Court Opinion

ID: 9528430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:41:03.543094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:08.718406
License: Public Domain

*643Shanahan, J.,
dissenting.
Involved in this appeal is a courtroom conundrum: a dismissal order, which expresses no reason for the dismissal, entered in response to a pretrial motion which failed to specify a ground for dismissal.
We start with the established procedural principle: “A pretrial motion to dismiss is not permissible as a pretrial pleading but may sometimes be recognized as a demurrer on stipulation of the parties or by rule of court.” Voyles v. DeBrown Leasing, Inc., 222 Neb. 250, 256, 383 N.W.2d 36, 40 (1986). See, also, Nelson v. Sioux City Boat Club, 216 Neb. 484, 344 N.W.2d 634 (1984); Blitzkie v. State, 216 Neb. 105, 342 N.W.2d 5 (1983). In Bert’s case, nothing indicates that Warren’s dismissal motion attained the stature or character of a demurrer, perhaps because the court sustained Warren’s demurrer to Bert’s last amended petition, leaving no petition pending before the court at the time of Warren’s motion. Whatever may have been the premise for Warren’s pretrial dismissal motion, a basis which appears nowhere in the record, a pretrial dismissal motion is, generally, unavailable under Nebraska’s code of civil procedure.
Without addressing the limited availability of a pretrial dismissal motion, the majority attempts to salvage the dismissal by asserting that the district court’s judgment was correct, although “the trial court announced a wrong reason.” Since the district court expressed no reason whatsoever for the dismissal, Bert’s appeal tests the tensile strength of the preceding principle invoked by the majority for appellate review. For that reason, the majority delves into Nebraska’s civil procedure in search of possible justification for dismissal of Bert’s action.
The majority observes that Bert did not appeal from the district court’s sustaining of Warren’s demurrer on April 28, 1988. Of course, there was not a dismissal at that point; hence, a sustained demurrer, without dismissal of the action, presented no final order subject to appellate review. See, Snell v. Snell, 230 Neb. 764, 433 N.W.2d 200 (1988); Federal Land Bank of Omaha v. Johnson, 226 Neb. 877, 415 N.W.2d 478 (1987); *644Standard Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Meins, 226 Neb. 853, 415 N.W.2d 462 (1987); Koll v. Stanton-Pilger Drainage Dist., 207 Neb. 425, 299 N.W.2d 435 (1980).
Then, the majority chides Bert’s failure to “require Warren to place on the record the reason for the motion to dismiss.” A motion to make an opponent’s motion more definite and certain? That new development, now recognized as a part of Nebraska civil procedure, may turn out to be the greatest innovation since sliced bread. A more likely result, however, will be pettifogging, vaulted to the forefront of a legal system which is supposed to resolve disputes and not, reminiscent of the Jarndyce case in “Bleak House,” prolong a dispute into perpetuity.
Next, although the district court’s dismissal order contains nothing but silence as the basis for dismissal of Bert’s action, the majority asserts that it is “immediately apparent” that dismissal was a sanction for Bert’s “failure to comply with the court’s order” entered on April 28, 1988, that is, dismissal on the basis of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-601(5) (Reissue 1989) (a plaintiff’s disobedience to an order concerning proceedings in an action). However, Warren does not argue that dismissal of Bert’s action was a sanction for disobedience to the order regarding an amended petition within the 2-week period allowed for repleading. In fact, during oral argument in this appeal and in direct response to inquiry from this court, Warren’s lawyer disavowed that the dismissal was a sanction for disobedience to, or failure to comply with, the court’s order concerning Bert’s further pleading. The majority, nevertheless, brushes aside counsel’s acknowledgment concerning the dismissal and concludes that “counsel is in no better position than this court to know the reason for the trial court’s dismissal of Bert’s action.” In that manner, the majority asks: What do lawyers know about cases they try?
Bert’s case involves an appellate exercise in the attempt to ascertain, as the majority concedes, “the reason for the trial court’s dismissal of Bert’s action.” Although the majority has embarked on a journey through Nebraska’s civil procedure to find a sustainable basis for dismissal of Bert’s action, an appellate court should not have to make that trip. In searching *645for an unspecified, but possibly justifiable, basis for sustaining the trial court’s action, an appellate court runs the risk of becoming an advocate in a search for some plausible and valid basis for the very judgment or decision under review. In this appeal, none, except this court, believed and considered that the dismissal order was a sanction pursuant to § 25-601(5). Until the majority’s opinion in this appeal, Bert has never been openly confronted with the sanction issue. Therefore, how do litigants, especially an appellant, present an analysis and argument concerning a generic dismissal motion and a subsequent judgment founded on a secret basis used by the trial court? Truly, the movant and the trial court are “[s]hips that pass in the night,” assuming that court and counsel are even on the same procedural surface. To avoid that situation, there should be a rather fundamental and simple rule: A defendant’s dismissal motion or pleading for dismissal of a plaintiff’s action, when authorized by a statute governing civil procedure or a rule of practice in civil actions, must adequately express a ground which entitles the defendant to a dismissal based on the ground specified. See, McLearn v Cowen & Co., 60 N.Y.2d 686, 455 N.E.2d 1256, 468 N.Y.S.2d 461 (1983); Moravek v. Davenport Community Sch. Dist., 262 N.W.2d 797 (Iowa 1978); Hoyle v. City of Charlotte, 276 N.C. 292, 172 S.E.2d 1 (1970); Bolin v. Anders, 559 S.W.2d 235 (Mo. App. 1977); City Nat. Bank of Miami v. Simmons, 351 So. 2d 1109 (Fla. App. 1977).
A rationale for the preceding rule is readily apparent: An authorized pleading or other recognized and acceptable practice, especially those designed for pretrial disposition of an action without a determination on the merits of a claim, must provide suitable information to the plaintiff so that a procedural deficiency in the proceeding may be corrected or remedied if permissible and possible. Cf., Meyerson v. Coopers & Lybrand, 233 Neb. 758, 762, 448 N.W.2d 129, 133 (1989) (a trial court’s undisclosed reason for sustaining a multiground demurrer “makes it somewhat difficult to identify and analyze the question presented” to an appellate court); Clyde v. Buchfinck, 198 Neb. 586, 254 N.W.2d 393 (1977) (demurrer, containing several grounds, sustained without specification of *646a reason for the ruling). The suggested rule procedurally identifies the dismissal question for a trial court and reduces the likelihood of an appellate court’s advocacy necessarily involved in searching for a justifiable basis which is undisclosed and, therefore, lacking in a trial court’s dismissal order. Without the suggested rule, this court encourages a helter-skelter approach to civil procedure regarding dismissal motions, disorder which will unnecessarily vex courts, both at trial and appellate levels, and thoroughly bewilder litigants.
The district court’s dismissal of Bert’s action is untenable and deprived Bert of the substantial right to a disposition of asserted claims according to law. In short, the district court abused its discretion in dismissing Bert’s action. Therefore, the district court’s judgment should have been set aside and this cause remanded to the district court with direction to reinstate Bert’s action and allow Bert to file the third amended petition.