Court Opinion

ID: 9785336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:18:40.497606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:16.551991
License: Public Domain

HOWARD, Judge,
dissenting.
¶ 60 I must respectfully dissent from the majority because only the legislature can change a statute and only the supreme court can change its interpretation of a statute. Under the current state of the law, this court does not have jurisdiction over this appeal from the trial court’s civil contempt order issued under A.R.S. § 12-864.16
¶ 61 “ ‘[T]he right to appeal exists only by force of statute.’ ” Osuna v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 214 Ariz. 286, ¶ 9, 151 P.3d 1267, 1270 (App.2007), quoting Cordova v. City of Tucson, 15 Ariz.App. 469, 470, 489 P.2d 727, 728 (1971) (alteration in Osuna). In Ex parte Wright, 36 Ariz. 8, 13, 281 P. 944, 946 (1929), our supreme court said: “Cases falling within section 4474 [now A.R.S. § 12-864] ... must be governed by the ‘practice and usage of the common law.’ According to such practice and usage the contemnor is not entitled to a jury trial nor to an appeal or to bail.” See also Van Dyke v. Superior Court, 24 Ariz. 508, 537, 544, 211 P. 576, 585-86, 588 (1922). Additionally, in State v. Mulligan, 126 Ariz. 210, 216, 613 P.2d 1266, 1272 (1980), the court stated: “We find no authorization for such an appeal from the contempt charges, either by statute or rules of this court. Findings of contempt are non-appeal-able orders.”
*158¶ 62 We have no authority to ignore or alter supreme court pronouncements. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc. v. Dep’t of Corrs., 188 Ariz. 237, 241, 934 P.2d 801, 805 (App.1997). Section 12-864 still contains the same language requiring that contempt cases be governed by the “practice and usage of the common law.” And the contempt statutes still do not explicitly provide for an appeal from civil contempt, although they do provide for an appeal from criminal contempt. See A.R.S. §§ 12-861, 12-863. Therefore, according to the binding precedent in Wright, which has never been overruled, the legislature has specifically provided that no appeal will lie from a civil contempt order.
¶ 63 The order here determines a party’s liability, and it has Rule 54(b), Ariz. R. Civ. P., language making it proeedurally a final order. Most final orders are substantively appealable pursuant to A.R.S. § 12-2101(B), and interlocutory orders determining a party’s rights may be appealable under § 12-2101(G). But a specific statute controls over a general statute. See La Canada Hills Ltd. P’ship v. Kite, 217 Ariz. 126, ¶ 9, 171 P.3d 195, 198 (App.2007). By requiring civil con-tempts to be “punished in conformity to the practice and usage of the common law,” § 12-864, the legislature has specifically directed that such contempt orders are substantively not appealable. See Wright, 36 Ariz. at 13, 281 P. at 946. Accordingly, the general appeal statute cannot confer substantive appealability on an order that the legislature has specifically determined is not subject to appeal.
¶ 64 Moreover, the general appeal statute, § 12-2101, existed in its present form when the supreme court issued Mulligan. The supreme court did not say that, if a contempt order was case-dispositive, it was exempt from the broad language that “[fjindings of contempt are non-appealable orders” and was instead governed by the general appeal statute. Mulligan, 126 Ariz. at 216, 613 P.2d at 1272. And I do not see how the nature of the sanction imposed by the nonappealable contempt order can invest this court with jurisdiction the legislature has withheld. Additionally, as stated above, we have no power to ignore or alter supreme court pronouncements. See Phoenix Newspapers, 188 Ariz. at 241, 934 P.2d at 805. Nor can we guess how that court might resolve an issue in the future. See State v. Keith, 211 Ariz. 436, ¶ 3, 122 P.3d 229, 230 (App.2005).
¶ 65 I would dismiss Green’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction and, therefore, I dissent.

. The majority points out some ambiguity in the record as to whether the trial court's order was a contempt order under § 12-864 or a discovery sanction. Supra, ¶ 11. But Green himself argues on appeal that the order was a contempt order governed by § 12-864. Moreover, as the majority later discusses, the orders that Green violated were not discovery orders. Supra, ¶¶ 27-29.