Court Opinion

ID: 9786517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:57:18.915199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:46.056396
License: Public Domain

OPALA, V.C.J.,
with whom LAVENDER, J., joins, dissenting in part.
I concur in today's dismissal of this appeal which is prosecuted from a nonap-*607pealable mid-litigation ruling as well as in the court's refusal to declare the controversy in suit dismissible for mootness; I dissent from the court's pronouncement of its "ancillary" writ's command that conditionally prohibits the trial court's enforcement of the latter's own writ of mandamus whose effectiveness is presently suspended by a pre- or midappeal nisi prius order. In advance of its final disposition of a cause, a district court is utterly free to entertain quests for modification (or vacation) relief as well as to allow amendments to the pleadings on file LCR, Inc. v. Linwood Properties, 1996 OK 73, 918 P.2d 1388, 1392; Johnson v. Johnson, 1983 OK 117, 674 P.2d 539, 543. In the absence of a demonstrated jurisdictional infirmity or of some threatened use of unauthorized judicial force, the trial court's freedom to exercise a broad range of plenary control over all interlocutory rulings may not (and should not) be restrained by this court's midstream interference. Heffron v. District Court Oklahoma County, 2003 OK 75, 77 P.3d 1069, 1073. The exceptional factors for triggering this court's writ power are absent here. There is absolutely no showing of a need for anyone's protection from the threat of judicial usurpation of power. Post-termination stages of this original proceeding should hence be charted solely by the adversary parties' chosen course.