Court Opinion

ID: 9565111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:15:07.270102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:24.533839
License: Public Domain

Lockett, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully disagree with the holding of the majority. The controlling issue is not whether a party should be denied the right to an appeal because of “unique circumstances,” but rather whether this court has the power to rewrite K.S.A. 60-2103(a) to allow the district judge upon a timely request to extend the time for an appeal?!
This court has only such appellate jurisdiction as is provided by law. Jurisdiction to entertain an appeal is conferred by statute pursuant to article 3, § 3 of the Kansas Constitution, and when the record discloses a lack of jurisdiction, it is the duty of this court to dismiss the appeal. State v. Moses, 227 Kan. 400, 607 P.2d 477 (1980). Kansas appellate courts have no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal unless the appeal is taken within the time limitations prescribed by applicable statutes. State v. Tripp, 237 Kan. 244, Syl. ¶ 2, 699 P.2d 33 (1985).
Justice Miller in State v. Moses, 227 Kan. 400, reviewed whether the district court had jurisdiction to grant an extension of time to file notice of appeal under K.S.A. 60-2103(a). The court found that the portion of that statute granting an extension of time to appeal did not apply to a criminal proceeding. A unani*715mous court, which included five members of the present court, did determine that the filing of a timely notice of appeal is jurisdictional and that there was no express authority provided in K.S.A. 60-2103(a) for the district court to grant leave to file an appeal out of time.
The majority of this court in its opinion fails to acknowledge the restraints on our appellate jurisdiction imposed by the Kansas Constitution, the statutes, and our prior case law. The majority simply reviews our appellate statutes and adopts the federal courts’ interpretation of the Federal Rules of Procedure. Rather than disregarding 127 years of Kansas law by rewriting 60-2103(a) to include the “unique circumstances” extension of the time to file an appeal, the majority could have stated that the legislature’s enactment of K.S.A. 60-260(b)(6), which allows relief for any reason from the operation of a judgment, granted the district courts the power to extend the time of appeal.
Appellate jurisdiction cannot be created by this court, but can only be acquired and exercised where derived from the constitution or from statutes. Absent constitutional restrictions, the legislature determines in what cases, under what circumstances, and from what courts appeals may be taken. It is the legislature’s right to impose restrictions as to time and the manner of appeal.
The majority has no right to usurp the power of the legislature and grant the district judges the right to extend the time for filing an appeal beyond the statutory period. The adoption of the “unique circumstances” doctrine renders the finality of every judgment suspect, unless the district judge finds that there exists no “unique circumstances” which require the extension of the appeal time. Every request to a district judge to extend the time to file an appeal becomes an appealable issue itself, whether the request is granted or not. The granite foundation, upon which appellate jurisdiction is based, has been replaced by the shifting sands of “unique circumstances.”