Court Opinion

ID: 9572034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:37:43.132362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:24.760039
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Presiding Justice,
concurring.
If there is one area of the law where bright line rules are most useful, it is in the area of jurisdiction. A review of the appellate jurisdiction in other states indicates that no other state with an intermediate appellate court gives litigants a right to appeal equity cases directly to the state supreme court.26 This case illustrates why other *751states have rejected the ephemeral dichotomy between equity and law as a basis for defining appellate jurisdiction.
Every effort by this court to define the term “equity case” has proven unworkable. Neither our two appellate courts nor even all the justices on this court can agree on a satisfactory definition. This lack of unanimity means that we often spend more time in routine cases deciding which court has jurisdiction than in deciding which party should win on appeal and why. The disproportionate amount of time spent on resolving disputes concerning appellate jurisdiction creates unnecessary tension between our appellate courts, squanders limited judicial resources, and ultimately harms society by diverting attention from the resolution of more important issues.
The American Bar Association’s Model Judicial Article recommends that states vest their appellate judicial power in two courts: a supreme court and an intermediate appellate court.27 Initial appellate review should ordinarily be before the court of appeals, except for capital cases and a limited number of other matters.28 Under this model, the intermediate appellate court serves primarily as a court to correct error in individual cases and the supreme court functions to interpret and develop case law for general application.29 Thus, this division gives the supreme court the discretion to decide cases involving an issue of first impression, the subject of conflicting authorities, or a matter of importance to the general public or the administration of justice.30
This state needs to move away from its parallel appellate court structure, which is antiquated, inefficient, and confusing, to a two-tier structure where the supreme court functions as a court of last resort. Eventually, I hope that the state bar and judiciary will endorse — and the legislature and voters will approve — the ABA’s recommended model as adapted to the needs of this state. While this proposal would require further expansion or restructuring of the court of appeals, our state’s increased population and resulting demands on our courts justify the change.
Until our state revises the structure and jurisdiction of our appellate courts, however, this court and the court of appeals must continue to struggle with how to define the classes of cases for which the supreme court has general appellate jurisdiction, of which equity *752cases are a small part, and this court must continue to spend most of its time functioning as a court to correct error rather than to develop the law.

 See, e.g., Ala. Code §§ 12-2-7, 12-3-9, 12-3-10 (1975) (giving supreme court authority to address substantial questions of constitutional law, novel legal questions with a statewide effect, utility rate cases, bond validation proceedings, and bar disciplinary proceedings; giving exclusive appellate jurisdiction in all criminal cases to the court of criminal appeals; and giving exclusive appellate jurisdiction in all civil cases involving less than $50,000, administrative agency appeals, workers’ compensation cases, and domestic relations cases to the court of civil appeals); Fla. Const, art. V, § 3 (giving supreme court jurisdiction to hear appeals in death penalty cases, bond validation proceedings, and statewide utility rate cases, when a district court of appeals declares invalid a state statute or a provision of the state constitution or the attorney general requests an advisory opinion, and discretion to review other cases of the district courts of appeal); S.C. Code Ann. §§ 14-8-200, 14-8-210 (Law. Co-op 1977) (giving court of appeals appellate jurisdiction in all questions of law and equity, except final judgments involving a sentence of death, public utility rates, the constitutionality of state laws or local ordinances where the constitutional question is significant, bonds, and elections; giving supreme court discretionary review of court of appeals decisions); Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 16-3-201,16-4-108, 16-5-108 (giving supreme court discretionary jurisdiction to review decisions of the courts of appeal and undecided cases pending in the courts of appeal involving state taxes, the right to hold public office, and issues of constitu*751tional law; giving court of appeals jurisdiction in all civil cases except appeals of certain administrative agency decisions; and giving criminal court of appeals jurisdiction in all criminal cases with a right of automatic appeal to the supreme court in death penalty cases).

 Model Judicial Article § 1 (1995).

 Id. § 2 cmt.; § 3 cmt.

 Appellate Court Performance Standards 1.3 (Nat’l Ctr. for State Courts and Appellate Court Performance Standards Comm’n 1995).

 Standards Relating to App. Courts § 3.10 (c) (1994).