Court Opinion

ID: 9794779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:11:32.354238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:36.471789
License: Public Domain

WINDES, Justice
(dissenting).
Justice STRUCKMEYER and I feel that this appeal should not be dismissed. One of the principal purposes of the new rules of civil procedure is to dispose of cases on the merits, irrespective of technical, harmless errors. Under the federal rules, which are the same as ours on this subject, it is well established that errors of the character involved herein will be ignored when the appellee has been neither misled nor harmed. Bates v. Batte, 5 Cir., 187 F.2d 142, certiorari denied 342 U.S. 815, 72 S.Ct. 29, 96 L.Ed. 616; Hoiness v. United States, 335 U. S. 297, 69 S.Ct. 70, 93 L.Ed. 16; State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Palmer, 350 U.S. 944, 76 S.Ct. 321, 100 L. Ed. 830, reversing, 9 Cir., 225 F.2d 876.
The Bates case and the State Farm Mutual case presented the same question as that before us in this case. In the former the court of appeals held [187 F.2d 143] “that the defects in the appeal are not sufficiently substantial to deprive us of jurisdiction.” In the latter case the court of appeals dismissed the appeal and the supreme court of the United States reversed on the authority of Hoiness v. United States, supra.
*139Unquestionably, appellant committed technical error but since the final appealable judgment was in existence at the time the appeal was taken and it was the same as the order designated in the notice of appeal, no one could have understood it as other than an intention to test the validity of the final judgment. We do not think this court should be so hypertechnical as to refuse to hear the merits of this appeal and risk the danger of a resulting injustice. Our view is the appeal should not be dismissed.
STRUCKMEYER, J., concurs in this dissent.