Court Opinion

ID: 9587450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:22:10.020147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:27.538156
License: Public Domain

*310MARTIN, Chief Judge,
concurring in the result.
Although I agree with the majority’s analysis of the issues raised by appellants in this case, in my view the appellants have, by their disregard of the requirements of the Rules of Appellate Procedure, abandoned their assignments of error. The Rules of Appellate Procedure are designed to facilitate appellate review; a party’s failure to observe them frustrates the appellate process and requires the appellate court to expend additional time and resources performing tasks which should have been completed by the party. Thus, our courts have repeatedly held the Rules of Appellate Procedure to be mandatory, not directory, and have warned that such rules must not be disregarded and should be enforced uniformly. State v. Fennell, 307 N.C. 258, 297 S.E.2d 393 (1982) (citing Pruitt v. Wood, 199 N.C. 788, 156 S.E. 126 (1930)). It is as true today as when Chief Justice Stacy wrote:
The work of the Court is constantly increasing, and, if it is to keep up with its docket, which it is earnestly striving to do, an orderly procedure, marked by a due observance of the rules, must be maintained. When litigants resort to the judiciary for the settlement of their disputes, they are invoking a public agency, and they should not forget that rules of procedure are necessary, and must be observed, in order to enable the courts properly to discharge their duties.
Pruitt, 199 N.C. at 790, 156 S.E. at 127.
In my view, the discretionary power to suspend the rules, granted by Appellate Rule 2, is to be used in limited instances where error is so fundamental as to amount to the denial of a fair trial, see Fennell, 307 N.C. at 263, 297 S.E.2d at 394, or where the nature of the rule violation is so technical or minor as to not inconvenience the reviewing court or render appellate review appreciably more difficult. If we were to exercise our discretion and suspend the rules as a matter of course, there would be little purpose in having them and no incentive on appellate litigants to observe them.
For the foregoing reasons, I vote to strike the brief of the defendants-appellants for their failure to observe the requirements of Appellate Rules 26 and 28, to treat their assignments of error as abandoned, and dismiss their appeal.