Court Opinion

ID: 9530785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:03:35.863652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:14.712949
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I accede to today’s pronouncement. The court holds that the untimeliness of a counterclaim for an amount exceeding the statutory limit in small claims procedure1 poses no legal impediment to a discretionary transfer of the case out of the small claims docket. I write specially to underscore the conceptual underpinnings of interdocket boundaries and to re-emphasize the fundamental-law analysis that governs interdocket transfers within the district court — an omnicompetent constitutional court of “unlimited” cognizance.2
I.
THE CRITICAL FACTS IN LITIGATION
Small claims plaintiffs appealed from an order vacating the judgment in their favor. The trial judge had concluded he lost “jurisdiction” to transfer the plaintiffs’ small claim when the defendant untimely counterclaimed for an amount exceeding the statutory limit for “suits [which] may be brought under the small claims procedure.” 3 The trial judge’s end-of-the-line ruling which vacates the judgment “withdraws” (or sets aside) the earlier denial of the transfer motion. Pending in the district court at the appeal’s commencement was the plaintiffs’ small claim and the defendant’s counterclaim.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the vacation order and directed that the case be transferred out of the small claims docket. Today’s opinion also affirms. Rather than ordering a transfer, this court’s pronouncement remands the case for reconsideration of the defendant’s transfer motion by according “balance” to the parties’ respective interests. I, too, would remand this cause for another hearing on the defendant’s quest for transfer, but I would explicitly hold today that a trial judge has the power to effect a small claim’s discretionary (nonmandatory) transfer across interdock-et boundaries at any point in litigation when either tenable legal or compelling equitable grounds are found.
II.
MANDATORY AND DISCRETIONARY (NONMANDATORY) TRANSFERS OF A SMALL CLAIM
A small claim may be transferred to another docket of the district court by two specific, statutorily authorized methods. On defendant’s motion that invokes the terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1985 § 1757 4 the ac*592tion may be transferred “in the discretion of the court” on at least 48 hours’ notice given by mail. The other method for effecting a transfer is prescribed by the terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1985 § 1759. The latter provisions require that the case be removed from the small claims docket whenever “a claim, a counterclaim, or a setoff” is for an amount exceeding the statutory limit in small claims procedure (unless otherwise agreed among the parties in writing). When all the in pari materia sections of the Small Claims Procedure Act (12 O.S.1981 §§ 1751 et seq.) are construed together, it is apparent that both transfer methods require the defendant’s transfer request be made “at least” 48 hours before trial.5 Although the defendant in the instant case did so, she had not asserted her counterclaim within the time allowed by 12 O.S.Supp.1985 § 1758. The last cited section requires that a counterclaim or set-off be stated in a “verified answer” and a copy personally delivered to the plaintiff “not later than seventy-two (72) hours prior to the hour set for the [defendant’s appointed court appearance in the] action.”
When denying the defendant’s motion to transfer the trial judge reasoned that since her untimely counterclaim was dismissible, no legal cause existed to remove the case from the small claims docket. It is obvious that the counterclaim’s tardiness was viewed below as an insuperable jurisdictional impediment to the requested removal of the case. This was clear legal error. A district court’s nonmandatory (discretionary) § 1757 transfer of a small claim cannot be viewed as absolutely impeded by legislative time limits. Indeed, interdocket boundaries may never be treated as jurisdictional; they must be accepted as a procedural demarcation line separating different remedial regimes (e.g., small claims, probate, jury or non-jury) or dividing discrete classes of litigation (domestic, civil, criminal or the like).
A mandatory § 1759 transfer, on the other hand, rests upon the presence of specific statutory elements — i.e., the filing of a counterclaim which is both timely and for an amount in excess of the procedural limit for a small claim.6 Mandatory transfers are hence applicable when the explicit statutory requirements are met. Because interdocket boundaries are not rigidly frozen along jurisdictional lines, quests for nonmandatory removal sought by a tardy small claims counterclaimant may not be rejected out of hand without giving due consideration to equitable factors in the case.
III.
DISCRETIONARY TRANSFERS ARE GOVERNED PRIMARILY BY NOTIONS OF FAIRNESS
The judiciary’s constitutional responsibility to apply fair and efficient litigation process cannot be impaired or impeded by statutory enactments. Its obligation of fairness rests on the fundamental law’s due process clause, state and federal, and on the courts’ claim of inherent authority to fashion for dispensation those orderly procedures which are absolutely essential *593in the performance of the judiciary’s constitutionally mandated function of judicature.7
When considering a discretionary transfer quest invoked under § 1757, notions of fairness should be the court’s prime beacon. The statute emphasizes “hardship on the plaintiff, complexity of the case, reason for transfer and other relevant matters.”8 Where, as here, the transfer motion is pressed with a belatedly tendered counterclaim, the trial court should assess, among the “other relevant matters” to be considered, whether compelling equitable considerations favor the removal of the case to another docket. A small claim should be deemed fit for a discretionary transfer if defendant’s tardiness was not brought about by dilatory, vexatious or abusive litigation conduct and no laches be found.9
In sum, all judges of the district court have a constitutionally invested power to transfer cases from one docket to another on any tenable legal or equitable ground shown at any point in litigation. Under no condition may a legislatively imposed procedural time limit on transfer of small claims be perceived as a jurisdictional constraint upon the court.
I join in affirming the judgment’s vacation, although I would prefer that today’s remand be with direction that the defendant’s motion to transfer be reconsidered in light of those standards of fairness in litigation process which are articulated by me in today’s writing.

