Court Opinion

ID: 5149180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-02 01:48:50.879565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:51:15.537661
License: Public Domain

¶ 1 At the core of today's order lies a fallacious analysis. There is absolutely no legal barrier to the court's voluntary utilization of the Pleading Code. 12 O.S. 1991 §§ 2001[12-2001] et seq. It is not
because § 2004.1 is in the Pleading Code that the referee erred insanctioning — in this case — that section's regime for issuing and serving subpoenas by lawyers. Rather, the use of the §2004.1 method was impermissible because the court's order of reference — the very source of authority whence the referee draws power for the conduct of this proceeding — mandates that compulsory processbe issued by him. He was powerless to change the court's explicitly directed regime by transfering his own authority over process to the lawyers in the case. Delegata potestas non potest delegari — one to whom authority stands delegated may not, without specific empowerment, re-delegate it to another. Bushert v. Hughes, 1996 OK 21,  912 P.2d 334, 339; New Orleans v. Sanford, 69 So. 35, 41, 137 La. 628. The essence ofinfirmity we now address is neither in the § 2004.1's location aspart of the Pleading Code nor in the appropriateness or inappropriatenessof its process-issuing and -serving regime. That infirmity is solely inthe referee's exercise of authority dehors the limits of the referenceorder's four corners.
¶ 2 I concur only insofar as the court determines that process issued, served and disobeyed was ineffective and a new command must hence come forth to the three witnesses to be affected by today's instructions.