Court Opinion

ID: 9689709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:43:43.044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:51.582564
License: Public Domain

*871PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.1 First, I believe that the court’s elevation of finality over validity is a mistake. I would retain the traditional rule. Further, the court says that the first exception to Section 12 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments “is inapplicable here because it is undisputed that had the appeal been timely filed, the district court had jurisdiction to consider the DNR’s appeal from the Hearings Unit order.” While that statement is true as far as it goes, it ignores the fact that the appeal was not timely filed and the district court did not have jurisdiction to hear an untimely appeal. An untimely appeal is “so plainly beyond the [district] court’s jurisdiction that its entertaining the action was a manifest abuse of authority.”

. If the majority’s procedural analysis is correct and the Bodes did, in fact, bring an improper motion, there is no reason for this court to reach the substantive issues presented.