Court Opinion

ID: 9618216
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:09:01.875397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:26.344370
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
with whom LAVENDER, Justice, joins, concurring.
The court dismisses this appeal because it is fraught with a fatal postural defect. Although I accede to the court’s pronouncement and its judgment, I write separately to articulate some added reasons for my general concurrence.
This was an action to recover for the wrongful death of Mrs. Hart’s (appellant) two daughters, Janet Sue and Elisha Ruth. The jury’s verdict allowed a $45,000 award for Elisha Ruth but no recovery for Janet Sue. The defendants paid the judgment in full. Its release and satisfaction is of record below and here.
No appeal lies from a judgment shown to have been released and satisfied. When a released judgment is tendered for appellate review, it presents but an abstract or hypothetical question.1
Appellant denies that the judgment on the verdict disallowing recovery for Janet Sue’s death was included in her release and satisfaction. This argument is contradicted by the plain record. Her release and satisfaction unequivocally shows that it extends to the entire judgment rather than merely to some part of it. If appellant was in fact fraudulently induced into relinquishing more than she intended or bargained for, she should have attempted below to vacate or amend the release and satisfaction as a voidable instrument.2 The legal consequences of her instrument might also have been avoided by proof, adduced in a proper proceeding below, showing that the release and satisfaction (a) was entered without appellant’s authority; (b) was given by inadvertence or mistake; or (c) was unsupported, either in whole or in part, by any consideration.3
The record here reflects no effort made by the appellant to proceed in the trial court for vacation, amendment or modification of the release and satisfaction placed of record below.4 It is too late to do it now.5 The appellant should have timely cured the defect or supplied the deficiency that is fatal to her quest for. corrective relief.6
I hence accede to the court’s dismissal of the instant appeal.

.Bateman v. Riner, 170 Okl. 13, 38 P.2d 581 [1935]; Duncan v. Ratliff, 63 Okl. 19, 161 P. 1174 [1916]; see also, Tinker v. McLaughlin-Farrar Co., 29 Okl. 758, 119 P. 238 [1911].

. Lambert v. Hill, 181 Okl. 225, 73 P.2d 124, 127 [1937].

. Sneary v. Nichols and Shepard Co., 70 Okl. 133, 173 P. 366, 368 [1918],

. Ward v. Coleman, 170 Okl. 201, 39 P.2d 113 [1935],

. Eckel v. Adair, Okl., 698 P.2d 921, [1984] and In re Hess' Estate, Okl., 379 P.2d 851, 859 [1963].

. Owens v. Luckett, 192 Okl. 685, 139 P.2d 806, 807 [1943] and Eckel v. Adair, supra note 5.