Court Opinion

ID: 9535355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:48:19.819556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:13.554338
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that defendant’s appeal is untimely because he failed to file his notice of appeal within 30 days of the entry of the original judgment in this case. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion and analysis.
The trial court entered the original judgment on April 4, 1997. On April 8, 1997, at the state’s request, the court entered an order correcting a mathematical error in the judgment and applying a security deposit to the financial obligation imposed in the judgment. Defendant filed his notice of appeal within 30 days of the amended judgment.
The majority concludes that the corrected judgment merely reflects defendant’s true financial obligation and that defendant’s obligations under the April 4 judgment “could never have been greater than the sum total of the individual money judgments appearing in [that] judgment.” 159 Or App at 432. That conclusion necessarily assumes that the individual amounts listed in the judgment were correct and the final sum incorrect. However, until the court entered the April 8 order correcting the judgment, there was no way to know whether defendant was liable for the amount identified in the April 4 judgment as the “TOTAL MONEY JUDGMENT” or for the amount representing the total of the incremental items listed in the judgment. I am unaware of any authority *434that establishes that, without a change in the April 4 judgment, the state could not have collected from defendant the $2,017.56 that was listed as the total due under that judgment, rather than the $1,963.56 that represents the amount of the listed constituents of that total, so the correction necessarily ensured that defendant would not be required to pay the greater amount. Although $54 may not seem that great a sum, it is, nevertheless, a material alteration of defendant’s obligation determined by the prior judgment. Consequently, consistent with the admonition in Mullinax and Mullinax, 292 Or 416, 431, 639 P2d 628 (1982), that, “[i]n a close case such as this, any doubts should be resolved against such a result as would bar the appellant from an appeal[,]” I would hold that defendant filed a timely notice of appeal from the final judgment in this case. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.