Court Opinion

ID: 9538322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:34:49.825873+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:44.289073
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
The issue presented on this rehearing is whether this Court properly reinstated that portion of the punitive damages awarded by the jury which was remitted by the District Court, in the absence of a cross-appeal by respondent on that issue.
The decision reached in the main opinion purports to rest upon an interpretation of Rules 74(b) and 75(d), Utah Rules of Civil Procedure.1 In my view, this interpretation fails to comport with either the spirit or the letter of the Rules of Civil Procedure.
The main opinion correctly points out that “[t]he main purpose of the adoption of those . . . rules was to provide the simplest and most efficient means of identifying issues and resolving disputes.” To that end, the rules incorporate what is most often referred to as “notice pleading.” As was pointed out by this Court in Prince v. Peterson:2
. the purpose of pleadings is to advise the opponent and give him an opportunity to meet the issues and the contentions (footnote omitted).
When viewed in the light of this purpose- and since Rule 74(b) does not specify when *703a cross-appeal is necessary-it is clear that appellant could not have been surprised, and was in no way prejudiced, by respondent’s attack here on the District Court’s remittitur.
Appellant appealed from the entire judgment, including the award of punitive damages, and so certainly should be considered to have had notice that any, and all, aspects of that judgment were subject to scrutiny on appeal. Indeed, taking the converse of the “notice” argument, since appellant chose to attack the entire judgment, why should respondent have anticipated that a cross-appeal was necessary in order to attack the remittitur, which was a part of the entire judgment? It seems unfair to me that appellant should be able to attack any award of punitive damages and, at the same time, forbid respondent, to attack the District Court’s remittitur of almost four-fifths of the award.
Although the case of San Pedro, L. A. & S. L. R. Co. v. Board of Education of Salt Lake City3 was decided over forty years before the adoption of our present Rules of Civil Procedure, I think the reasoning employed there is equally valid in the present situation.
No doubt, if the moving party appeals from a specific part of the judgment, and the respondent desires matters reviewed that do not come within the appeal as taken by the appellant, then in order to bring such matters to the attention of this court, the respondent is required to take a cross-appeal; but where the whole judgment is appealed from we can conceive of no good reason why a cross-appeal is necessary.
I would affirm this Court’s prior decision in this matter in all respects.
MAUGHAN, J., concurs.

. The dictum in the main opinion citing Moore’s Federal Practice cannot be considered controlling here inasmuch as the Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure there under consideration is not even remotely similar to our rules covering cross-appeals. United States Supreme Court decisions construing the federal rule are thus not only not controlling but are inapposite to the question here considered.

. Utah, 538 P.2d 1325, 1328 (1975).

. 35 Utah 13, 17, 99 P. 263, 265 (1909).