Court Opinion

ID: 9739357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:12:54.732843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:11.787293
License: Public Domain

SHORT, Judge
(dissenting).
While I agree that vicarious official immunity does not bar respondent’s discrimination claims, I respectfully dissent on the non-immunity issues because those issues are not properly before us.
Federal case law on the appealability of orders involving immunity claims may serve as a guide to our interpretation of the right to appeal under our rules of appellate procedure. Cf. Anderson v. City of Hopkins, 393 N.W.2d 363, 364 (Minn.1986) (holding that federal case law “ought to be followed” in interpreting appealability of rulings on immunity of state officials for violations of federal law). Precedent of the United States Supreme Court limits interlocutory review of immunity rulings to cases involving neat abstract issues of law and undisputed facts. Johnson v. Jones, - U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 2158, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995) (quoting 15A Charles A. Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 3914.10, at 664 (1992)).
The conditional adjudication on the statute of limitations issue is subject to modification prior to entry of a final judgment, and the trial court is free to consider the impact of later evidence and rulings. See Minn. R.Civ.P. 54.02 (in the absence of an express determination that immediate entry of final judgment is appropriate, order adjudicating less than complete case “is subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment”). A decision that “is tentative, informal or incomplete” is not appealable. Swint v. Chambers County Comm’n, - U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 1208, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995) (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1225, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949)). The ruling on the statute of limitations is not final, and it is not, on its own, immediately appealable.
The right of a governmental entity to take an immediate appeal on an immunity issue confers no right on other parties to interlocutory review of unrelated rulings not ‘Inextricably intertwined” with the immunity issues. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1212. This court should not “encourage parties to parlay [immunity] orders into multi-issue interlocutory appeal tickets” by extending review to other issues. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1211. Review of the statute of limitations ruling in this case is in no way “necessary to ensure meaningful review of’ the immunity issue and thus, not properly before us. Id. at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1212. I dissent because it is inappropriate to expand the scope of this appeal by extending discretionary review. See McKenzie v. Northern States Power Co., 440 N.W.2d 183, 185 (Minn.App.1989) (declining to expand the scope of discretionary review); Clark v. Monnens, 436 N.W.2d 830, 831 (Minn.App.1989) (same); Karlstad State Bank v. Fritsche, 374 N.W.2d 177, 184 (Minn.App.1985) (same).