Miles v. Southern

• Decision Date: 30 January 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-176,88-176
• Citation: 297 Ark. 274,763 S.W.2d 656
• Parties: Dodd MILES, Appellant, v. Byron SOUTHERN, Fred Hunt, and Wayland Roberts, Appellees.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 656

763 S.W.2d 656

297 Ark. 274

Dodd MILES, Appellant, v. Byron SOUTHERN, Fred Hunt, and Wayland Roberts, Appellees.

No. 88-176.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Jan. 30, 1989.

Joe Calhoun, Little Rock, for appellant.

Byron Southern, Little Rock, for appellees.

[297 Ark. 280-A] GLAZE, Justice.

In his petition for rehearing, appellant argues this court's opinion seemed to permit the trial court to abdicate exercising its discretion when refusing to impose Rule 11 sanctions. He suggests the only reason underlying the trial court's finding that the Rule 11 motion was without merit was that the appellees were the prevailing parties in the municipal court proceeding. In other words, appellant claims that since the trial court accorded dispositive weight to the municipal court judgment, the court thereby failed to exercise its own discretion when ruling on the motion.

Although the trial court remarked that the critical factor in denying appellant's Rule 11 motion involved the appellees' success in municipal court, the court never stated--as [297 Ark. 280-B] appellant suggests--that the municipal court judgment was the sole reason for its ruling. As we clearly related in our opinion, 297 Ark. 274, 760 S.W.2d 868, the trial judge, when ruling on the parties' motions, had the municipal court record before him as well as the extensive briefs and arguments of the parties. We are unwilling to conclude that he failed to consider or ignored these matters when he dismissed this cause and denied Rule 11 sanctions.

Appellant seems to premise his argument on the fact that the evidence before the trial court showed that the appellees' trespass action against the appellant had been frivolously filed. We cannot agree. Appellees submitted evidence, along with their motion to dismiss, which countered appellant's motion and argument that the appellees' claim had no factual basis. Clearly, this evidence supports, in part, why the appellees initially brought their action against the appellant and offered a basis for appellees having prevailed in the municipal court proceeding. With this record before him, the trial judge was well within his discretion to rule that the municipal judgment favoring appellees was significant and was reason enough to show appellees' action was not frivolous nor subject to Rule 11 sanctions.

Apparently, the appellant is troubled because the trial court did not specifically note such other evidence or findings when dismissing appellees' cause and denying appellant's request for Rule 11 sanctions. As noted earlier, the court only referred to the municipal court judgment that was awarded appellees. Of course, the trial court was not required to give detailed reasons for its action. Even so, under ARCP Rule 52, appellant certainly could have requested the trial court to set out facts and conclusions of law which constituted the grounds for its decision. He failed to do so. Thus, on appeal, we are relegated to a review of the entire record to determine if the record supports the trial court's decision. We have no doubts that it does. Accordingly, we conclude the trial court properly exercised its discretion in ruling on appellant's Rule 11 motion, and from our review of the record, we are unable to say it abused its discretion in denying his motion.

For the foregoing reasons, we deny appellant's petition for rehearing.

HOLT, C.J., and DUDLEY and NEWBERN, JJ., would grant.

[297 Ark. 280-C] NEWBERN, Justice.

The court's original opinion is quite correct in holding that the municipal and circuit courts lacked jurisdiction of the trespass claim. We were also correct in modifying dismissal of the counter-claim so that it is without prejudice. We erred by not requiring the trial court at least to hold a hearing to determine whether sanctions pursuant to Ark.R.Civ.P. 11 would be appropriate.

The appellant, Dodd Miles, argued that the appellees, Byron Southern, Fred Hunt, and Wayland Roberts, had at least constructive notice of the subservience of their land to an easement in favor of the land owned by Miles. It is also contended that all the evidence of record indicates that Southern, Hunt, and Roberts had actual knowledge of the existence of the easement, and thus their action to recover their costs for damaging and moving Miles's sewer line was totally frivolous. These allegations do not, of course, necessarily mean that Miles is entitled to Rule 11 sanctions, however, the allegations require serious consideration.

In our opinion we noted that the trial court, in denying Rule 11 relief, "mentioned that the appellees [Southern, Hunt, and Roberts] ... prevailed on the merits of their trespass claim in municipal court." We also noted that the trial court had before it all the pleadings, municipal court records, briefs and arguments filed in the circuit court. We did not point out that the only reason the trial court gave for denial of sanctions was that Southern, Hunt, and Roberts prevailed in the municipal court. That was an improper reason to give. The rule does not absolve a party of the possibility of sanctions just because he prevailed at an earlier stage of the litigation. It is easy to conceive of instances where the prevailing party might file a pleading, motion, or other paper which could violate the rule and thus require sanctions.

The majority opinion upon denial of rehearing states that it was proper for the trial court to give as its reason for denial of Rule 11 sanctions the fact that the plaintiffs prevailed in the municipal court. What if the plaintiffs' victory there was the result of a pleading or other document filed in direct violation of Rule 11? Surely the majority would not agree that the fact that the plaintiffs won would have anything to do with the issue of whether the sanctions should be imposed. Miles's contention here [297 Ark. 280-D] is that the complaint filed against him in the municipal court was known by the plaintiffs to be without basis. If it turns out that it was without basis and the plaintiffs knew or should have known it was without basis when they filed it, is the fact that they prevailed on such a complaint relevant? To ask the question is to answer it. The fact that one party or the other prevailed at an earlier stage of the litigation has absolutely nothing to do with whether Rule 11 has been violated.

I disagree with the suggestion of the court's opinion on denial of rehearing that the trial judge stated that the plaintiffs' victory in the municipal court was only a "critical factor" in deciding whether to award Rule 11 sanctions. That was the language the judge used in his letter responding to Miles's request for reconsideration of the dismissal of his counterclaim for malicious prosecution. In a separate paragraph in that letter, the court stated:

In regard to the Rule 11 sanctions motion filed by the defendant, this Court finds it is, once again, without merit. A lower court has found in favor of the plaintiff and I am not prepared to invoke the stringent penalties of Rule 11 on a prevailing party.

The final order denying reconsideration states only the following with respect to denial of Rule 11 sanctions:

In regard to Defendant's Motion for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11, such Motion is again without merit. The Court will not invoke the penalties of Rule 11 on a prevailing party, and since Plaintiffs won in the lower court, such Motion is denied.

Unlike the majority, I take the judge at his word. The record demonstrates nothing other than that the judge had only one reason for his action, and that reason was incorrect.

Miles's brief concedes that a trial court has some discretion in deciding to impose or not impose sanctions under...