Court Opinion

ID: 9550437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:35:12.8699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:32.126373
License: Public Domain

MAUGHAN, Justice
(dissenting):
The majority opinion aborts an appeal from a default judgment entered as a sanction under Rule 37, U.R.C.P. The judgment not only dismisses appellants’ complaint against respondent, it also grants respondent, without proof of damages, counterclaim relief in an amount which exceeds $100,000.
The action in which the judgment was entered involves other litigants, and the default judgment does not finally resolve all issues raised by all the pleadings. It nevertheless purports to constitute a full, complete and final disposition of the controversies between appellants and respondent.
The ground on which the majority dismisses the appeal is that the judgment, as it read when the notice of appeal was filed and when the record on appeal was originally transmitted, was not final and appeal-able because it did not contain “an express determination by the court that there is no just reason for delay” and “an express direction for the entry of judgment.” Rule 54(b), U.R.C.P. provides that, unless such a recital is incorporated in a judgment which disposes of fewer than all of the claims in any action, the judgment is subject to revision until all the claims are finally adjudicated.
Before briefs were submitted in this case, an “amended judgment” which includes the requisite Rule 54 recital was executed by the trial judge and transmitted to us by the district court clerk as supplemental record on appeal. The record shows that counsel cooperated in the procedures by which the amended judgment was executed and transmitted. Neither party raised an issue as to the finality of the judgment in written or oral argument.
The majority opinion takes the view that, once a notice of appeal was filed, the district court lacked authority to remedy the above noted defect in the originally transmitted judgment. The opinion cites a number of cases from other states on the jurisdictional point. Without drawing other distinctions between those cases and the one before us, it should be sufficient to observe that none of them treats the application of Rule 75, U.R.C.P., to the situation which confronts us.
Deleting language I consider irrelevant, Rule 75(h) provides:
If anything material to either party is omitted from the record on appeal by error or accident or is misstated therein, the parties by stipulation, or the district court, either before or after the record is transmitted to the Supreme Court, . on a proper suggestion or of its own initiative, may direct that the omission or misstatement shall be corrected, and if necessary that a supplemental record shall be certified and transmitted by the clerk of the district court.
The statement of the majority opinion that the District Courts are without jurisdiction to amend the record after a notice of appeal has been filed is clearly in conflict with the quoted rule. Even after the record on appeal is transmitted, the trial judge may correct any omission or misstatement in it. The kind of omission whose correction is least likely to excite controversy is the *538omission to incorporate in an otherwise final judgment the language Rule 54(b) requires. In this case, for example, it is evident from their conduct that all the parties and the trial judge desire an immediate appellate determination as to the propriety of the sanction in order that the litigation may proceed in an orderly and sensible fashion.
The authority of the trial court to correct and modify the record is limited, but it is not confined to the identification of documents which were a part of the trial record and inadvertently excluded from the record on appeal. In United States v. Mori, 444 F.2d 240 (5th Cir. 1971), one issue was whether the trial judge, even after the filing of a brief on appeal, could correct the record to show that one of his comments made during trial (and shown by the original record on appeal to have been made in the presence of the jury) was in fact made when the jury was not present. The court said:
Subsequent to the filing of defendant’s brief on appeal, the Government petitioned the trial court under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(e) to correct the record to reflect that the challenged comment took place outside the presence of the jury. After hearing arguments by counsel for the defendant and by counsel for the Government, the trial court, without a further evidentiary hearing granted the Government’s motion to correct the record. Defendant objects to the timing of the Government’s motion and the procedure employed to resolve the dispute. These objections are without merit.1
I agree that this Court should not undertake to separately review every trial court order entered en route to final determination of a case, but we should adapt to the realities of litigation and review those judgments which the litigants and the trial judge demonstrate they intend to be final and which are final in substance.
The probable result of this dismissal is that the issue will be presented to us at the conclusion of the trial and will be rebriefed and reargued. If we then modify the summary judgment which is the subject of this appeal, some of the litigants must return to the courtroom and present evidence, perhaps to a new jury, which could as well have been presented in the course of the original trial. The majority’s action is contrary to the desires of the litigants and the trial judge and is unlikely to relieve any strain on trial or appellate court resources.

. Rule 10(e) is in the same language as Rule 75(h), U.R.C.P.