Court Opinion

ID: 9479485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:19:52.814317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:04.156691
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority finds the minute order below insufficient in three respects: (1) It failed to satisfy Rule 58’s separate document requirement; (2) it failed to satisfy Rule 58’s requirement that judgments be signed by the clerk; and (3) it was not entered in the docket in accordance with Rule 58. I disagree with all three propositions. I fear, moreover, that the majority opinion will unnecessarily complicate the docketing responsibility of the district courts, creating greater opportunity for confusion and error.
*11921. The Separate Document Requirement
“Every judgment shall be set forth on a separate document.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 58. Here, there was a separate document: It is titled “Civil Minutes — General,” it was mailed to the parties, and it is quoted in full in the majority opinion. Majority op. at 1188. If we were interpreting this part of Rule 58 for the first time, I should think our job would be done.
But this isn’t our first time; it is our third. First, in Calhoun v. United States, 647 F.2d 6 (9th Cir.1981), overruled on other grounds, Acosta v. Louisiana Dep’t of Health & Human Resources, 478 U.S. 251, 106 S.Ct. 2876, 92 L.Ed.2d 192 (1986) (per curiam), we held that a document entitled “Minutes of the Court” failed to satisfy the separate document requirement where it merely referred to an order rather than purporting to be an order itself, 647 F.2d at 8-9; it was not mailed to the parties, id. at 9; and it was never entered in the docket as an order. Id. Next, in Beaudry Motor Co. v. Abko Properties, Inc., 780 F.2d 751 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 825, 107 S.Ct. 100, 93 L.Ed.2d 51 (1986), we held that a minute order did satisfy Rule 58’s separate document requirement where it stated on its face that it was an order, 780 F.2d at 755; it was mailed to the parties, id.) and it was entered in the docket as an order. Id. Beau-dry took full account of Calhoun, and distinguished it on precisely these three grounds.
The distinctions are picayune, but our task is clear: We must decide whether the minute order at issue in this case is more like the one in Calhoun or the one in Beaudry. The answer is equally clear: The order falls on the Beaudry side of each of the three lines Beaudry drew between itself and Calhoun.
A.While the document at issue in Calhoun merely referred to proceedings at which a motion was denied, the corresponding document in Beaudry “does not refer-fence proceedings but is clearly by its language a decision of the court.” 780 F.2d at 755. Here, the document entitled “Civil Minutes — General” reads in part: “Court dismisses the action by reason of settlement and retains jurisdiction over the matter for 60 days to vacate this order....” Majority op. at 1188 (emphasis added). The document claims to be a decision of the court in two different ways. First, it announces the court’s disposition of the case in the present tense, suggesting that the document itself is dismissing the case, rather than referring to some other court action with that effect. Cf. Calhoun, 647 F.2d at 8 (past tense — “Motion argued and ordered denied” — indicating that the document at issue was a description of an order rather than an order itself). Second, the document explicitly calls itself “this order.” Is there any clearer way of issuing an order? Cf. Beaudry, 780 F.2d at 755 (“The copy of the minute order with its language TT IS ORDERED’ clearly put plaintiff’s counsel on notice that an order had been entered against his client.”); id. at 755 n. 3 (“plaintiff's counsel received a document, the sole contents of which informed him that his post-judgment motions had been ordered denied and which was file stamped. We have no trouble concluding that in these circumstances a reasonable person would realize that the court had entered an order finally disposing of the case.”). As I see it, the document at issue here is much more like the one in Beaudry than the one in Calhoun.
B. In Calhoun, the clerk did not mail copies of the disputed document to the parties, 647 F.2d at 8; in Beaudry, the clerk did. 780 F.2d at 755. Here, the clerk mailed copies to the parties. Majority op. at 1188. Again, we fall on the Beaudry side of the line.
C. The document in Calhoun contained no stamp or other notation indicating it had been entered as an order, 647 F.2d at 8; in Beaudry, the document included such a stamp. 780 F.2d at 755. Here, “[t]he minutes bear a stamp showing that they were entered on March 26, 1985.” Majority op. at 1188. Once again, this case tracks Beaudry rather than Calhoun.
Beaudry and Calhoun have given us three extremely fine distinctions to work with when considering whether Rule 58’s *1193separate document requirement has been satisfied, but they are easy to apply here: This case is squarely governed by Beau-dry, not Calhoun.1 The minute order below therefore did not run afoul of the separate document requirement.
