Court Opinion

ID: 9691516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:36:42.955452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:21.932891
License: Public Domain

*562MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON REHEARING
On March 25, 1997, plaintiff filed a motion for modification or rehearing (Doc. 32). A response was filed on April 8,1997 (Doc. 35). No reply brief was filed.
Plaintiffs motion pertains to this court’s order of March 14, 1997. Plaintiff seeks either certification to the Kansas Supreme Court of the issues ruled on in that order, or, in the alternative, modification of this court’s ruling.
The court will first address plaintiffs request for certification. The statute that governs is K.S.A. 60-3201, which is as follows:
The Kansas supreme court may answer questions of law certified to it by ... a United States district court ..: when requested by the certifying court if there are involved in any proceeding before it questions of law of this state which may be determinative of the cause then pending in the certifying court and as to which it appears to the certifying court there is no controlling precedent in the decisions of the supreme court and the court of appeals of this state.
The decision to certify rests in the sound discretion of the district court. Certification is not to be routinely invoked whenever a federal court is presented with an unsettled question of state law. Armijo v. Ex Cam, Inc., 843 F.2d 406, 407 (10th Cir. 1988); Marzolf v. Gilgore, 924 F.Supp. 127, 129 (D. Kan. 1996). The 10th Circuit has held that they generally will not certify questions to a state supreme court when the requesting party seeks certification only after having an adverse decision from the district court. Massengale v. Oklahoma Board of Examiners in Optometry, 30 F.3d 1325, 1331 (10th Cir. 1994). This court believes that this principle is just as applicable when certification is sought at the district court level only after an adverse decision.
First, the fact that plaintiff waited until after an unfavorable decision weighs against plaintiffs request. Prior to the court’s ruling, plaintiff had no objection to a ruling by this court; in fact, plaintiff requested such a ruling by this court on the issues presented. Only after an unfavorable ruling does plaintiff belatedly seek certification to the Kansas Supreme Court. Second, we believe that Kansas case law supports the decision reached by the court.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the motion for certification is denied.
In plaintiffs motion for reconsideration, plaintiff focuses upon the “entry of appearance” document filed by the defendants prior to their answer. A key question that this court had to address in the March 14, 1997 order was the meaning or scope of “entry of appearance” in K.S.A. 60-203(c). Plaintiff indicates in her brief that “there is no dispute that merely filing an answer to a plaintiffs petition contesting the validity of service and personal jurisdiction is not sufficient to submit a defendant to the personal jurisdiction of the court” (Doc. 32 at 4). Therefore, according to plaintiff’s contention, an answer must not be an “entry of appearance”" under K.S.A. 60-203(c). However, this position has absolutely no support in Kansas case law. Furthermore, plaintiff fails to articulate how “entry of appearance” should be defined under Kansas law. As this court indicated in its order of March 14,1997, and is further set forth below, an entry of appearance has always been very broadly defined by Kansas courts. No Kansas court has ever limited the definition of an entry of appearance to only a document filed with the court titled “entry of appearance.”
In the case of Jones v. Main, 196 Kan. 91, 93, 410 P.2d 303 (1966), the court wrestled with the definition of appearance as defined in K.S.A. 60-255(a). The court noted that “appear” has been defined as “coming into court by a party to a suit.” The court further noted that “appearance” and “answer” are not synonymous terms, with an appearance being more comprehensive in its reach than an answer. The court then cited from a California case indicating that every answer constitutes an appearance, but that every appearance does not constitute the filing of an answer. The court indicated its approval of this authority and held that an appearance can be made in more ways than *563by filing an answer. Therefore, under Kansas law, an answer is an entry of appearance. This fact left this court with the problem that a literal reading of K.S.A. 60-203(c) would mean that an answer contesting service of process and personal jurisdiction would have the same effect as service since an answer constitutes an appearance (Doc. 30 at 7). Such a literal reading would lead to an absurd and manifestly unreasonable result which cannot be permitted.
As the court noted, the case of Haley v. Hershberger, 207 Kan. 459, 465, 485 P.2d 1321 (1971), held that the defense of lack of jurisdiction is waived only when it is not raised by motion or in the answer itself. The defense is not waived because of defendant’s previous voluntary appearances in the case, but because of the failure to assert the defense within the time prescribed by the rules. In the case of City of Hutchinson v. Hutchinson, Kansas Office of State Employment Service, 213 Kan. 399, 406, 517 P.2d 117 (1973), the court held that the appearance of defendants’ counsel did not waive any rights of the named defendant to assert the defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction or insufficiency of service of process if those defenses were timely asserted in a motion filed by the defendants. Kansas courts have clearly held that previous voluntary appearances by counsel in a case do not waive the defenses of lack of jurisdiction over the person and insufficient service of process so long as the defense is timely raised in the answer or by motion. Therefore, the filing of an “entry of appearance” pursuant to local federal rule does not waive defendants’ right to timely assert the defenses of insufficient service of process and lack of personal jurisdiction in their answer or by motion.
Plaintiff argues that this court should follow the plain and unambiguous language of K.S.A. 60-203(c). What plaintiff fails to address is how to reconcile K.S.A. 60-203(c), given the broad definition of “entry of appearance” under Kansas case law, with the language of K.S.A. 60-212(h), which has been interpreted “by its express terms” to mean that the defense of lack of personal jurisdiction is waived only when it is not raised by motion or in the answer. Haley, 207 Kan. at 465, 485 P.2d 1321. This court held that a literal reading of K.S.A. 60-203(e), as sought by plaintiff, would result in a catch-22 situation for a party to assert the defense of insufficient service of process and lack of personal jurisdiction since an answer has been defined as always constituting an appearance under Kansas law. This court’s ruling averts placing counsel in such a catch-22 situation, and is consistent with the rulings of prior Kansas cases which have held that answers and other preliminary documents or motions filed by a party do not constitute a general appearance waiving the defenses of lack of personal jurisdiction or insufficient service of process so long as the defenses are timely raised by motion or in the answer.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the motion for modification or rehearing of this court’s order of March 14, 1997 is denied.