Court Opinion

ID: 9544988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:04:19.646773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:50.893181
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
If the issue on the merits in this case is before the court for disposition, then I agree entirely with the disposition made of that issue by the majority opinion. I am persuaded that it is necessary in our society that the prosecutive discretion of a county attorney should not be inhibited by the potential of civil action in those cases in which convictions are not obtained.
I must dissent, however, from the conclusion that this court had jurisdiction in this appeal. We long have followed the rule that the timely filing of a notice of appeal is essential to vest this court with jurisdiction. We have ameliorated the strictness of that rule, however, by now providing in Rule 2.01, W.R.A.P., that:
“A notice of appeal, in a civil or criminal case, filed prematurely shall be treated as filed on the same day as entry of judgment or final order, provided it complies with Rule 2.02, W.R.A.P.”
In this case the judgment became final 60 days after the filing of the motion which sought relief under Rules 50(b) and 59(f), W.R.C.P., “unless within such sixty (60) days the determination is continued by order of the court.” Rule 50(b) and Rule 59(f), W.R.C.P. I am not persuaded that a Notice of Setting such as that entered in this case is a continuance by order-of the court. On its face it is nothing more than a calendaring order which could be entered by the clerk of the district court upon advice from the visiting judge as to the dates that he would be available. Certainly the docket entries in this case do not reflect any oral order of the court which could serve as a basis for concluding that there was any continuance intended.
A legal fiction is an “Assumption of fact made by court as basis for deciding a legal question. A situation contrived by the law to permit a court to dispose of a matter, though it need not be created improperly; e.g. fiction of lost grant as basis for title by adverse possession.” Black’s Law Dictionary, p. 804 (5th Ed. 1979). I am satisfied that in this instance the majority has structured a legal fiction to permit the significant issue on the merits to be reached. In so doing the effect of an amendment of this rule to take away the power of the parties to stipulate to the extension of time for *1122disposition of such a motion either forthrightly or by inference has been sidestepped very neatly.
I regret that the district courts have been encouraged by this decision to not deal definitively with such matters. While perhaps some responsibility must be cast upon counsel to be sure that their appeals are not lost through inadvertence, in the efficient administration of the business of the court the district judge has a responsibility for either disposing of such motions or entering a clear order continuing the disposition for not more than 30 days. It occurs to me that, based upon the state of the visiting judge’s calendar, the clerk in this instance could have as easily set the hearing for some day more than 90 days after the filing of the motion, and I do not believe that a legal fiction could have been developed to save the matter in that instance. I do agree with Chief Justice Rose’s thought that the continuance of the disposition of such a motion is a matter of judicial discretion which should not in any manner be delegated to the office of the clerk of the district court.
I do have another regret which I will state. During the years that I have been privileged to serve on this court we previously have dismissed appeals because of an untimely notice in circumstances very similar to and certainly analogous to these. I would suppose that every one of those appeals could have been saved by the imposition of some style of legal fiction similar to that invoked here. Yet, if our rules of procedure are sufficiently plastic to permit their adjustment by the imposition of legal fictions then it seems to me they become guidelines only, not rules. As such, their utility would be substantially undermined.