Court Opinion

ID: 9742076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:06:10.99582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:28.429297
License: Public Domain

HARTEN, Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree that the trial court order should be reversed to allow completion of the trial on the issue of priority. Because I believe the trial court correctly allowed the nonappealing lien claimants to benefit from the appeal, however, I respectfully dissent on that issue.
I have no quarrel with this court’s recognition of the general rule that a party who fails to appeal is bound by the lower court’s decision. Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc. v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 354 N.W.2d 111, 113 (Minn.App.1984). Applied to the facts of this case, however, this rule is discordant.
In a prior appeal in this case, we decided that initial excavation work constituted a first improvement under Minn.Stat. § 514.05 (1990). The law allows the perfected lien claimants to tack their liens to the first improvement and become coordinate with it. Id. Thus, the subsequent perfected lien claimants’ positions are derived from the initial work. Any given lien shares functional equality with any and all the others; any foreclosure recovery is shared prorata. Application of the general rule to forfeit the interests of the nonappealing claimants artificially undermines the statutory scheme.
Moreover, the supreme court decision in In re Guardianship of Hudson’s Estate, 235 Minn. 444, 51 N.W.2d 103 (1952) suggests a contrary result. In Hudson’s Estate, the supreme court terminated the interest of a special guardian who failed to perfect an appeal regarding his incurred fees and expenses. 235 Minn. at 452, 51 N.W.2d at 107. The daughter of the ward, who was interested in the residue of the estate, perfected her appeal. The court stated:
[T]he situation [adverse interests of guardian and ward] is not similar to those involving a joint judgment or decree against several parties where the effect of an appeal by one, without concurrence of the others, carries up the whole case so that a reversal inures to the benefit of all. * * *
Ordinarily, an interested party who does not appeal from a judgment or order affecting his rights does not benefit by the appeal of another party likewise affected by such judgment or order, but whose interests therein are different from his.
Id. at 452, 51 N.W.2d at 107-08 (citations omitted).
This is not an ordinary case. The nonap-pealing claimants here should benefit from the appeal because the appeal inexorably “carried up the whole case” under application of Minn.Stat. § 514.05. I would affirm the trial court’s refusal to dismiss the claims of the nonappealing perfected lien claimants.