. See 12 O.S.Supp.1983 § 1751, whose pertinent terms provide:
"The following suits may be brought under the small claims procedure:
“1. Actions for the recovery of money based on contract or tort ... in which the amount sought to be recovered, exclusive of attorneys fees and other court costs, does not exceed One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00). * * *
“ * * * " (Emphasis added.)
The present statutory limit for a small claim is $2,500.00. See 12 O.S.Supp.1989 § 1751.

. See Art. 7, § 7(a), Okl.Const., whose pertinent terms provide:
" * * * The District Court shall have unlimited original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters, except as otherwise provided in this Article, and such powers of review of administrative action as may be provided by statute. * * *" (Emphasis added.)
See also Carter v. Gullett, Okl., 602 P.2d 640, 642 (1979) (Opala, J., dissenting).

. See 12 O.S.Supp.1983 § 1751, supra note 1.

. The pertinent terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1985 § 1757 provide:
“On motion of the defendant the action may, in the discretion of the court, be transferred from the small claims docket to another dock*592et of the court, provided said motion is filed and notice given by the defendant to opposing party by mailing a copy of the motion at least forty-eight (48) hours prior to the time fixed in the order for defendant to appear or answer and, provided further, that the defendant deposit the sum of Fifty Dollars ($50.00) as the court cost.
"The motion shall be heard at the time fixed in the order and consideration shall be given to the hardship on the plaintiff, complexity of the case, reason for transfer, and other relevant matters. If the motion is denied, the action shall remain on the small claims docket. If the motion is granted, the court shall file an order transferring the action from the small claims docket to another docket, and ... the action shall proceed as other civil actions and shall not proceed under the small claims procedure. * * * ” (Emphasis added.)

. Carter v. Gullett, Okl., 602 P.2d 640, 641 (1979); Carter v. Gullett, supra at 642 (Opala, J., dissenting).

. The Small Claims Procedure Act entitles litigants to an accelerated adjudicative mode. The character of the recovery limit for small claims is clearly procedural, not jurisdictional. See 12 O.S.Supp.1983 § 1751, supra note 1.

. Puckett v. Cook. Okl., 586 P.2d 721, 722-723 (1978); Winters v. City of Oklahoma City, Okl., 740 P.2d 724, 729-730 (1987) (Opala, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
My dissent in Carter v. Gullett, supra note 5 at 642-643, strongly counsels against judicial treatment of time limits for interdocket transfers as legislatively erected jurisdictional barriers.
"By our Constitution, Art. 7 § 7(a), the district court is a single, indivisible integrity with ‘unlimited original jurisdiction of all justiciable matters ...If we are to remain true to our fundamental law’s mandate for an omnicom-petent single-level trial court, we cannot regard ourselves free to chop up that tribunal into rigidly divided compartments with tightly restricted inter-divisional movement of cases.” (Emphasis added and citations omitted.) Carter v. Gullett, supra note 5 at 642 (Opala, J., dissenting).

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S.Supp.1985 § 1757 see supra note 4.

. Leave to transfer may be refused for "undue delay, bad faith[,j ... dilatory motive on the part of the movant, ... [or] undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the [transfer]_” See e.g. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 230, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962).