of the merits of the controversy. The court’s power to review certified orders clearly stands confined to those dispositions which deal with issues on the merits of a controversy,28 Inasmuch as the certified postjudgment issue before us today is dehors the merits of the interspousal alimony obligation to be enforced, it does not present a matter within this court’s § 952(b)(3) cognizance. Evenhanded fairness calls for undeviating enforcement of conformity to orderly process.29 Judicial institutions are without power to grant dispensation from jurisdictional prerequisites that are statutorily imposed.30
*525¶17 I would hence deny this petition for certiorari. It tenders nothing that addresses “the merits” of this already-adjudicated alimony obligation. The issue certified for decision affects solely the obligation’s post-decree enforcement.

. The pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 952(b)(3) are:
" * * * (b) The Supreme Court may reverse, vacate or modify any of the following orders of the district court, or a judge thereof: * * ⅞ 3. Any other order, which affects a substantial part of the merits of the controversy when the trial judge certifies that an immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation; provided, however, that the Supreme Court, in its discretion, may refuse to hear the appeal. * * *" (Emphasis supplied.)

. See the text of 12 O.S.1991 952(b)(3), supra note 1.

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 952(b)(3), see supra note 1.

. Rules 1.50-1.56, Rules on Perfecting a Civil Appeal, 12 O.S.1991, Ch. 15, App. 2. After this proceeding was brought, the rules' title was changed, effective January 1, 1997, to Oklahoma Supreme Court Rules.

. Roark v. Shelter Mutual Ins. Co., Okl., 1986 OK 82, 731 P.2d 389, 390 (Opala, J., concurring); White v. Wensauer, 1985 OK 26, 702 P.2d 15, 16; Young v. Oklahoma City, Okl., 524 P.2d 22, 23 (1974); Community National Bank of Warr Acres v. Beasler, Okl, 520 P.2d 813, 814 (1974); Flick v. Crouch, Okl., 434 P.2d 256, 261 (1967).

. For a historical discussion of the writ system and the movement to code pleading, see Fleming James, Jr., Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Civil Procedure §§ 1.3-1.6 at 8-20 (2d ed.1977). The entire procedural regime of the common law was inextricably interwoven with what is called the writ system. A pleader needed first to select a proper writ that would cover the facts upon which relief was sought. It is the selected writ that governed both substantive and procedural aspects of the claim. If the facts (alleged and proved) fell within the scope of the writ and the pleader had followed the required procedures, the relief available under the writ would be granted. Jack H. Friedenthal, Mary Kay Kane, Arthur R. Miller, Civil Procedure 238-39 (2d ed.1993). The authors of the cited treatise note that under the late-nineteenth centuiy procedural reform in both the United States and England, "it was hoped that cases would turn on their substantive merits rather than on the lawyers’ technical and tactical skills, as had been the case under the common law [writ] system”. Id. (emphasis supplied).

. The term "cause of action” is said to refer "to a group of facts that give rise to one or more rights of relief.” Fleming & Hazard, supra note 6, § 2.9 at 75-76 (citing Clark, Code Pleading § 19 (2d ed.1947) and Elliott v. Mosgrove, 162 Or. 507, 93 P.2d 1070, 1072-75 (1939)). In the Friedenthal treatise, supra note 6, § 5.4 at 245, the authors discuss the emergence of two definitions for "cause of action” — the so-called "primary right” and the "aggregate of operative facts” doctrines. The primary right theory, advanced by Professor Pomeroy, relates to the nature of the injury alleged to have been suffered. It focuses on the harm rather than the acts that caused the harm or on the specific remedy — i.e., a person has a primary right to be free from damage to one's real estate, from breach of contract or from injury to one’s character. The aggregate of operative facts theory, crafted by Clark, supra, defines a cause of action not by the substantive law to be applied or the nature of relief sought, or the type of harm suffered, but solely by the events that give rise to a claim or claims for relief. Id. at 245-46. Another author notes that the term cause of action " ‘may mean one thing for one purpose and something different for another. David Mellinkoff, The Language Of The Law 17 (1963) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 279 (4th ed.1951) (emphasis supplied)). The term, he adds, has been held to mean either the facts or the rights. Id. at 296. In Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 237, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 2273, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), the Court notes that by the first third of the twentieth centuiy the phrase "cause of action," had become so "encrusted with doctrinal complexity” that the authors of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure saw fit to eschew it altogether, requiring only that a complaint contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Id., 442 U.S. at 237, 99 S.Ct. at 2273 (citing Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 8(a); Original Ballet Russe, Ltd. v. Ballet Theatre, Inc., 133 F.2d 187, 189 (2d Cir.1943)). The Court observed in Passman that judges and commentators nevertheless "have continued to use the phrase ‘cause of action’ in the traditional sense established by the Codes to refer roughly to the alleged invasion of 'recognized legal rights’ upon which a litigant bases his claim for relief." Id., 442 U.S. at 237-38, 99 S.Ct. at 2273 (citing Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 693, 69 S.Ct. 1457, 1463, 93 L.Ed. 1628 (1949)).

