Court Opinion

ID: 9651424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:19:13.203749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.853911
License: Public Domain

JOHNSEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
Two constructions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, are involved in the majority opinion, which I think should be emphasized.
The first is that where plaintiff’s evidence is insufficient to go to the jury and at *324its close defendant moves for a directed verdict or an involuntary dismissal, and there is nothing to indicate with reasonable probability that plaintiff’s legal situation will be different on a second action, the court has no discretionary power under Rule 41(a) (2) to allow plaintiff to dismiss without prejudice but should terminate the litigation on its merits.1 In that view I concur.
The second construction is that where the court in such a situation has erroneously allowed plaintiff to dismiss without prejudice it may thereafter, not merely set aside the dismissal order and reinstate the action, but also adjudicate the merits of the litigation without further proceedings- and enter a dismissal with prejudice- On that construction, I disagree.
No question exists, of course, as to the power of the court seasonably to set aside its previous dismissal order and reinstate the action. But under the Rules as they stand, I do not believe that the court can in such a situation reach out and automatically recapture its hold upon the proceedings, which the unconditional termination of the trial and the discharge of the jury, without any reservation at the time, seem to me to have wiped out, and to which the order granting leave to dismiss is wholly unconsanguineous.
I can find no recognition in traditional practice of a right to recapture trial proceedings which have been obliterated, whether wrongly or rightly, without any judgment predicated upon them at the time, nor do the Rules make provision for the exercise of any such power. The Rules do provide for two situations in which the court may make a new disposition of a case, by changing the prior judgment on the merits, without" further substantive proceedings. Under Rule 50(b), where the court fails to grant a motion for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence, provision is made for an automatic reservation of jurisdiction to enter judgment notwithstanding the verdict. So, too, in Rule 52 (b), it is provided that, in actions tried upon the facts without a jury, the court may, after entry of judgment, amend its findings or may make additional findings “and may amend the judgment accordingly.’’ But the fact that express provision has been made in these two situations for changing a judgment whose vitality derives from the trial proceedings does not to me argue in favor of the implication of a right to construct an initial judgment upon trial proceedings which have been previously etherealized.
It is my view, therefore, that the trial court erred in undertaking to recapture and enter a judgment on the previous trial proceedings. I think that when the order allowing dismissal was vacated, the action simply stood reinstated upon the docket, subject to further regular proceedings under the Rules. Whether the situation was one that required a new trial, or whether it was one that was subject to disposition in proceedings for summary judgment under Rule 56, can not and need not here be determined- Plaintiff could not at all be bound by the legal effect of her situation on the former trial, if she had since become able to produce further evidence on the issue of the insured’s insanity. Whether she is able to produce any further evidence I do not know, but in any event she is entitled to have that question tested and her consequent rights adjudicated in orderly and recognized proceedings, and not to have disposition made of her action by the telekinetic animation of a dead trial.

 Where it is made to appear that plaintiff’s legal situation probably will be different on another action, the court, of course, does have a discretion in determining whether, on the whole situation, plaintiff reasonably should be allowed to dismiss without prejudice, or whether justice more fairly will be served by terminating the litigation on its merits.