Cozart v. Mazda Distributors (Gulf), Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 September 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 18487,18487 |
| Citation | 861 S.W.2d 347 |
| Parties | Karlus L. COZART, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MAZDA DISTRIBUTORS (GULF), INC., and Sellers-Sexton, Inc., Defendants-Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
James D. Sickal, Waynesville, for plaintiff-appellant.
Thomas O. Baker, Baker, Sterchi & Cowden, Kansas City, for defendant-respondent Mazda Distributors (Gulf), Inc.
J. William Turley, Williams, Robinson, Turley, Crump & White, Rolla, for defendant-respondent Sellers-Sexton, Inc.
This appeal involves the involuntary dismissal for failure to prosecute of the plaintiff's personal injury suit and the plaintiff's efforts to have that order set aside. The trial court sustained a motion by one of the defendants to set aside earlier trial court orders that purported to set aside the order of dismissal and reinstate the action to the active docket, and the court denied the plaintiff's request that the dismissal be set aside. The plaintiff appeals; we affirm.
On January 13, 1986, the plaintiff filed suit against Mazda Distributors (Gulf), Inc., and Sellers-Sexton, Inc., seeking damages for personal injuries he sustained in a one car accident on August 23, 1983.
Activity in the case, as reflected by the docket sheet, gradually dwindled until June 6, 1990, when the trial court dismissed it without prejudice for lack of prosecution. From affidavits of the plaintiff's attorney and the attorney's office manager we learn that the attorney did not receive notice before June 6, 1990, that the case was on the dismissal docket and did not receive notice of the June 6, 1990, dismissal. When, on July 23, 1990, the attorney first learned of the dismissal, he went directly to the trial judge's office to discuss the matter. On July 23, the judge signed an order, prepared by the plaintiff's attorney, by which the court "set aside" the June 6, 1990, order of dismissal and "reinstated" the cause to "the active trial docket."
It is clear from the record that the plaintiff's attorney did not file a written motion asking that the June 6, 1990, order be set aside, nor were the other litigants or counsel notified that an ex parte oral request for such relief was being made. Further, the record is devoid of any indication that other litigants or counsel were notified of or had knowledge of the entry of the July 23, 1990, order until some date in 1992.
The cause found its way to the dismissal docket a second time, as reflected by the following docket sheet entries:
06/12/92 Motion Filed
Mot. to Remove from Dismissal Doc. Attorney for Plaintiff
06/12/92 Motion Disposed Days
Motion to Remove from Dismissal Doc. Sustained
06/12/92 Document Filed
Order to Reinstate Case
Judge
Copies of order mailed to all attys. of record
Documents in the legal file enable us to flesh out these cryptic docket sheet entries. In an undated motion bearing a circuit clerk file stamp date of June 12, 1992, the plaintiff stated he was on active duty with the United States Army in Europe and requested his case be reinstated to the active docket. In response, the trial court issued an order, dated June 8, 1992, and bearing a file stamp date of June 12, 1992, by which the court "ordered that the above-entitled cause and the dismissal thereof is hereby set aside for good cause shown and the above matter is reinstated on the active trial docket."
Nothing in the record indicates that the other litigants were notified prior to June 12, 1992, of the plaintiff's request that the case be removed from the dismissal docket.
By motion filed August 7, 1992, Mazda asked the trial court to vacate its orders of July 23, 1990, and June 8, 1992, 1 or, alternatively, that it dismiss the action because of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Relying on Supreme Court Rule 75.01 2 and cases On October 1, 1992, before Mazda's motion was ruled, the plaintiff filed his "Motion to Set Aside Judgment Or In The Alternative Suit in Equity To Set Aside Judgment of Dismissal" (hereafter, "the October 1 motion"). In the October 1 motion, the plaintiff sought
interpreting it, Mazda averred that the trial court lost jurisdiction thirty days after the June 6, 1990, dismissal; hence, the July 23, 1990, and June 8, 1992, "reinstatements" were void.
an order pursuant to Civil Rule 74.06 to set aside a judgment of dismissal for failure to prosecute entered ... on June 6, 1990, on the basis that it is no longer equitable that said judgment remain in force, and in the alternative, requests this Court to invoke its equitable powers and jurisdiction and consider this pleading as a separate suit in equity for the purpose of setting aside said judgment....