. An issue on the merits contrasts sharply with collateral orders in the federal-law sense. The latter are appealable as final decisions without regard to the mainstream litigation’s posture. To fit within this class an order must dispose of a claimed right that is not an essential ingredient of the main cause and can be considered separately from its merits. Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546-547, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1226, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949); Abney v. U.S., 431 U.S. 651, 659-661, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 2040-2041, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977). Federal jurisprudence teaches that the disposition of an issue falling within the collateral-order exception to the final judgment rule is not a "step toward final disposition of the merits of the case (which would) be merged in final judgment, ” but rather it poses and decides an issue completely collateral to the cause of action that is pressed. U.S. v. Mock, 604 F.2d 336, 339 (5th Cir.1979) (emphasis supplied). A classic example of the collateral order is afforded by Rule 11 sanctions. See Fed.Rules Civ.Proc., Rule 11, 28 U.S.C.A. A Rule 11 order is like the imposition of costs, attorney's fees and contempt punishment. It lies dehors the merits of an action because it decides a collateral issue. The proceeding focuses on abuse of judicial process, and, if that offense be found, on an appropriate sanction to be meted out.

. Roach v. Jimmy D. Enterprises, Ltd., 1996 OK 26, 912 P.2d 852, 854; Flick, supra note 5 at 261; see also, Young, supra note 5 at 23-24; Beasler, supra note 5 at 814.

. See, e.g., Pryse Monument Company v. District Court of Kay County, Old., 595 P.2d 435, 437-38 (1979) (when a case is terminated as time-barred, the disposition is "on the merits” because the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense).

. Roark, supra note 5, at 390 (Opala, J., concurring); see also Neil Acquisition, L.L.C. v. Wingrod Inv. Corp., 1996 OK 125, 932 P.2d 1100, 1104; Tidmore v. Fullman, 1982 OK 73, 646 P.2d 1278, 1283 (Opala, J., dissenting); Flick, supra note 5 at 261. But cf. Kimery v. Public Service Company of Oklahoma, Okl., 562 P.2d 858 (1977).

. The terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 552 provide:
Issues arise on the pleadings, where a fact or conclusion of law is maintained by one party, and controverted by the other. There are two kinds. First, of law; Second, of fact.
Pleadings are defined in 12 O.S.1991 § 2007(A). Its terms are:
A. PLEADINGS. There shall be a petition and an answer; a reply to a counterclaim denominated as such; an answer to a cross-claim, if the answer contains a cross-claim denominated as such; a third-party petition, if a person who was not an original party is summoned under the provisions of Section 14 of this act; and a third-party answer, if a third party petition is served. No other pleading shall be allowed, except that the court may order a reply to an answer or a third-party answer.

