Court Opinion

ID: 9563621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:43:32.443114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:58.329190
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, V.C.J.,
dissenting.
¶ 1 I respectfully dissent because the position taken by the majority is contrary to the language of new 12 O.S.Supp.1997 § 990A, and under that section the appeal was timely brought. Appellees moved to dismiss this appeal as untimely because they had mailed a copy of the journal entry to appellants within three days of the date the journal entry was filed in the trial court. But they had neglected to file a certificate of mailing in the trial court until some months later. Appellees argued that Appellants did not comply with the thirty-day period to commence an appeal as required by § 990A. The statute states in part:
A. An appeal to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, if taken, must be commenced by filing a petition in error with the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma within thirty (30) days from the date a judgment, decree, or appealable order prepared in conformance with Section 696.3 of this title is filed with the clerk of the trial court. If the appellant did not prepare the judgment, decree, or appealable order, and Section 696.2 of this title required a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order to be mailed to the appellant, and the court records do not reflect the mailing of a copy of the-judgment, decree, or appeal-able order to the appellant within three (3) days, exclusive of weekends and holidays, after the filing of the judgment, decree, or appealable order, the petition in error may be filed within thirty (30) days after the earliest date on which the court records show that a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order was mailed to the appellant, (emphasis added)
12 O.S.Supp.1997 § 990A(A).
In our case today (1) Appellants were not responsible for preparing the judgment, (2) § 696.2(B) required mailing to the Appellant, and (3) the court records do not reflect the mailing of a copy of the judgment within three days after its filing. So when does the statute say Appellants may appeal? It states that in such case the petition in error may be filed within thirty (30) days after the earliest date on which the court records show that a copy of the judgment was mailed to the appellant. The earliest date that the court records show that the judgment was mailed is March 10, 1998. The petition in error was filed March 17,1998.
¶ 2 The Court disregards the statutory language which states when appeal time com-*1197menees. The Court’s analysis is that counsel had actual notice of when the judgment was filed, and that the appealable event was the filing of the judgment, instead of the date fixed by the statute. Section 990A states that the appealable event under these circumstances is “the earliest date on which the court records show that a copy of the judgment, decree, or appealable order was mailed to the appellant.” The Court states that the date of mailing the judgment to an appellant is of no consequence because time to appeal commences when appellant possesses knowledge of the actual date of filing a judgment. This Court should not overrule the legislature except for constitutionally required reasons.
¶ 3 The appellants here (and likely other lawyers) simply followed the statute as written. For example, one author in explaining the 1997 amendment states that “The consequence of failing to mail the file stamped copies of the judgment within three days of the filing is that the time to file appeals and post-trial motions will not begin to run until the mailing is done.” Adams, Recent Developments in Oklahoma Civil Procedure, 33 Tulsa L.J. 539, 557-558 (1997), (emphasis added). The same analysis should apply to the failure to file the certificate of mailing with the court records.
¶4 The Court states that mailing has nothing to do with this case because appellant “participated in the preparation of the order”. Section 990A says the mailing provision applies if the “appellant did not prepare the judgment, decree, or appealable order”. The Court’s Order equates a lawyer’s act in reviewing and approving a proposed journal entry with actually preparing the entry. However, § 696.2 speaks in terms of a trial court directing certain counsel to prepare a journal entry. In this case the trial court directed Appellees’ lawyer to prepare the journal entry. A reasonable construction of § 990A is that when the trial court directs one lawyer to be responsible for preparing the journal entry, the opposing counsel/appellant is not considered as the one who has prepared the entry for the purpose of § 990A. In the present case Appellees’ lawyer was directed to obtain opposing counsel’s signature on the entry and submit it to the trial judge. This is common practice, and is what happened here. Under today’s ruling this procedure will negate the application of the mailing language of the statute in all such cases. I cannot discover such intent from the language used by the Legislature.
¶ 5 Today is the Court’s first construction of the 1997 amendment to § 990A. If the court construes the new statute contrary to its literal language, I suggest that its holding be made prospective. We have done this in the past so that ambiguous legislative enactments not be procedural traps for the unwary litigant. Manning v. State ex rel. Dept. of Public Safety, 1994 OK 62, ¶ 12 876 P.2d 667, 673. Doing so today would mean that lawyers for appellants who have relied on the language of the new statute and upon procedural experts such as Professor Adams would not have their appeals dismissed.