Butala v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo.

• Decision Date: 06 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. SC 98517,SC 98517
• Citation: Butala v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 620 S.W.3d 89 (Mo. 2021)
• Parties: Elizabeth BUTALA, et al., Appellants, v. The CURATORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

620 S.W.3d 89

Elizabeth BUTALA, et al., Appellants,

v.The CURATORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, Respondent.

No. SC 98517

Supreme Court of Missouri, en banc.

Opinion issued April 6, 2021

The patients were represented by Edward D. Robertson III, Kelly C. Frickleton, James P. Frickleton and Michelle L. Marvel of Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader PC in Leawood, Kansas, (913) 266-2300; and Todd N. Hendrickson of Hendrickson Law in Kirkwood, (314) 721-8833.

The curators were represented by Darci F. Madden, Jeffrey S. Russell and Jonathan B. Potts of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP in St. Louis, (314) 259-2000; Robert M. Thompson of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP in Kansas City, (816) 374-3200; and John L. Roark and Beth Findley of Smith Lewis LLP in Columbia, (573) 443-3141.

PER CURIAM

Appellants, Mizzou BioJoint patients (together with their spouses, the "plaintiffs"), sued individual doctors and the curators of the University of Missouri for injuries associated with unsuccessful surgeries the BioJoint patients underwent.The plaintiffs alleged the doctors had committed several torts and alleged negligent misrepresentation and violations of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act ("MMPA") against both the doctors and the Curators.The circuit court entered orders dismissing the Curators from each case and certified those judgments as final under Rule 74.01(b).The plaintiffs appealed.

The court of appeals dismissed the appeals for lack of jurisdiction, concluding the circuit court's orders were ineligible for certification under Rule 74.01(b) because they were not judgments in that they did not fully resolve at least one claim.This Court subsequently granted transfer and has jurisdiction under article V, section 10 of the Missouri Constitution.Because the circuit court's orders met the requirements of Rule 74.01(a), resolved all legal issues, and disposed of all remedies sought as against the Curators, thereby qualifying as final judgments under section 512.020(5),¹ the judgments were eligible for certification as final under Rule 74.01(b).

Additionally, the circuit court's decision to certify the judgment for interlocutory appeal was not an abuse of discretion.Accordingly, the case is retransferred to the court of appeals for consideration of the merits of the plaintiffs’ appeals.²

Background

In February and March 2019, the plaintiffs filed eight separate lawsuits against individual doctors and the Curators.In these similarly pleaded suits, the plaintiffs asserted BioJoint surgery was advertised and marketed as a viable alternative to – and equally as successful as – artificial joint replacement surgery, even though the BioJoint surgery performed on each of the patients ultimately failed.The plaintiffs pleaded certain causes of action against only the individual doctors (e.g., medical malpractice, lost chance of recovery, and in some instances, loss of consortium), but they pleaded causes of action against both the doctors and the Curators under the MMPA and for negligent misrepresentation based on the allegedly misleading advertisements about the surgery.

The Curators moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ MMPA and negligent misrepresentation counts – all the counts pleaded against them – in each of the eight cases, asserting several grounds, including sovereign immunity.The circuit court sustained the motions and dismissed the Curators from each of the suits with prejudice.These orders were in writing, signed by the judge, and denominated "judgments of dismissal."The circuit court further certified each of these judgments as final for purposes of appeal pursuant to Rule 74.01(b), finding there was "no just reason for delay," notwithstanding that all of the plaintiffs’ counts against the individual doctors, including the MMPA and negligent misrepresentation counts arising from the allegedly misleading advertisements, remained pending in the eight separate cases.The plaintiffs appealed each of these judgments, arguing the circuit court erred in interpreting the MMPA, in applying sovereign immunity, in overruling the plaintiffs’ motions for leave to amend their petitions, and in denying their constitutional claims.These eight appeals were consolidated in the court of appeals.

The court of appeals dismissed the plaintiffs’ consolidated appeals for lack of jurisdiction.The court of appeals concluded the eight separate (but largely identical) orders dismissing the Curators were not eligible for certification as final for purposes of appeal under Rule 74.01(b).It reasoned that none of the dismissals fully resolved at least one claim in their respective lawsuits because the plaintiffs’ remaining counts against the doctors in each suit arose from the same set of facts as the counts against the Curators.As a result, the court of appeals concluded none of these dismissals met the substantive definition of a "judgment"; therefore, none of the dismissals came within the ambit of Rule 74.01(b).This Court disagrees.

