Heller v. Edwards
| Decision Date | 03 May 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 1478.,1478. |
| Citation | 104 A.2d 528 |
| Parties | HELLER v. EDWARDS et al. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Before CAYTON, Chief Judge, and HOOD and QUINN, Associate Judges.
A defendant in an automobile collision case appeals from an order refusing to stay proceedings. Edwards and East Side Cabs, Inc., brought this action against Heller in the Municipal Court as a result of an automobile collision. Heller filed an answer to the complaint. Eight months after this suit was commenced Heller filed a suit against Edwards and East Side Cabs in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming damages on account of the same collision. Heller then filed his motion in the Municipal Court asking that the suit against him be stayed be cause of the pendency of his own suit in the District Court. The motion was denied.
We must first decide a jurisdictional question: appellees' contention that the order refusing a stay was not final and appealable. We think the point is well taken. We have on earlier occasions made reference to the statute creating this court and have pointed out that under Code 1951, § 11-772, we have jurisdiction to review only such orders as are final. Brown v. Randle & Garvin, D.C.Mun.App., 32 A.2d 104. We have also said that a test of finality is whether the order is one which disposes of the whole case, leaving nothing for the court to do except to execute the judgment it has rendered. Whitman v. Noel, D.C.Mun.App., 53 A.2d 2801 There we held that an order denying a defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground of limitations was not appealable. In still another case, Kaplowitz Bros. v. Kahan, D.C.Mun.App., 59 A.2d 795, there was a motion in the Municipal Court to dismiss an action because it represented a compulsory counterclaim in a suit then pending in the District Court. The Municipal Court overruled the motion to dismiss, and the case was brought here on appeal. We held that it was not a "final order or judgment" and dismissed the appeal.
The same rule applies in the case at bar. The order involved did not dispose of the action, but required that it be tried on the merits. We are clear in our view that the order is not appealable.2
Though we are dismissing the appeal, we think we may properly say a few words as to other contentions discussed in the briefs. Appellant insists that by refusing a stay the Municipal Court denied "his right to affirmative relief" — that is, the right to proceed first with the suit he had filed in the District Court. Appellees answer that their suit, filed in the Municipal Court some...
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Trilon Plaza Co. v. Allstate Leasing Corp.
...Insurance Co., D.C.App., 221 A.2d 718, 720 (1966). See Burtoff v. Burtoff, D.C.App., 390 A.2d 989, 991 (1978); Heller v. Edwards, D.C.Mun. App., 104 A.2d 528, 528-29 (1954). Thus, for an order to be final for review purposes, we do not look at "`its name, its propriety, or its normal functi......
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Burtoff v. Burtoff, 12938.
...but execute the judgment it has rendered. McBryde v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., D.C.App., 221 A.2d 718 (1966); Heller v. Edwards, D.C. Mun.App., 104 A.2d 528 (1954). That neither party to the instant appeal has raised the jurisdictional issue is immaterial, for we have no jurisdiction......
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Kaplan v. Bollt
...to stay an action is not final and appealable.* Appeal dismissed. * Levine v. Downs, D.C.Mun.App., 1958, 145 A.2d 453; Heller v. Edwards, D.C. Mun.App. 1954, 104 A.2d 528 (denial of motion to stay). Kaplowitz Bros. v. Kahan, D.C.Mun.App. 1948, 59 A.2d 795; De Bohula v. Tamamian, D.C.Mun.App......
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