Moore v. City of Las Vegas
| Decision Date | 25 June 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 8260,8260 |
| Citation | 551 P.2d 244,92 Nev. 402 |
| Parties | Simmie MOORE, as an Individual and as guardian ad litem of Joe Moore, et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF LAS VEGAS, Respondent. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Charles L. Kellar, Las Vegas, for appellants.
Cromer, Barker & Michaelson, Las Vegas, for respondent.
Two issues are presented for our consideration on this appeal from an order granting summary judgment dismissing a wrongful death action against the City of Las Vegas: (1) whether a district court judge is empowered to rehear a motion once denied by a judge who no longer holds office, and (2) whether summary judgment was appropriate as a matter of law.
Maude Jackson Moore, survived by a husband and seven children, was killed by an automobile at the intersection of Miller and La Salle Streets in Las Vegas on the evening of January 1, 1972. At the time of the accident, she was kneeling in the middle of the unlighted intersection tending to her injured dog which had just been struck by a passing motorist.
The City first moved for summary judgment a short time after the suit was commenced in 1972. That motion and a subsequent motion for rehearing were denied. In March 1975, a second motion for rehearing was filed which cited authorities that previously had been overlooked by the City. During the period between the filings of the first and seclnd motions for rehearing, the judge to whom the case originally was assigned lost his bid for reelection. As a result, the case was assigned to another judge. The second motion for rehearing was granted and summary judgment followed.
District Court Rule 27 provides:
'When an application or petition for any writ or order shall have been made to a district judge and is pending or has been denied by such judge, the same application or motion shall not again be made to the same or another district judge, except upon the consent in writing of the judge to whom the application or motion was first made.'
District Court Rule 27 is intended to prevent 'judge shopping' once a motion is granted or denied. Its purpose is to preclude litigants from attempting to have an unfavorable determination by one district judge overruled by another. A deceased judge or a judge no longer in office is not available to give written consent for another district judge to hear motions once granted or denied by him. The animus of the rule is not offended where, as here, the case becomes assigned to another judge by reason of some fortuitous event such as death or the elective process and not by reason of any action initiated by or within the control of the parties. Thus, the question...
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Thomas v. Hardwick
...address either challenge, because they weren't raised until a motion for reconsideration was filed. Citing Moore v. City of Las Vegas, 92 Nev. 402, 405, 551 P.2d 244, 246 (1976), the district court denied reconsideration because this was not one of the “rare instances in which new issues of......
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