Analysis

Article V, section 5 of the Missouri Constitution provides that this Court may issue procedural rules but that those rules "shall not change ... the right of appeal."As a result, the "right to appeal is purely statutory[.]"First Nat'l Bank of Dieterich v. Pointe Royal Prop. Owners’ Assoc., Inc. , 515 S.W.3d 219, 221(Mo. banc 2017)(quotation omitted).The legislature has set out what rulings can be appealed in section 512.020.Its only subsection applicable to this case is subsection (5), which states in relevant part:

Any party to a suit aggrieved by any judgment of any trial court in any civil cause from which an appeal is not prohibited by the constitution, nor clearly limited in special statutory proceedings, may take his or her appeal to a court having appellate jurisdiction from any ... [f]inal judgment in the case or from any special order after final judgment in the cause[.]

To be eligible for appeal under section 512.020(5), therefore, the circuit court's ruling or order must be a final judgment.As permitted by the constitution, the Court has imposed procedural requirements in Rule 74.01 that must be met for an order to be a final judgment for purposes of section 512.020(5).Rule 74.01(a) requires that a final judgment be in writing, signed by the judge and expressly denominated a "judgment."³Rule 74.01(b) further requires:

When more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, whether as a claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party claim, or when multiple parties are involved, the court may enter a judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the claims or parties only upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay.

The orders in question do not dispose of all claims in the case but instead dispose of all claims against one party, the Curators.An order that "fully resolves at least one claim in a lawsuit and establishes all the rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to that claim" is, in substance, a judgment.State ex rel. Henderson v. Asel , 566 S.W.3d 596, 598(Mo. banc 2019).⁴The circuit court's orders in each case fully resolved all counts pleaded against the Curators and established all the rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to all matters pleaded against the Curators.Consequently, the circuit court's orders met the substantive definition of a judgment.

Having decided the circuit court's orders were judgments, the Court must further determine whether they are eligible to be certified under Rule 74.01(b) as "final judgments" for purposes of section 512.020(5).Gibson v. Brewer , 952 S.W.2d 239, 244 (Mo. banc (1997), answers that question.As Gibson explains, so long as a judgment resolves all legal issues and leaves open no remedies against a particular party, it can be certified as final for purposes of appeal under Rule 74.01(b).In Gibson,the plaintiffs sued a priest and a Catholic diocese, "alleging nine counts: battery, negligent hiring/ordination/retention, negligent failure to supervise, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of fiduciary duty, conspiracy, agency liability, and independent negligence of the Diocese."Id. at 243-44.The circuit court issued two judgments it determined were final and appealable, one in which some of the counts against the priest were dismissed and one in which it dismissed all counts against the diocese.Id. at 244.On appeal, this Courtsua sponte examined its jurisdiction over the appeal.Id.It found it had appellate jurisdiction over the judgment dismissing all counts against the diocese, holding: "When one defendant, but not all defendants, is dismissed from a case, the trial court may designate its judgment as final ‘for purposes of appeal’ " because dismissing the defendant from the case"resolved all legal issues and left open no remedies" against the defendant.Id. at 245.

Because the judgment resolved all legal issues and left open no remedies against the diocese, the fact the counts against the diocese arose from the same occurrence as the counts pleaded against the priest was not relevant in deciding whether the judgment disposed of a judicial unit.A judgment that disposes of all issues and remedies against at least one partyper se disposes of a judicial unit and is a final judgment under section 512.020 without regard to whether the remaining issues and remedies arise from a distinct transaction or occurrence.The distinctness of transactions or occurrences matters only when the judgment appealed from does not resolve all legal issues and remedies against any one party.Id.It is only when the judgment does not resolve all legal issues and remedies related to any one party that there must be a judicial unit for appeal that arises from sufficiently distinct transactions or occurrences to be eligible for certification under Rule 74.01(b).Id. at 244.Accordingly, the shared occurrence in Gibson was...