. A merit-related issue may inferentially arise on a motion in limine that seeks to exclude evidence supportive of a defense pleaded in the answer. See, e.g., Roark, supra note 5 at 390 (Opala, J., concurring). There, the certified in limine ruling, which in effect struck the defendant's pleaded defense of fraud, raised an issue on the merits that substantially affected the defense. A motion to vacate can inferentially raise, at a postjudgment stage, an issue on the merits. See, e.g., Peralta v. Heights Medical Center, Inc., 485 U.S. 80, 84, 108 S.Ct. 896, 899, 99 L.Ed.2d 75 (1988). There, the Court held that due process of law prohibits a state from requiring defenses to be alleged as a precondition to vacation of a noticeless judgment that had been entered in violation of due process. The Peralta post-judgment question, which addresses a defense to the claim, is clearly on the merits.

. Roach, supra note 9 at 854; Flick, supra note 5 at 261; see also, Young, supra note 5 at 23-24; Beasler, supra note 5 at 814; see also Hayes v. Ricard, 251 N.C. 485, 112 S.E.2d 123, 127 (1960) (a judgment on the merits is "one which is based on legal rights as distinguished from mere matters of practice, procedure, jurisdiction or form, or is a judgment that determines, on an issue either of law or fact, which party is right”).

. Roach, supra note 9 at 854; Flick, supra note 5 at 261; Young, supra note 5 at 23-24; Beasler, supra note 5 at 814.

. The pertinent terms of 25 O.S.1991 § 1 are: "Words used in any statute are to be understood in their ordinary sense, except when a contrary intention plainly appears....”

. City of Muskogee v. Landry, Okl., 567 P.2d 988, 990 (1977); Barton v. Hooker, Okl., 283 P.2d 514, 517 (1955); see also MB Construction Co. v. O'Brien Commerce Center Associates, 63 Wash.App. 151, 816 P.2d 1274, 1276 (1991), citing Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Henneford, 9 Wash.2d 18, 113 P.2d 545, 547 (1941); Richardson v. Doe, 176 Ohio St. 370, 199 N.E.2d 878, 880 (1964).

. The terms of 25 O.S.1991 § 2 are:
Whenever the meaning of a word or phrase is defined in any statute, such definition is applicable to the same word or phrase wherever it occurs, except where a contrary intention plainly appears.

. See, e.g., 12 O.S.1991 §§ 100, 683, 952; 15 O.S.1991 § 761.1(A); 18 O.S.1991 § 1031(C), 23 O.S.1991 § 103, 36 O.S.Supp.1992 §§ 1937, 2020.

. The terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 100 are:
"If any action is commenced within due time, and a judgment thereon for the plaintiff is reversed, or if the plaintiff fail in such action otherwise than upon the merits, the plaintiff, or, if he should die, and the cause of action survive, his representatives may commence a new action within one (1) year after the reversal or failure although the time limit for commencing the action shall have expired before the new action is filed.” (Emphasis supplied).

. In the writ system’s context the word "merits” was often used to set apart case terminations effected for want of jurisdiction (or for some other reasons unrelated to the legal sufficiency of the plaintiff's demand or the defendant’s defense) from cases that failed because of some legal infirmity in the plaintiff’s claim or in the defendant’s attempt to defeat it. The former reasons came to be known as "otherwise than on the merits,” while the latter are called "on the merits.” Pryse, supra note 10 at 437-38. This was the law’s way of separating purely procedural failures from those based on want of a substantive right. Purely procedural failures came to be protected from the bar of res judicata. For historical antecedents that led to the enactment of the original English version of our savings statute, 12 O.S.1991 § 100, see Gaines v. City of New York, 215 N.Y. 533, 109 N.E. 594, 595-96 (1915); Matter of Estate of Speake, 1987 OK 61, 743 P.2d 648, 650.

. The savings provisions in 12 O.S.1991 § 100 are applicable to actions timely filed and later dismissed on grounds dehors the merits of the controversy. Ross v. Kelsey Hayes, Inc., 1991 OK 83, 825 P.2d 1273, 1277. Section 100 is identical in purpose and in form to its English prototype, the English Limitations Act of 1623 (21 Jac. I, c. 16 § 4). If the first action failed on grounds unrelated to the merits of the controversy, the plaintiff was permitted to sue out a new writ — • known as "journey's account”. The purpose of the "journey’s account” was to allow a reasonable time for a "journey” to reach the court to sue out a new writ. Speake, supra note 21 at 650.

