Court Opinion

ID: 9632468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:15:54.137397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:16.713985
License: Public Domain

John Mauzy Pittman, Chief Judge, dissenting. A timely notice of appeal is a jurisdictional requirement. See Stacks v. Marks, 354 Ark. 594, 127 S.W.3d 483 (2003). Because I do not believe that this court has jurisdiction, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion holding otherwise. The majority holds that the judgment filed by facsimile on November 3 was ineffectual because no “hard copy” of the judgment was ever filed. That cannot be the law. Although it is true that Administrative Order No. 2 uses the term “shall,” it does not specifically provide any sanction for failure to file the “hard copy.” The reporter’s notes to the administrative order makes this clear when it provides, in pertinent part, that “[t]o ensure the permanency of official court records, the original judgment . . . must be substituted for the facsimile copy within fourteen days of transmission, but this step does not have any bearing on the effectiveness of the faxed document or the time for taking an appeal.” This note is directly on point but is given short shrift by the majority. I recognize that the reporter’s notes are not binding. Nevertheless, they express the Arkansas Supreme Court’s intention when the administrative order was promulgated, an intention that is not carried out by the majority’s decision in this case. The order and judgment were filed by facsimile on November 3, 2005. Administrative Order No. 2 clearly states that the date of the fax-filed order will govern all appeal-related deadlines. Francis did not file her notice of appeal until December 9, 2005, more than thirty days after the order and judgment were entered. Therefore, the appeal is untimely as to the November 3 order, and we are without jurisdiction over it. Given that the faxed order of November 3 is unquestionably valid, the only timely appeal is from the order of November 10. The only difference between the two orders is that the latter corrected the rate of post-judgment interest from six percent to ten percent. None of the issues on appeal, however, relate to the rate of interest; all of appellant’s arguments are directed toward provisions contained in the November 3 judgment. In order to find that this court has jurisdiction to consider the arguments raised, it would be necessary to say that the change of the interest rate in the November 10 judgment was an amendment of the fax-filed November 3 judgment, instead of a correction of a clerical error, and that appellant’s time to file her notice of appeal ran from November 10. In Luckes v. Luckes, 262 Ark. 770, 772, 561 S.W.2d 300, 302 (1978), the supreme court held that a true clerical error is “essentially one that arises not from an exercise of the court’s judicial discretion but from a mistake on the part of its officers (or perhaps someone else).” Here, the correct rate of interest was not litigated by the parties; indeed, it was dictated by statute. See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-65-114 (Repl. 2005). Therefore, the November 10 order is properly considered a nunc pro tunc judgment. However, an appeal from a nunc pro tunc order is not from the original order or judgment, but from the order purporting to correct it. Kindiger v. Huffman, 307 Ark. 465, 821 S.W.2d 33 (1991). Such an appeal contests the propriety of the corrections made and may not be used to challenge issues that should have been appealed from the original order but were not. See id. Other cases support this conclusion. See, e.g., Holt Bonding Co., Inc. v. State, 353 Ark. 136, 114 S.W.3d 179 (2003) (holding that a change in the name of the party against whom a judgment was awarded from “Exit Bail Bond Company” to a judgment against “Holt Bonding Company” was a clerical mistake, subject to correction by nunc pro tunc order); Southern Farm Bur. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Robinson, 238 Ark. 159, 379 S.W.2d 8 (1964) (holding that correction of amount on which post-judgment interest was computed was accomplished by a nunc pro tunc order); Kelly v. Morrison, 83 Ark. App. 125, 118 S.W.3d 155 (2003) (holding that modification of order setting aside a deed so as to provide a reference for the deed being set aside was a clerical change). Because the faxed order of November 3 was effectual, because no timely appeal was taken from that order, and because the issues presented are outside the scope of an appeal from the nunc pro tunc order of November 10, we lack jurisdiction. I respectfully dissent and would dismiss the appeal. Bird, J., joins in this opinion.