Court Opinion

ID: 9793498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:48:41.537476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:35.715576
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Presiding Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
¶ 68 I concur in the result reached by the majority, affirming the action of the trial court. However, I respectfully dissent with respect to the opinion expressed by the majority regarding this court’s ability to review the December 29, 1997 summary judgment against Garco by which its entire complaint against Reagan was dismissed.
¶ 69 Rule 3(d) of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure requires that a notice of appeal “designate the judgment or order, or part thereof, appealed from.” As we said in M.L. & S.L. v. V.H. (In re Baby Boy Doe), 894 P.2d 1285 (Utah Ct.App.1995), “the object of a notice of appeal is to advise the opposite party that an appeal has been taken from a specific judgment in a particular case.” Id. at 1286 n. 1 (emphasis in original); see also Nunley v. Stan Katz Real Estate, Inc., 15 Utah 2d 126, 128, 388 P.2d 798, 800 (1964) (holding that “[rjespondent is entitled to know specifically which judgment is being appealed”). When a party does not refer to an order in its notice of appeal, we are without jurisdiction to hear an appeal of the order.
¶ 70 In this instance, Garco filed a notice of appeal that referenced only “the final order of the Honorable William B. Bohling entered in this matter on May 1, 1998.” In fact, two orders were entered by the trial court dated May 1, 1998. One order denied Garco’s Rule 54(b) motion to reconsider the judgment against Garco entered on December 29, 1997. That order also granted Reagan’s motion to strike several potions of Gar-co’s reply memorandum submitted in support of the 54(b) motion. The second order of May 1 dismissed Reagan’s counterclaim. On appeal, Garco raises no issue regarding dismissal of Reagan’s counterclaim.
¶ 71 As accurately stated by the majority, “Kennecott, Zions, and Jensen clearly and unambiguously stand for the proposition that a party who seeks to appeal a non-final summary judgment need not specifically identify that summary judgment in the notice of appeal, but need only identify a final judgment that relates to that summary judgment.” In all three cases relied upon by the majority, the summary judgment sought to be challenged on appeal was followed by a trial, a verdict, and a final judgment which incorporated the consequences of the earlier, preliminary order. Garco’s appeal is different.
¶ 72 The problem with Garco’s notice of appeal is that neither of the orders entered on May 1, 1998 were final judgments. Both were posi-judgment orders that had the effect of making the summary judgment of December 29, 1997 final and appealable. The May 1 order that Garco and the majority hang their collective hat on is not even the one that made the earlier summary judgment final. They rely on the order denying the post-judgment Rule 54(b) relief.
¶ 73 At the time Garco appealed the May 1, 1998 order relating to the post-judgment 54(b) motion, Garco could have appealed the December 29, 1997 judgment. It did not.1
¶ 74 The purpose of the notice of appeal is to give notice of the pending appeal not only to the court, but also to the appellee. During the fourteen days following the filing of the notice of appeal, the appellee has the right to file its own notice of cross-appeal. If the appellant does not give notice of issues it plans to pursue on appeal in the notice of appeal, the appellee has the right to assume that those issues have been waived, and will play no part in the appeal. Had Garco specifically identified the December 29th order in its notice of appeal, giving Reagan the *961required notice of what it intended to contest on appeal, we would have had jurisdiction to consider those claims. However, because Garco failed to identify the December 29th order in its notice of appeal, we have no jurisdiction to address those questions.
¶ 75 It follows that if this court lacks jurisdiction to consider the issues raised by Garco relating directly to the December 29th summary judgment, I dissent from both sections A. and B. of the majority’s analysis. As I have said, I reach the opposite result in section A., namely that we do not have jurisdiction to consider the claims. Consequently, I would neither reach nor address the issues reached by the majority in section B.
¶ 76 I concur in the result reached in section C. and with the analysis except to the degree that the majority suggests that the May 1st order on the post-judgment Rule 54(b) motion is a final judgment in this case.
¶ 77 I fully concur with the majority’s analysis and result in section D. regarding the motion to strike.

. Twenty-one days after filing the defective notice of appeal, Garco filed its docketing statement with this court as required by Rule 9 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure. In the docketing statement, for the first time, Garco identified both the May 1, 1998 order and the December 29, 1997 judgment under the heading of "Date of entry of judgment or order appealed from.” It also correctly identified the 54(b) motion that led to the May 1 order under the heading of "Post Judgment Motion.”