Court Opinion

ID: 9761437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:42:56.571886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:23.759916
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
If I agreed with the majority that this appeal should not be dismissed, I would dissent from that part of the principal opinion upholding the award of punitive damages against appellants for the same reasons stated in my dissent in Hanch v. K. F. C. National Management Corp., 615 S.W.2d 28, 37 (Mo. banc 1981).
Since in my view, however, the appeal should be dismissed, I would retransfer the case to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, for the adoption of that court’s opinion of January 29, 1980, which, in sub-stantia] part and without quotation marks, follows:
Judgment was rendered in this case on September 7, 1978. The judgment became final for purposes of appeal on December 15, 1978, when the court overruled defendants’ timely-filed motion for new trial. Rule 81.05(a). Defendants therefore had until December 26 to file a notice of appeal, Rule 81.04, inasmuch as the 25th was, of course, a holiday. Rule 44.01(a). Defendants’ notice of appeal, however, though dated by defendants on December 20, bears the following stamp from the office of the circuit court: “Filed Dec 27 1978 Joseph P. *59Roddy, Clerk.” A “Memorandum for Clerk” signed by defendants’ attorney bears the identical stamp.
Defendants insist that the notice was in fact received by the clerk on December 20 and admit that they are simply unable to explain the delay in the dating of the document. In support of their argument, defendants have submitted to this court a supplemental transcript, which includes a copy of the circuit court’s minute entry with the added notation “Filed as of December 20, 1978”; and affidavits from defense counsel and an employee of the circuit court’s office to the effect that the notice of appeal was received on December 20.
However, I agree with the holding in the recent case of Rahhal v. Mossie, 577 S.W.2d 143 (Mo.App.1979), that the record may not be impeached by the use of such devices. In that case the court, in a situation identical to that of the instant case, refused to consider similar affidavits and held the appellate court bound by the record as it came before that court. See also the cases cited therein. This case particularly underscores the problems to which this court would open itself by allowing proof of vital facts to be made by such extraneous means: the clerk attested by affidavit some seven months after the filing that she had received a particular document on a particular day. This court should not become a judge of the credibility of affiants and an arbiter of the validity of the record; the record must speak through itself. As noted in Rahhal, supra, 145, defendants could have applied for an order nunc pro tunc to correct the record if it was in error. They elected not to do so. I would therefore accept December 27 as the filing date and would hold defendants’ notice of appeal was not in compliance with Rule 81.04.
In addition, I note that the transcript was filed in the Court of Appeals on March 27, 1979, ninety-seven days after the date on which defendants claim that the notice of appeal was filed. However, the record contains no motion from defendants nor order of the trial court authorizing the filing of the transcript more than ninety days after the filing of the notice of appeal, as required by Rules 81.18 and 81.19. Thus, even if we accepted the claims of defendants-appellants concerning the date of the filing of the notice of appeal, the filing of the transcript was untimely which, in itself, would warrant dismissal of the appeal. Rule 81.04. Cf. Botkin v. Cain, 587 S.W.2d 100 (Mo.App.1979).
I respectfully dissent.