Malone v. Potomac Highlands Airport Auth.
| Decision Date | 07 October 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–0849.,14–0849. |
| Parties | John Terry MALONE, Plaintiff Below, Petitioner v. POTOMAC HIGHLANDS AIRPORT AUTHORITY, a public corporation, Defendant Below, Respondent. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Harry A. Smith, III, Esq., McNeer, Highland, McMunn and Varner, L.C., Elkins, WV, for Petitioner.
Ramon Rozas, III, Esq., Friend & Rozas, LLC, Cumberland, Maryland, for Respondent.
, Chief Justice:
Petitioner John Terry Malone (hereinafter “petitioner”) appeals the Circuit Court of Mineral County's July 28, 2014, order denying his “Motion for Reconsideration” of the circuit court's dismissal of his case pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure
. In his complaint, petitioner alleges that respondent Potomac Highlands Airport Authority (hereinafter “PHAA”) wrongfully banned him from the Greater Cumberland Regional Airport (hereinafter the “GCRA”), which banishment interfered with his ability to engage in employment as a pilot.
Based upon our review of the briefs, legal authorities, appendix record, and upon consideration of arguments of counsel, this Court finds that petitioner's complaint fails to state a claim with sufficient clarity to satisfy even our liberal notice pleading standards. Accordingly, we affirm the circuit court's dismissal of the subject complaint.
The letter further indicated, however, that if petitioner had a “legitimate business or personal reason to be on Airport grounds, he is welcome to request prior written permission to be present on a specific date or time and the Board would certainly consider the same.”2
Petitioner filed suit alleging that the PHAA had “no legitimate basis” to bar him, that he was “entitled to have access ... as any citizen would, and [PHAA's] denial of such access is wrongful[.]” Petitioner's complaint alleged a loss of income as a result of his inability to access the airport premises and sought injunctive relief. In response, PHAA filed an answer and counter-claim for conversion for petitioner's alleged failure to return all the keys. PHAA also filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to West Virginia Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
asserting that petitioner's complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
A hearing on the preliminary injunction was held on August 5, 2013. After hearing testimony from petitioner,3 the circuit court found that, given that petitioner had not utilized the airport for several months before he was barred from the premises and that other nearby airports were equally available to him, no irreparable harm would likely occur and denied the injunction.
More importantly for purposes of this appeal, the court thereafter entertained argument on PHAA's motion to dismiss. PHAA argued that it had the discretion to ban persons from its premises “for any reason the Board feels is appropriate.” Petitioner countered that as a publicly funded corporation, the PHAA could not “arbitrarily” ban him, but that there was “no law that [he could] ascertain on the subject[.]” At no time during the hearing was a specific rationale for petitioner's banishment adduced, nor is any such information contained elsewhere in the appendix record aside from the explanation in counsel's May 8, 2013, letter. The circuit court found that PHAA had the discretion to bar “disruptive” persons and granted PHAA's motion to dismiss by order dated September 3, 2013.
Nine days later, on September 12, 2013, petitioner filed a “Motion for Reconsideration and Rehearing” purportedly pursuant to West Virginia Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a)
, rehashing his previous arguments that “public accountability” precluded the PHAA from “arbitrarily” banning him from the premises and that his argument that he could not be banned was “facially more compelling” than PHAA's contention that it could ban him for any reason. Petitioner further argued that since the circuit court accepted a copy of Public Law 105–348 regarding the creation and power of the PHAA into evidence during the injunctive hearing, it had considered matters “outside of the pleadings.” As such, petitioner argued that the circuit court should have treated the motion as one for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure and therefore further factual development and discovery was necessary. The circuit court summarily denied the motion on July 28, 2014.
This matter is on appeal from the circuit court's denial of petitioner's “Motion for Reconsideration and Rehearing.” This Court has held that “[a] motion to amend or alter judgment, even though it is incorrectly denominated as a motion to ‘reconsider’, ‘vacate’, ‘set aside’, or ‘reargue’ is a Rule 59(e)
motion if filed and served within ten days of entry of judgment.” Syl. Pt. 1, Lieving v. Hadley, 188 W.Va. 197, 198–99, 423 S.E.2d 600, 601–02 (1992)
abrogated on other grounds by
motion to alter or amend a judgment or a Rule 60(b) motion for relief from a judgment order. If the motion is filed within ten days of the circuit court's entry of judgment, the motion is treated as a motion to alter or amend under Rule 59(e). If the motion is filed outside the ten-day limit, it can only be addressed under Rule 60(b).
; see also
Savage v. Booth, 196 W.Va. 65, 68, 468 S.E.2d 318, 321 (1996) ( ).
We note that although petitioner captioned his motion as one for “reconsideration and rehearing,” he did reference West Virginia Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a)
in the body of his motion. However, subsection (a) of Rule 59 is plainly inapplicable as it provides for relief from judgments which have been entered as a result of trial: “A new trial may be granted to all or any of the parties and on all or part of the issues (1) in an action in which there has been a trial by jury ... and (2) in an action tried without a jury ....” (emphasis added). Inasmuch as petitioner's “Motion for Reconsideration and Rehearing” was filed within ten days of the circuit court's order dismissing the action, in accord with our historical practice, the Court will treat this appeal as arising from the circuit court's denial of a motion filed pursuant to Rule 59(e)
, which provides for the alteration or amendment of a judgment.4
However, we pause in our analysis briefly to comment upon the apparently predominant practice of haphazardly and imprecisely characterizing an attempt to obtain relief from a judgment under our Rules of Civil Procedure. This Court has repeatedly emphasized that a “motion to reconsider” is a fiction which does not exist under our Rules of Procedure; nevertheless, practitioners continue to file motions captioned as such. As we observed many years ago, “[t]he reason for this may be partially our fault because we continue to treat a ‘motion to reconsider’ as either a motion to alter or amend judgment ... or a motion for relief from judgment[.]” Richardson v. Kennedy, 197 W.Va. 326, 329–30, 475 S.E.2d 418, 421–22 (1996)
. We continue to recognize, in fairness, that this lack of precision in procedural practice is one which this Court has seemingly countenanced for greater than twenty years.5 However, seldom in our jurisprudence has this Court seen fit to do the work of practitioners for them with such regularity, correcting a blatant legal error and going so far as to create precedent which forgives, as a matter of law, the failure to properly denominate a critical procedural motion. Irrespective of this construct that attempts to properly categorize such rogue motions, the failure to accurately identify the Rule of Procedure under which a party seeks relief unnecessarily burdens both lower and appellate courts with untangling the nature of the relief sought and, more importantly, obfuscates the proper analysis to be employed to ascertain if relief is warranted. See
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