Court Opinion

ID: 9693778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:59:58.033751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:50.321835
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS, Justice,
concurring.
*226Although I agree with the result and with virtually all the reasoning expressed in the majority opinion, I write separately because I do not agree that it would have been “[in-jappropriate for the trial justice to award [the plaintiff Direct Action for Rights and Equality] DARE more relief than it sought.” This proposition appears to me to be at odds with the mandate of Rule 54(c) of the Superi- or Court Rules of Civil Procedure, requiring every final judgment to grant whatever relief a prevailing party is entitled to obtain— notwithstanding his or her failure to seek that specific remedy in the complaint.
Rule 54(e) provides in pertinent part as follows:
“Except as to a party against whom a judgment is entered by default, every final judgment shall grant the relief to which the party in whose favor it is rendered is entitled even if the party has not demanded such relief in the party’s pleadings.” (Emphasis added.)
Here DARE’s complaint demanded judgment in the form of (among other things) a court decree ordering disclosure of certain records, money damages, and “any other relief this court deems just and proper.” The majority concludes that the trial justice could not award DARE a judgment on the constitutionality of certain aspects of the Access to Public Records Act because, among other reasons, DARE never sought such a remedy. I agree with the majority that the trial justice in this particular instance was not entitled to pass on the constitutionality of this act because the parties were barred from doing so after having relied upon the validity of the statute in seeking these records from the city.5 But I disagree with the general proposition that it would have been “[in]appropriate * * * to award DARE more relief than it sought.” Rather, as I explain below, I believe that DARE’s general prayer for relief (that is, a request for “any other relief this court deems just and proper”) would have permitted the trial court to award DARE relief not specifically requested if it was otherwise entitled to obtain such relief and that, in any event, a trial justice could have awarded such other relief notwithstanding DARE’s failure to request it specifically in its pleadings.
“Courts are traditionally encouraged to adjudicate the basic legal claim, even where the plaintiff has failed to seek the precisely correct relief but has instead relied on a general request for ‘other appropriate relief.’ ” Doe v. United States Department of Justice, 753 F.2d 1092, 1104 (D.C.Cir.1985); see also United States v. Marin, 651 F.2d 24, 30-31 (1st Cir.1981). Unlike Thomas R.W. v. Massachusetts Department of Education, 130 F.3d 477 (1st Cir.1997), the case at bar does not involve a situation in which a plaintiff is attempting to avoid mootness by newly proffering a claim for a different form of relief on appeal when the original claim for relief has since become moot and no longer forms the basis of a live controversy. Id. at 480 (despite general prayer for relief, plaintiff’s prayer for reimbursement — raised for the first time in an appellate-reply brief — does not save case from its otherwise moot status). Simply put, DARE is not attempting to “ex-tracte ] [a prayer for specific relief not pleaded in its complaint] late in the day from [a] general prayer for relief * * * solely to avoid otherwise certain mootness.” Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, ——, 117 S.Ct. 1055, 1070, 137 L.Ed.2d 170, 195 (1997) (disallowing plea on appeal for nominal money damages when the plaintiff’s changed circumstances mooted the claims stated in her complaint).
In other words the failure of a pleading to demand a particular kind of relief does not preclude a trial court from awarding any remedy that the plaintiff is otherwise entitled to receive “because Rule 54(e) commands the granting of any appropriate relief.”6 10 *227Moore’s Federal Practice § 54.70[1], at 54-125 (3d ed. 1998). (Emphasis added.) Moreover, because a court may grant any relief to which a complainant is entitled “even if the party has not demanded such relief in the party’s pleadings,” see Super.R.Civ.P. 54(c), “a failure to demand the appropriate relief will not result in a dismissal. The question is not whether.plaintiff has asked for the 'proper remedy but whether he is entitled to any remedy.” 10 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure: Civil 2d § 2664, at 153-54 (2d ed. 1983). (Emphasis added.) See also 1 R. Kent, R.I.Civ.Prac. § 12.9, at 114 (1969) (“[t]he complaint should not be dismissed because its allegations do not warrant the type of relief demanded if they do support the granting of some relief’).
The relief available to DARE was a question to be decided not by the specific relief DARE sought in its complaint but rather by the types of relief, if any, DARE was entitled to obtain based upon the relevant factual circumstances and the applicable substantive law. See 10 Moore’s Federal Practice, § 54.72[l][a] at 54-132.

. Because the constitutional aspect of the trial justice’s opinion was a separate substantive issue that was neither raised nor litigated by the parties below, I believe that Super.RXiv.P. 54(c) creates no right to relief premised on that issue. "A substantive law restriction on the available relief must be respected; relief beyond that authorized by the substantive law may not be awarded under Rule 54(c).” 10 Moore's Federal Practice § 54.72[2], at 54-137 (3d ed. 1998).

. See also Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 66, 99 S.Ct. 383, 387, 58 L.Ed.2d 292, 299 (1978) (although claims lacking sub*227stantive merit should be dismissed, omissions in a prayer for relief do not bar redress of meritorious claims); 10 Moore's Federal Practice, § 54.72[l][a] at 54-130 ("available relief is determined by the proof, not by the pleadings, and it is the duty of the court to grant all relief to which a party is entitled on that proof").