. The modern notions of merits traveled along two developmental tracks that were not necessarily connected. Although entirely consistent, these tracks do not appear to have run parallel one to the other. The first track began when writs that failed dehors the merits came to be saved from the effect of res judicata by the English prototype of 12 O.S.1991 § 100, the so-called savings statute. See discussion, supra note 22.The second of these emerged — and was later fine-tuned — when the rigidity of writs (forms of action) was replaced by a structured system of defined theories of actionability, each with a cat-alogue of liability-defeating and recovery-reducing defenses. See Part III of the text, supra. In the following procedural settings the Oklahoma savings statute has been held available to protect the viability of a litigant’s cause of action against the bar of res judicata because the earlier suit's failure was found to have been dehors the merits: (a) dismissal for nonjoinder of a party plaintiff (Haught v. Continental Oil Co., 192 Okl. 345, 136 P.2d 691, 693 (1943)); (b) on voluntary dismissal without prejudice before trial (Powers v. Atchison, *524Topeka & S.F. Ry. Co., Okl., 392 P.2d 744, 745 (1964)); (c) on dismissal for mislaid venue (C &C Tile Co., Inc. v. Independent School Dist. No. 7 of Tulsa County, Okl., 503 P.2d 554, 559 (1972)); (d) on dismissal for lack of jurisdiction (Edmison v. Crutsinger, 165 Okl. 252, 25 P.2d 1103, 1108-1110 (1933)) (a timely-filed federal lawsuit was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction); Williams v. Okl. Nat. Stockyards Co., Okl., 577 P.2d 906, 908 (1978) (a timely-invoked compensation claim dismissed earlier was rested on jurisdictional grounds); (e) on dismissal without prejudice for failure to pay costs (Myers v. First Presby. Church of Perry, 11 Okl. 544, 69 P. 874, 876 (1902)).

. In Passman, supra note 7, the Court distinguished between the concepts of "cause of action” and "relief” awarded:
"/CJause of action is a question of whether a particular plaintiff is a member of the class of litigants that may, as a matter of law, appropriately invoke the power of the court; and relief is a question of the various remedies a federal court may make available." Id., 442 U.S. at 240, n. 18, 99 S.Ct. at 2274, n. 18 (emphasis mine).
Civil contempt is a remedial measure for the enforcement of a judgment. Harber v. Shaffer, 1988 OK 45, 755 P.2d 640, 641; Kelley v. Kelley, 206 Okl. 188, 242 P.2d 439, 441 (1952).

. In Haugens v. Holmes, 314 Ill.App. 166, 41 N.E.2d 109, 111 (1942), the court explained that the purpose of the statute relating to the enforcement of judgments "is remedial and affords a means of collecting a judgment by forcing the sale of the judgment debtor's property, real or personal, or both, to the extent necessary to satisfy the debt and costs.” First Nat'l Bank of Mt. Zion v. Fryman, 236 Ill.App.3d 754, 176 Ill.Dec. 930, 934, 602 N.E.2d 876, 880 (1992). Procedure has been defined as the mode or proceeding by which a legal right is enforced, as distinguished from the law which gives or defines the right. Jones v. Garrett, 192 Kan. 109, 386 P.2d 194, 198-99 (1963); Saylors v. Riggsbee, 544 S.W.2d 609, 610 (Tenn.1976).

. Jones, supra note 25 at 198-99; Saylors, supra note 25 at 610. See also Passman, supra note 7, 442 U.S. at 240, 99 S.Ct. at 2274.

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S. 1991 § 952(b)(3), see supra note 1.

. Beasler supra note 5 at 814; Young, supra note 5 at 23; White supra note 5 at 16; Roark, supra note 5 at 390 (Opala, J., concurring).

. Fundamental fairness cannot be afforded except within a framework of orderly procedure. Pryse, supra note 10 at 438.

. O'Bannon v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 1981 OK 99, 633 P.2d 741, 742.