Corbit v. Williams, 82733
| Decision Date | 23 May 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 82733,82733 |
| Citation | 897 P.2d 1129,1995 OK 53 |
| Parties | Pamela J. CORBIT, now Pamela Harris, Appellant, v. Garry WILLIAMS and State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Department of Human Services, Appellees. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court for Oklahoma County; Thornton Wright, Jr., Special Judge.
The plaintiff brought an appeal from an order on a form bearing the title "Court Minute."
APPEAL DISMISSED AS PREMATURE.
Beverly Quarles Watts, Edmond, for appellant.
M. Joe Crosthwait, Jr., Midwest City, for appellee Garry Williams.
Randy Henning, Oklahoma City, for appellee Dept. of Human Services.
This is an appeal from an order denying a motion to vacate a judgment. Because the order appealed from is on a form titled "Court Minute", and we have not been furnished with an order of the trial court meeting the form for appealable orders required by the recent statutory changes, we dismiss the appeal as premature.
The trial was for back-due child support, modification of child support, and contempt. The court modified child support, and determined the amount owed by Defendant Williams to the State of Oklahoma for A.F.D.C. support expended by the State. It determined that the Defendant owed Plaintiff $5,145.70 for child support arrearage. The order was filed on September 9, 1993.
On October 8, 1993 Plaintiff filed a combined motion for new trial and motion to vacate the order of September 9, 1993. Plaintiff argued that because her motion was filed within thirty days of the order the court could vacate, modify, or amend the order. On November 16, 1993 the trial court filed an order that denied the motion to vacate. The petition in error was filed in this Court on December 15, 1993.
Our consideration of this appeal must be limited to the trial court's order in denying the motion to vacate. A motion for new trial authorized by 12 O.S.1991 § 653 will not extend the time to appeal from the judgment if the motion is filed after the ten-day statutory period for such motions. Estate of Heimbach, 827 P.2d 170 (Okla.1992). 1 Plaintiff's counsel on appeal (different from that at trial) is correct in stating that the post-judgment motion did not extend the time to appeal the judgment of September 9, 1993. This appeal is limited to challenging the trial court's order of November 16, 1993 on Plaintiff's motion to vacate the judgment. Schepp v. Hess, 770 P.2d 34, 36 n. 2 (Okla.1989).
The order denying the motion to vacate is on a printed form titled "Court Minute". We have explained that recent statutory changes effective October 1, 1993 made minute entries an unappealable form for a filed judgment. Mansell v. City of Lawton, 877 P.2d 1120 (Okla.1994); Aven v. Reeh, 878 P.2d 1069 (Okla.1994). We requested a response from Plaintiff on the applicability of Mansell.
Plaintiff, in asserting that this particular minute order was appealable, argues that this Court looks to the substance of an instrument and not its form. Generally speaking, she is correct. "[F]orm does not rule over substance in evaluating documents filed in this Court." Markwell v. Whinery's Real Estate, Inc., 869 P.2d 840, 847 (Okla.1994). We followed this principle in Manning v. State ex rel. Dept. of Public Safety, 876 P.2d 667, 669-671 (Okla.1994) and explained that a "court minute" could be a filed judgment, in a decision where the minute predated the statutory changes effective October 1, 1993.
However, the Legislature has taken considerable trouble to declare that it is the form that shall determine whether a judge-signed instrument starts appeal time. The recently enacted 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.3 states that a filed judgment must be in a certain form to be appealable. The court minute in this case contains a caption setting forth the name of the court, the names and designations of the parties, the file number of the case, a title, a disposition of the action and the relief awarded, and the signature and title of the court. This minute facially meets the requirements of § 696.3.
But since October 1, 1993 certain types of instruments are deemed to not be a "judgment, decree or appealable order" for the purpose of commencing the time to appeal. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.2(C). One of these is a "minute entry." 2 Pursuant to § 696.2(C) a minute entry, even though it might meet the other requirements of § 696.3, is not an appealable order or judgment.
