Court Opinion

ID: 9632710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:22:40.824482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:58:47.074233
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Associate Chief Justice
(dissenting):
I dissent. I do not agree that the statute of limitations was tolled for plaintiffs until Call III was decided by this court on July 23, 1986. In my opinion, the statute was tolled only until Call I was decided on December 26, 1979.
When Call and Jenkins filed their complaint against West Jordan on February 7, 1978, their attorney sought class action certification. Judge Winder, the trial judge, denied certification and upheld the validity of the ordinance. Call and Jenkins appealed to this court, attacking the trial court’s ruling in both respects. In their brief, under points IV and V, spread over five pages, they assailed the denial of class certification. On December 26, 1979, this court affirmed the trial court’s rulings but discussed in the opinion only the validity of the ordinance. Plaintiffs petitioned for rehearing on our ruling upholding the ordinance but raised no objection to the affir-mance of the denial of class certification.
Following remand of the case to the trial court to give plaintiffs an opportunity to present evidence that the dedication required of them bore no reasonable relationship to the need for flood control or parks and recreation facilities created by their subdivision, plaintiffs’ counsel renewed his request for class certification, before Judge Banks. Again, it was denied. Trying for a third time, counsel made a subsequent request before Judge Dee, which again was denied. This third denial was assailed in this court in Call III, where we upheld the denial.
It thus appears to me that when this court (Judges Crockett, Hall, and Stewart) affirmed the trial court in Call I, that affirmance included the denial of class certification even though that point was not expressly discussed in the opinion. It is a familiar rule of appellate practice that a court may affirm a judgment without discussing in its opinion each and every point raised by the appellant. State v. Carter, 776 P.2d 886, 888 (Utah 1989). That is what happened here. Call and Jenkins raised Judge Winder’s denial as their points IV and V on appeal, and our affir-mance of the trial court effectively ended the matter. The statute of limitations could not be tolled beyond the date of Call I, December 26, 1979.
Since class certification had been denied and that denial affirmed on appeal, no tolling resulted when counsel for Call and Jenkins renewed the request for certification. The second request, made to and denied by Judge Banks, was not appealed. The third request, made to and denied by Judge Dee, was affirmed by this court in Call III. But the subsequent renewals of the request did not start new tolling periods to run. I therefore cannot join the majority in holding that the statute of limitations was tolled until this court rendered its opinion in Call III, which was the second affirmance of the denial of certification.
In the majority opinion, it is asserted that this dissent creates an argument “never raised or briefed by West Jordan.” That assertion is too broad. West Jordan clearly states in its brief that Judge Winder in Call I denied class action certification in April 1978 and argues that tolling, as a matter of law, does not extend into any appellate period. Since we decide that the law does allow tolling through the appellate period, the next logical step is to look to the appellate period following Judge Winder’s denial. The appellate briefs of Call I are lodged in this court, and there is no reason for us to refuse to look at them.
The majority theorizes that in Call I we may have intentionally not addressed the class issue. That cannot be so, because on rehearing we reversed the trial court and *765remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. Of necessity, we had to determine who should be entitled to participate in the proceedings following remand. There apparently was no doubt in the minds of the trial court judges about that fact since the class members did not participate in those subsequent proceedings. When the motion for class certification was renewed before Judges Banks and Dee, the motion was summarily denied. Those judges seemed to have no doubt about our ruling in Call I.
The majority does not explain why, if we did not decide the class issue in Call I, the present plaintiffs were not under any obligation to appeal Judge Banks’ later denial of class certification if they wanted tolling to extend into the appellate period. The majority focuses only on the appellate period following Judge Dee’s denial in Call III But by the time Judge Dee denied the motion for class certification, the statute of limitations had long since run. It was not tolled following Judge Banks’ denial because that denial was not appealed. The majority, without adequate explanation, allows the class issue to remain in limbo during the eight-year period from Judge Winder’s denial in 1978 to our decision in Call III in 1986 and grants tolling all during that period. This does violence to the principle of tolling, which is designed to preserve a plaintiff’s rights while a timely appeal is taken and decided.
HALL, C.J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of HOWE, Associate C.J.