Mansell v. City of Lawton

• Decision Date: 28 June 1994
• Docket Number: No. 82589,82589
• Citation: 877 P.2d 1120
• Parties: Bob L. MANSELL, Appellant, v. CITY OF LAWTON, Appellee.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 1120

877 P.2d 1120

1994 OK 75

Bob L. MANSELL, Appellant, v. CITY OF LAWTON, Appellee.

No. 82589.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

June 28, 1994.

As Corrected June 29, 1994.

Appeal from the District Court for Comanche County; Roy D. Moore, District Judge.

Appellee, by its response to Appellant's petition in error, filed a motion to dismiss the appeal alleging that the petition in error was untimely.

MOTION TO DISMISS DENIED.

Steven S. Mansell, Oklahoma City, for appellant.

John H. Vincent, Lawton, for appellee.

SUMMERS, Justice.

The trial judge sustained a motion to dismiss, and a judge-signed minute to that effect was filed that same day on October 7, 1993. A journal entry of judgment was then filed on October 15, 1993. The petition in error was filed on Monday, November 15, 1993. Appellee moves to dismiss for untimeliness.

Effective October 1, 1993, a minute entry is not an appealable order. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.2(C). That statute, which took effect that date, states in part:

The following shall not constitute a judgment, decree or appealable order: A minute entry; verdict; informal statement of the proceedings and relief awarded, including, but limited to, a letter to a party or parties indicating the ruling or instructions for preparing the judgment, decree or appealable order.

Id. § 696.2(C), (emphasis added).

Minute entries are usually considered to be the function of a clerk, but 12 O.S.1991 § 23 states that a judge may also prepare an entry in the form of a minute. As a matter of courthouse practice it may be titled as a Section 696.2 also states that the time to appeal does not begin to run until the appealable order or judgment is prepared in a certain form and filed with the trial court clerk.

court minute order, court minute, minute order, minute, or have no title. This one had none. A minute contains a brief description of the order or judgment rendered. 12 O.S.1991 § 23.

The time for appeal shall not begin to run until a written judgment, decree or appealable order, prepared in conformance with Section 10 of this act, is filed with the court clerk, regardless of whether the judgment, decree, or appealable order is effective when pronounced or when it is filed.

Id. § 696.2(D).

Section 10 of the act was codified at 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.3, and requires the appealable order or judgment to have a caption including the name of the court, the names and designation of the parties, the file number of the case, and the title of the instrument. It further requires a statement of the disposition, including the relief awarded, signature and title of the court, and other matters approved by the court.

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). See also 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 990A(A). Section 696.3 requires the appealable order to have a title. If an order has no title, or bears a title in some form using the word "minute", and otherwise meets the description of a minute, we believe the Legislature intended it not to be appealable, 12 O.S. § 696.2(C), even though it may have been appealable prior to October 1, 1993. These recent statutory changes define the appealable event according to the form by which the decision is filed. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 §§ 696.2, 696.3. This minute entry is in a form that makes it not an appealable order. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 §§ 696.2, 696.3.

The journal entry of judgment filed on October 15, 1993 satisfies the form required by 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 696.3. The petition in error must be filed within thirty days of the date the journal entry of judgment was filed in the trial court. 12 O.S.Supp.1993 § 990A(A). Thirty days from October 15, 1993 was Sunday, November 14, 1993, and because of that the Appellant was authorized to file the petition in error on the following Monday, November 15, 1993. 25 O.S.1991 § 82.1. The petition in error is thus timely filed, the motion to dismiss is denied, and the appeal shall proceed.

HODGES, C.J., LAVENDER, V.C.J., and ALMA WILSON, KAUGER and WATT, JJ., concur.

SIMMS and OPALA, JJ., concur in result.

HARGRAVE, J., dissents.

OPALA, Justice, with whom SIMMS, Justice, joins, concurring in result.

Concluding that the appellant's petition in error was timely brought, the court holds that a filed memorial of a ruling does not trigger appeal time unless it is in literal compliance with all of the requirements in 12 O.S.1993 § 696.3. ¹ While I concur in today's result, I recede from the court's pronouncement on four grounds: (1) the true character of the memorial in contest here is to be determined by its substantive content rather than by the name provided by its author; (2)

the earlier October 7, 1993 memorial ² is an order [the first order] and not a minute; (3) because the October 7 order does not substantially meet the requirements of § 696.3, it is incapable of triggering appeal time; ³ and (4) today's opinion offers a flawed analysis that is fraught with adverse consequences to the stability of the record-keeping system in the district courts.

