Court Opinion

ID: 9748618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:08:03.523434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:37.664970
License: Public Domain

ABRAMSON, J.,
Concurring.
I concur with the majority but acknowledge the dissent’s salient point regarding the finality of judgments. I write separately to emphasize that I view today’s opinion as quite narrow in scope. Simply put, I do not believe that we are opening the floodgates to the unsettling of longstanding final judgments because this case presents an instance of truly extraordinary circumstances, indeed one unlikely to recur often if ever again. The final judgment at issue is not an adjudication on the merits but rather a threshold final judgment, dismissing a case for lack of jurisdiction based on an appellate decision which, unfortunately, misinterpreted a statute that provided for original jurisdiction in the circuit court. While the plaintiffs’ wage-and-hour claims were still pending administratively (a factor of considerable significance in my analysis), the erroneous interpretation of the statute was corrected by this Court in Parts Depot v. Beiswen-ger, supra, giving full recognition to the right that had existed all along statutorily. This unique scenario provided grounds for a CR 60.02(f) motion in the circuit court and, because the circumstances are so clearly extraordinary, our denial of a writ presents no real threat to the finality of judgments generally.
MINTON, C.J., joins this concurring opinion.