2. The Clerk Signature Requirement
“[T]he clerk, unless the court otherwise orders, shall forthwith prepare, sign, and enter the judgment.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 58. There is no dispute that the judgment below was prepared, signed and entered by duly authorized deputy clerks, see 28 U.S.C. § 956 (1982); the majority finds fault only because the deputy clerk who prepared the order was not also the one who signed it. Majority op. at 1189.
But Rule 58 nowhere requires that the signature below a minute order be that of the same clerk who prepared the order. The majority comes to this conclusion without citing any authority, and I know of none; nor do I think it can fairly be derived from the text of Rule 58 alone. Moreover, such a strict rule makes little practical sense. Many district courts, including in particular the Central District of California where these events took place, employ large numbers of deputy clerks. When one deputy gets sick, or goes on vacation, or is busy in court, he may ask another to sign a minute order he prepared the day before. I see no plausible reason to invalidate such an order.
It is bad enough to add a new judicially-created requirement to Rule 58; it is even worse when that requirement serves no conceivable purpose. I would hold that the minute order below satisfied Rule 58’s clerk signature requirement.
3. The Docket Entry Requirement
“A judgment is effective only ... when entered as provided in Rule 79(a).” Fed.R. Civ.P. 58. Here, the judgment was entered in the civil docket; the entry is quoted in full in the majority opinion. Majority op. at 1189. The majority finds this entry insufficient because it “does not show that a separate order was filed and entered as required by Rule 58.” Id.
But Rule 58 only requires that a judgment be set forth on a separate document; it does not also require that the corresponding docket entry state that a separate document exists. Instead, Rule 58 explains that docket entry requirements are controlled by Rule 79(a). Rule 79(a), in turn, imposes a number of requirements — entries must be in chronological order, they must be dated, they must be brief, and they must “show the nature of each paper filed,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 79(a) — but a statement of the separateness of a document is not among them. There is no dispute here that the literal requirements of Rule 79(a), and therefore the docket entry requirements of Rule 58, have been met. The entry at issue is chronological, dated, brief, and reads in part “crt dism actn.” Majority op. at 1189. Anyone reading it would understand the nature of the paper filed: It was obviously a document in which the court dismissed the action. Rule 79(a) requires no more.
With all deference to its author, neither does Calhoun. As discussed above, Calhoun found that a minute order fell short of Rule 58’s separate document requirement. We then noted that this shortcoming was corroborated by the corresponding docket entry, which “does not show the filing and entry of a separate order.” 647 F.2d at 9. But Calhoun did not purport to be adding any requirements to Rule 79(a): It was concerned with whether a document was sufficiently separate in the first place, not whether the entry of that document in the docket sufficiently reflected its separateness. Calhoun did go on to find a Rule 79(a) violation, but only because the docket entry was not dated, as Rule 79(a) requires. Id. Calhoun thus did not read any requirement into Rules 58 or 79(a) that a docket entry state explicitly that a separate order was filed; it is the majority *1194opinion that today introduces this requirement for the first time. As with the requirement that orders be prepared and signed by the same deputy clerk, this requirement is a judicial encrustation onto the Federal Rules that serves no conceivable purpose.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure abound with technical requirements, but they are, by and large, requirements that serve important purposes. The separate document requirement, for example, exists so that the parties will know exactly when judgment has been entered and they must begin preparing post-verdict motions or an appeal. Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis, 485 U.S. 381, 385, 98 S.Ct. 1117, 1120, 55 L.Ed.2d 357 (1978) (per curiam). The Federal Rules, more importantly, are promulgated by the Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act; federal courts must treat them as they would statutes, and may not modify them by judicial construction. See Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 298, 89 S.Ct. 1082, 1090, 22 L.Ed.2d 281 (1969).
Regretfully, I must conclude that the majority has failed to consider either of these principles. It has added two apparently pointless requirements to Rule 58: From now on, a judgment in this circuit will be without effect unless it is prepared and signed by the same deputy clerk, and entered in the docket with a notation that explicitly states it is a separate document. I cannot figure out why this should be; the new requirements are so counterintuitive that they will provide fertile soil for clerical errors, and thus generate more uncertainty than they resolve. More fundamentally, I cannot discern the source of our authority to make such textually unsupported modifications to the Federal Rules. I respectfully dissent.

. The distinctions between Beaudry and Calhoun were not altered by Allah v. Superior Court, 871 F.2d 887 (9th Cir.1989). Allah did not consider whether a document satisfied Rule 58’s separate document requirement, because no such document existed in the first place. Id. at 890.