Court Opinion

ID: 9466221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:08:26.808386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:36.356425
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
The majority’s characterization of appellants’ due process claims, at 414 fails to acknowledge the true nature and seriousness of the claims. On appeal, appellants did not primarily claim “that they did not receive proper notice of the default judgment hearing.”1 Rather, their complaint is *417that the initial trial court excluded them entirely from the default judgment hearing — a hearing at which testimony was received to set the boundaries of the applicable remedies. This claim thus is tied directly to the assertion that the ordered remedy exceeded the complaint’s ad damnum, in violation of Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(c).
The chronology is this: The depositions of the appellants were scheduled for November 2,1971, and appellants’ attorney, Crockett, so informed them by letter. Appellants, who said they had misread the date as November 12, did not appear, although Crockett did. Because of this nonappearance and other alleged dilatory actions, Brown’s attorneys moved to strike the McCormicks’ pleading as a sanction under Fed.R.Civ.P. 37. At a hearing on this motion on November 17, Judge Templar granted the motion and expostulated: “They [the McCormicks] have had an ample opportunity to appear in this Court time after time and they have always been too busy. This Court is too busy to hear them now.” Record, vol. 2, at 22. A further default hearing was necessary because, as Brown’s attorney noted, “Well, it’s a declaratory judgment, Your Honor, and I think I am going to have to put Mr. Brown on to have any kind of record and introduce the leases and so forth.” Record, vol. 2, at 22 (emphasis added). The court then scheduled the default hearing for November 22 and, in response to a question from Crockett as to “what participation they [the McCormicks] can have in your hearing,” the following exchange occurred:
The Court: They won’t have any.
Mr. Crockett: They have no right to cross examine Mr. Brown or anything?
The Court: No. They have had their opportunity for a day in Court and forfeited it in my opinion.
Mr. Crockett: Thank you.
Record, vol. 2, at 24. Thus, as the majority notes, “it is clear that appellants’ attorney had notice of the hearing.” It is also clear that the McCormicks, by their attorney, had notice that the leases would be at issue in the default judgment hearing.2 But the real issue remains: Does total exclusion from a default judgment hearing constitute a due process violation?
The trial court in the instant action refers, at different points in its opinion, to both the November 17 and November 24 hearings as default judgment hearings. Record, vol. 1, at 85, 106. Although “[t]he provision for striking pleadings adds little if anything to the power of the court to dismiss the action or enter judgment by default,” 4A Moore’s Federal Practice H 37.03[2.-5], at 37-71 (2d ed. 1978), when a “two-step procedure” is adopted, we should not ignore appropriate procedural requirements. Therefore, participation at the first hearing should not, by itself, be sufficient to constitute opportunity for participation at the default hearing.
Although I believe the majority inadequately characterizes the issue, I nonetheless, on these facts, concur in the result. I am unwilling to find the earlier judgment void after lawyer Crockett had neither objected on the spot to Judge Templar’s actions nor appealed the grant of default judgment. For most purposes, we must consider the lawyer to be the client’s agent. Unlike the typical default judgment for nonappearance, the McCormicks had been involved in this action, albeit sporadically, from the beginning. Because of Crockett’s testimony in the instant action — that the issue of grazing rights was raised at every court appearance between June 24 and November 17, Record, vol. 4, at 299 — and because of other evidence on the point, the court’s resolution of the Rule 54(c) question is acceptable.

. The district court also characterized the appellants’ claim in this way. Record, vol. 1, at 106. We are not, of course, bound by its characterization.

. The McCormicks do claim on appeal that they had “no notice prior to the Default Judgment Hearing of plaintiffs intent to have the Trial Court determine who was entitled to hold certain mining claims, grazing leases and permits.” Brief of Appellants at 62. Because of Crockett’s participation in the November 17 hearing, this claim is without merit.