I

THE ANATOMY OF THE LITIGATION.

On August 25, 1993 the City of Lawton [the City or defendant] sought dismissal of Bob L. Mansell's [Mansell or plaintiff] action against the City. The court dismissed the action on October 7, 1993. The trial judge (a) memorialized his ruling on a printed docket sheet form which bears the title "minute", (b) signed it, and (c) forwarded it to the clerk for filing and entry on the journal. ⁴ He then instructed counsel for both parties to prepare the "journal entry" of his ruling. The latter document was filed on October 15, 1993. Mansell's petition in error came here on November 15, 1993, within thirty days of the October 15 order's filing, but more than thirty days after the October 7 order [the earlier memorial] was filed with the clerk. The City asserts Mansell's appeal is untimely since it was brought more than thirty (30) days after the court's October 7, 1993 order. The dispositive question before the court is whether appeal time was triggered on October 7 or October 15.

II

THE SUBSTANTIVE CONTENT OF THE OCTOBER 7 MEMORIAL, RATHER

THAN THE NAME GIVEN IT BY ITS AUTHOR, DETERMINES

WHETHER IT QUALIFIES AS AN ORDER OR AS A MINUTE.

The meaning and effect of an instrument depends on its substantive content rather than on the form or title provided by its While both orders and minutes ⁸ are posted on the appearance docket, ⁹ each has a distinct legal identity ¹⁰ and is facially distinguishable from the other by its content and substance. ¹¹ A "minute" of a judge's courtroom ruling internalizes the event or proceeding by a short abstract to be posted solely on the court's appearance docket. It is not the event's official proof. For external use that proof is provided by the "recordable " ¹² memorial that is on file in the case and must be entered on the journal. In the past, it was the latter memorial's filing that triggered appeal time.

                author. 5  Although the October 7, 1993 memorial bears the printed title "minute", the paper clearly meets the attributes of a recordable order. 6  Its content directs that the City be given the requested relief--i.e., the action's dismissal--and the "direction" is signed by the judge.  The instrument clearly is an order--albeit one that does not trigger appeal time when measured by the § 696.3 standards. 7
                

Minutes are never a fit substitute for a judge's recordable entry since minutes are incomplete by definition. ¹³ Record entry of orders or judgments may never be accomplished by the clerk's minutes or by unsigned (or initialed) entries later posted on the appearance docket. ¹⁴ While a judge, much like a courtroom deputy clerk, may write minutes The court attempts to avoid characterizing the October 7 paper as an order by using syllogistic logic. It reasons that minutes are posted on the appearance docket; the judge-signed paper, here in contest, was posted on the appearance docket; ergo, it must be a "minute" or "minute order". ¹⁵ This reasoning ignores the essential function of an appearance docket. It is to be kept as a chronological index of all papers filed and of all significant actions taken in a case; it must reflect courtroom minutes [with abstracts of all proceedings in the case ] and list the filed orders that are recordable. ¹⁶

for posting on the appearance docket, once the minutes are signed and meet the criteria prescribed in § 24, they are at once, by force of law, transmuted into recordable memorials.

The October 7 memorial's content and substance meet all of the 12 O.S.1991 §§ 24 and 1116 ¹⁷ criteria of a recordable order. The handwritten and signed direction of the trial judge which dismissed the action is a recordable order that cannot be transmuted into a minute by a pre-printed label on the form upon which it is inscribed.

III

BECAUSE THE OCTOBER 7, 1993 ORDER DOES NOT COMPLY

SUBSTANTIALLY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF § 696.3

, IT CANNOT TRIGGER APPEAL TIME.

Once the October 7, 1993 instrument was posted on the appearance docket and placed on file, it became the court clerk's task to decide if it was recordable ¹⁸--i.e., fit for entry on the journal. ¹⁹ Its text ²⁰ includes the designation of the parties, the file number of the case, the relief granted, and the signature of the trial judge. While it meets the § 24 case law criteria for recording, its § 696.3 deficiencies are that (1) it is untitled; and (2) its caption does not bear the name of the court.

Under the pre-October 1, 1993 procedural regime, a judge-signed memorial that clearly specified the relief granted ²¹ had to be entered on the journal. ²² Although recordable as a court order under the § 24 criteria, the October 7 memorial fails substantially ²³ to meet the post-September 30, 1993 § 696.3 requirements ²⁴ for triggering appeal time. This is so because its court of origination is not shown. It is the filing of an instrument Although...