Court Opinion

ID: 9561632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:13:13.646759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:04.946703
License: Public Domain

Judge GREENE
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority’s refusal to hear defendant’s challenge to the legality of constructive trust relief in this case as well as its application of Rule 60(a). The record does not support the majority’s assertion that the court’s Amended Summary Judgment merely clarified the theory of relief under the Original Summary Judgment. Plaintiff’s complaint contained two distinct claims requesting two distinct forms of relief:
1. Plaintiff claimed defendant was unjustly enriched by the New York Life proceeds and therefore requested the court ‘impress a constructive trust upon the proceeds of the New York Life policy in the hands of the defendant, and order the defendant to pay the amount of $20,200, together with interest at the legal rate from October 29, 1986 until paid, to the plaintiff for the benefit of Steven Wayne Llewellyn’; and
2. Plaintiff also claimed that defendant breached certain fiduciary duties to plaintiff and requested that ‘plaintiff have and recover from the defendant damages in the amount of $20,200, together with the interest at the legal rate from October 29,1986 until paid, for the defendant’s breach of fiduciary duty.’
The trial court’s Original Summary Judgment ordered that “plaintiff shall have and recover of the defendant the sum of $20,192.70 together with interest at the legal rate from October 29, 1986 until paid.” The court’s Amended Summary Judgment retained the money damages from the Original Judgment, but added that “a constructive trust is hereby impressed upon the proceeds of the New York Life Insurance policy in the hands of the defendant . . . [and] . . . upon all property in the hands of the defendant that the defendant acquired with the proceeds of the New York Life Insurance policy . . . .” The Amended Summary Judgment also ordered the defendant to turn over certain real and personal property covered by the trust it imposed.
*655Given the appellate record, I first disagree with the majority’s analysis of the effect of defendant’s abandoning his initial appeal from the Original Summary Judgment. Irrespective of any error assigned to the award of damages in the Original Summary Judgment, defendant’s abandonment of the appeal from the Original Summary Judgment does not affect defendant’s subsequent appeal of the imposition of a constructive trust under the Amended Summary Judgment. Since the Original Summary Judgment never mentions any right to constructive trust relief, defendant could not properly raise that issue in his appeal from the Original Summary Judgment; thus, the majority’s erroneous application of Appellate Rule 11 to defendant’s appeal from the Amended Summary Judgment prevents defendant from ever appealing the merits of the trial court’s decision to order him to turn over certain properties and impose a trust on defendant’s real and personal property. This is not a frivolous issue since the issue has apparently never been presented to our courts and courts in other jurisdictions have reached varying results.
However, the substantive merits of the court’s imposition of a constructive trust need not be addressed if this court holds the trial court exceeded its procedural authority under Rule 60(a). The majority erroneously holds Rule 60(a) permits the trial court to add to the Amended Summary Judgment a constructive trust on defendant’s life insurance proceeds and certain real and personal property and order the turnover of that property — when the Original Summary Judgment simply rendered a personal judgment against defendant for $20,000 in damages. This case is nearly identical to H & B Company of Statesville v. Hammond, 17 N.C. App. 534, 538-39, 195 S.E. 2d 58, 60-61 (1973) wherein this court overturned the trial court’s similar use of Rule 60(a):
The default judgment [awarding damages] was in no way adverse to plaintiff, and rather than seeking to be relieved from its operation, plaintiff was attempting to have its rights under the judgment extended to include additional and entirely different relief. In allowing plaintiff’s motion, the court amended the judgment so as to make it a specific lien against the property now owned hy appellants . . . The amendment to the judgment allowed here is much more extensive than a mere technical correction such as contemplated by Rule 60(a). ... In support of this contention, plaintiff argues that it should not be penalized for the mistake of its counsel in failing to *656apply to the clerk for all of the relief prayed for in the complaint. To so hold, however, would be to say that it is the appellants who should be penalized for the mistake of plaintiff’s counsel. . . .
(Emphasis added.)
Given the trial court’s award of damages based on one of the two theories of recovery requested in the complaint, I am aware of no case in this State permitting such an expansion of relief under the guise of clerical error. Cf. Hinson v. Hinson, 78 N.C. App. 613, 615-16, 337 S.E. 2d 663, 664, disc. rev. denied, 316 N.C. 377, 342 S.E. 2d 895 (1986) (collecting cases rejecting attempts to change substantive provisions of judgments under Rule 60(a)). I also note that, before the court amended its judgment, defendant filed a motion to claim exemptions against the Original Summary Judgment. Defendant contends the court’s subsequent amendment under Rule 60(a) deprived him of the exemptions he was entitled to assert against the Original Summary Judgment. I therefore fail to see how the majority can simply assert “the amendment to the judgment does not affect the substantive rights of the parties” and yet specifically decline to address defendant’s contention his exemption rights were prejudiced.
I thus dissent on both of the above two grounds. However, even assuming the majority is correct on one of these grounds, the majority cannot be correct on both grounds: either the trial court could not amend its Original Summary Judgment to add constructive trust relief under Rule 60(a) or, irrespective of defendant’s abandoning his first appeal, defendant can challenge the merits of the trust relief subsequently added by the court since he perfected his appeal from the trial court’s amendment under the Amended Summary Judgment. Because I believe the majority errs in both respects, I dissent.