Additional relevant docket sheet entries follow. We number the docket sheet entries for purposes of subsequent reference.
(1) 10/15/92 Event
Motion Hearing--Contested 9:00 a.m
Honorable John D. Wiggins 3
Plt. appears by Mr. Sickal; Defs appear by Mr. Poland Mr. Morgan
and Mr. Turley; Arguments heard; Court sustains Def's motion
to vacate the order of reinstatement and enters and [sic]
order dismissing case. JDW
(2) 10/15/92 Event Complete
Motion Hearing--Contested
Motion(s) Sustained
(3) 10/15/92 Case Disposed 2467 days
Dismissed By Court
(4) 10/15/92 Motion Disposed 14 days
Motion for New Trial/Vacate/Set Aside
Overruled/Denied
Motion to set aside judgment or in the alternative suit in
equity to set aside judgment of dismissal
----------
On his notice of appeal the plaintiff identified the "Judgment or Order Appealed From" thus: "Order of Court sustaining Defendants' Motion to Vacate the Order of Reinstatement and entering an order dismissing case." Attached to the notice of appeal was a one-page document denominated "Minutes" that is virtually identical in content to the October 15, 1992, docket sheet entry No. 1 set out above. The legal file, certified by the circuit clerk of Pulaski County contains an untitled additional document, one not attached to the plaintiff's notice of appeal, that contains the same information as docket sheet entry No. 4 quoted above and also indicates the motion was filed by the attorney for the plaintiff on October 1, 1992. The record contains no separate document signed by the judge and filed by the circuit clerk that describes the trial court's action with respect to the plaintiff's October 1 motion.
In his sole point on appeal, the plaintiff states, "The trial court erred in its ruling on October 15, 1992, for the following reasons:" He then sets out various reasons for this generic allegation that the trial court made an erroneous ruling. From those reasons we can determine (1) that the plaintiff is challenging what he perceives to be the trial court's failure to rule on his October 1 motion and (2) the basis for his challenge is his assertion that the trial court had jurisdiction to rule on his October 1 motion, which, he says, stated grounds for equitable relief. Alternatively, he claims that if the trial court lacked jurisdiction to rule on his October 1 motion, then it also lacked jurisdiction to rule on Mazda's motion to vacate or dismiss and, therefore, that ruling was erroneous. 4
The plaintiff's argument is essentially threefold: the trial court did not rule on his October 1 motion; the October 1 motion invoked the equitable jurisdiction of the trial court; and the October 1 motion stated equitable grounds for relief from the dismissal.
The plaintiff's initial claim, that the trial court did not rule on his October 1 motion, is refuted by the October 15, 1992, docket sheet entry No. 4, and the untitled document of like import in the legal file.
We first note the distinction between a ruling of a court and the entry of that ruling. Rendition of a judgment is a judicial act of the court; entry of the judgment on the records of the court is a ministerial act. Fleming v. Clark Township of Chariton County, 357 S.W.2d 940, 942 (Mo.1962); State ex rel. M.J. Gorzik Corp. v. Mosman, 315 S.W.2d 209, 211 (Mo.1958). When the court does not render a judgment in the form of a separate document, signed by the judge and entered by the clerk, we may look to the judge's minute entry or docket sheet entry to determine what judgment, if any, the court rendered. Byrd v. Brown, 641 S.W.2d 163, 166-67 (Mo.App.1982). In the absence of a rule requiring a judgment to be embodied in a separate document, where it is clear that a competent tribunal intended a minute entry or docket sheet entry to be a determination of the rights of the parties to the action and shows in intelligible language the relief granted, the minute or docket entry may be considered the judgment. Id. at 166-67[2, 3]. 5
In the case before us, docket sheet entry No. 4 and the separate untitled document satisfy the requirements set out in Byrd. The entries identify the plaintiff's October 1 motion by its filing date, the name of the movant, and the title given the motion by the plaintiff. Both the docket sheet entry and the separate document state the action taken: "Overruled/Denied." Although the cryptic entries, possibly written in obedience to some computer software program, are not as informative as a narrative descriptive of a trial court action, it remains clear from the record that the trial court ruled on the plaintiff's October 1 motion. 6
We note an apparent difference between this case and Byrd. In Byrd, the docket sheet entry was made by the judge. Here, the record does not permit an informed conclusion about whether the judge or the clerk made...
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