Plaintiff's interpretation of § 696.2 is that some court minutes are appealable while others are not. She would have us examine the content of each instrument bearing a "minute" label to determine its appealability. It is clear to us that the legislature wants a brighter line to distinguish appealable orders from non-appealable ones than we have recognized in the past. We believe this is a useful reform, with one of its aims to reduce the amount of judicial energy expended on determining when time to appeal starts to run. We therefore decline this invitation to create a body of caselaw delineating the type of minutes that are appealable. We conclude that an order of the District Court titled "Court Minute" is not a judgment, decree or appealable order for the purpose of commencing the time to appeal. Mansell v. City of Lawton, 877 P.2d 1120 (Okla.1994); Aven v. Reeh, 878 P.2d 1069 (Okla.1994).
The only disposition of Plaintiff's post-judgment motion appearing in the appellate record is the court minute. No filed judgment complying with the form of § 696.3 appears in the appellate record. A judgment or appealable order conforming to § 696.3 is "a jurisdictional prerequisite to the commencement of an appeal." 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.2(C). We dismiss the appeal as premature. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 990A(F).
The court dismisses Pamela J. Corbit's [Corbit] appeal from a nisi prius denial of her motion for new trial because the denial order--although captioned, signed and subscribed by the judge and completely resolving all the dispositive issues in the case--is memorialized on a form bearing "court minute" as its title. Today's opinion concludes that this filed order of denial cannot trigger appeal time. I dissent from this disposition that allows Corbit to secure and file another order, proper in form, which would presumably trigger an appealable event for review of all errors she attempts to tender. The solution I counsel would (a) bar our review of two trial court rulings for which this appeal clearly is untimely and (b) confine the breadth of corrective relief to errors, if any, in the trial court's response to Corbit's term-time motion to vacate. I must also recede from today's unwarranted extension of extant jurisprudence, first pronounced in Mansell v. City of Lawton, 1 and from the court's strained interpretation of pertinent statutory language.
On July 1, 1992 Garry Williams [Williams] requested the district court reduce his child support obligation. Corbit, Williams' divorced wife, then pressed, on July 31, 1992, for a contempt citation to enforce payment of an accumulated child support arrearage owed her (and the Department of Human Services). At a July 13, 1993 hearing the court orally lowered Williams' current support obligation and made a quantitative finding of his child support delinquency to date. By its July 21, 1993 entry the trial court corrected sua sponte this last determination by another reduction of the adjudicated arrearage. By the terms of the latter order the lowered arrearage was commuted to judgment. The July 21 ruling was memorialized on a court form bearing the title "court minute". On July 22, 1993 Corbit timely sought a new trial. By judge-generated order filed September 9, 1993 the trial court (1) sustained Williams' quest for reduction of future child support, (2) found him guilty of indirect contempt, (3) deferred his sentencing and (4) denied Corbit's new-trial motion addressing the amount of adjudicated arrearage. This critical order does not bear the title "court minute". 2 By her October 8, 1993 paperwork, filed more than 10 days after the September 9, 1993 entry, Corbit once again sought a new trial, this time requesting the September 9 order's vacation. By another judge-generated order 3 (dated November 16, 1993) the court (1) overruled Corbit's second new-trial motion and (2) sentenced Williams on the contempt charge. The November 16 order is correctly captioned, identifies the court, and is both signed and subscribed by the judge. It bears the preprinted title "court minute".
In this appeal, brought here on December 15, 1993, Corbit seeks corrective relief from the trial court's judgment for commuted arrearage, effective of record below from July 21, which became appealable on September 9 when her timely new trial motion (targeting that issue) was denied. She also seeks our review of the trial court's reduction of her former husband's future child support obligation, effective of record below from September 9, which decision, for lack of a timely new trial motion (addressing that issue), became immediately appealable on that date. 4
On this record, the dispositive queries now before us are: (1) whether the post-decree order filed September 9 became at once appealable for review of two decisions: (a) the judgment for commuted arrearage and (b) the order for future child support reduction (the latter's appeal time ran from September 9 because the October 8 new-trial motion came too late); and (2) whether filed documents that meet all the statutory requirements for entry upon the judgment roll--but bear the preprinted title "court minute"--constitute appealable orders within the meaning of 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.3(A). 5 I would give an affirmative answer to both of these questions.
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