Court Opinion

ID: 9568611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:05:41.49755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:50:40.018517
License: Public Domain

HANSEN, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I strongly dissent to the majority’s gratuitous granting of Fidelity’s Petition for Rehearing of this Court’s opinion previously issued. Not only does the majority’s new opinion change nothing in respect to the relief granted Fidelity in the original opinion, it completely emasculates the orderly course of appellate procedure. In addition, it does not even touch on the merits of Janet’s appeal.
The majority misuses the vehicle of rehearing to grant relief which is not only improper, but for which no request is before this Court.1 In its Petition for Rehearing, Fidelity asks only that [1] “The judgment of the trial court against F & G Life should be vacated” and [2] “The award of the trial court of post-judgment attorney fees should be heard by this Court”. No other party asked for rehearing. The majority goes well beyond Fidelity’s requests to hold, contrary to the holding of the initial opinion, that the entirety of the trial court proceedings are a nullity.
Fidelity was not entitled to any relief on its Petition for Rehearing. In support of its first contention in that petition, as stated above, Fidelity notes this Court’s initial opinion directed the trial court to allow Fidelity to pay the proceeds of the controverted insurance policy into court and then to discharge Fidelity from the action. Fidelity, however, goes on to assert “this Court also affirmed the trial court’s judgment in favor of Marie Stanford and against [Fidelity]”. That assertion is patently incorrect. The initial opinion held, in the clearest language: Those portions of the trial court’s judgment denying Fidelity’s request for inter-pleader and entering judgment against Fidelity are REVERSED. (Italics added).
The foregoing language regarding the judgment against Fidelity is unambiguous and in no need of clarification. I can only *357surmise Fidelity did not carefully read the initial opinion before it submitted the foregoing request for relief on rehearing.
While the majority did not substantively and directly address Fidelity’s second proposition in its Petition for Rehearing, the majority did effectively grant Fidelity relief from the trial court’s attorney fees award by vacating the award. The majority should not do implicitly what is explicitly unsupportable. Fidelity was not entitled to appellate relief from the attorney fees award because its Amended Counter-Petition in Error addressing that issue was not timely filed. This is fatal to consideration by this Court. As held in the initial opinion, that question is disposed of by the Supreme Court’s holding in Thompson v. Independent School District No. 94, 886 P.2d 996 (Okl.1994).
Additionally, the initial opinion directed the parties’ attention to Thompson for the effect on an attorney fees award based on prevailing party status in circumstances such as found in this case. Thompson, at 998, holds that where an appellate court refuses to take cognizance of a post-judgment decision on attorney fees and costs, “the award, ..., must await merits consideration of the appeal to stand or fall depending on ultimate prevailing party determination”.
When the judgment against Fidelity was reversed in the initial opinion, Marie was no longer the prevailing party as to Fidelity, and the attorney fees award fell, as a matter of law. Fidelity was not entitled to have its attorney fees arguments considered by this Court because of untimeliness, but it further suffered no harm by this Court’s refusal to consider that issue. For both reasons, Fidelity was not entitled to relief on rehearing with respect to the attorney fees award, and that proposition could not provide a basis for the majority’s decision to grant rehearing.
No party has asked this Court to grant the relief the majority grants. The majority, in almost the identical language used in the initial opinion, first reverses the trial court’s order with respect to Fidelity’s interpleader. In that respect, the majority adds nothing to the initial opinion other than unnecessary additional legal authority.2 The majority then, however, finds the trial court’s denial of interpleader fatally affected all subsequent proceedings. The majority cites no legal authority which supports that result, and no party has propounded that proposition.
I see no reason why this single error of the trial court should vitiate the entire proceedings. An interpleader action involves two successive litigations — the first between the plaintiff in interpleader and the defendants as to whether the defendants shall inter-plead, and the second between the different defendants in interpleader on the conflicting claims. Turman Oil Co. v. Lathrop, 8 F.Supp. 870 (N.D.Okla.1934). Most desirably, the trial court will recognize the merit of an interpleader petition at a point in the litigation where the process may be properly bifurcated. Nonetheless, I find no authority that absolutely precludes the trial court from considering both the interpleader and the conflicting claims at the same time. That is what the trial court did in the present case. The trial court’s reversible error was in not first determining Fidelity could interplead Marie and Jane, with the concomitant discharge of Fidelity.
All the issues between the conflicting claims were properly framed just as they would have been if the trial court had first followed the correct interpleader procedure. The conflicting parties were allowed to present their motions for summary judgment and to fully respond to the respective motions. While I agree with the majority’s view that the trial court abused its discretion by not allowing Fidelity to interplead, as we held in the first opinion, this Court is not compelled to remand, and no useful purpose will be served by remanding the conflicting claims to the trial court to try a second time.
The trial court, after affording the conflicting claimants full opportunity to present their cases, made its decision. This Court, in the initial opinion, determined that the trial *358court, on the record before it, did not err in deciding who was entitled to the funds in controversy. There is no reason to believe the trial court will, sua sponte, come to a different conclusion if the conflicting claims are remanded to it. Therefore, in the interest of judicial economy, not to mention the litigants’ loss of time and expense, this Court should deny Fidelity’s Petition for Rehearing and allow the matter to proceed as it was initially decided. See, 21st Century Investment Co. v. Pine, 734 P.2d 834 (Okla.App.1986).

. The appellate courts of this jurisdiction do not have the authority given the trial courts, by 12 O.S. Supp.1994 § 1031.1, to correct, open, modify or vacate a judgment on their own initiative.

. I note from the Petition for Rehearing and Marie Stanford’s response to that petition that the trial court has already entered an Order of Interpleader, Fidelity has paid the controverted funds into court and Fidelity has filed a motion in the trial court to exonerate its supersedeas bond.