Rubey v. Vannett

• Decision Date: 04 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. A05-310.,A05-310.
• Citation: 714 N.W.2d 417
• Parties: In re the Marriage of Thomas Caroll RUBEY, Appellant, v. Valerie Ann VANNETT, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 417

714 N.W.2d 417

In re the Marriage of Thomas Caroll RUBEY, Appellant, v. Valerie Ann VANNETT, Respondent.

No. A05-310.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 4, 2006.

Rehearing Denied June 8, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mark A. Olson, Olson Law Office, Burnsville, MN, for Appellant.

Valerie Ann Vannett, Apple Valley, MN, Pro Se Respondent.

John Remington Graham, Amicus Curiae R-Kids of Minnesota.

Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.

OPINION

PAGE, Justice.

This case arises from the dissolution of appellant Thomas Rubey and respondent Valerie Vannett's marriage. Although they settled some issues, Rubey and Vannett went to trial to determine who would be awarded physical custody of their child. After the trial, the district court issued an order granting sole physical and legal custody to Vannett. Rubey filed a motion for a new trial or amended findings (new trial/amended findings motion). Because the hearing on the motion occurred outside of the 60-day time frame required by Minn. R. Civ. P 59.03, the district court found that it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the motion. Rubey appealed and the court of appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, determining that, under Minn. R. Civ.App. P. 104.01, subd. 2, the appeal was untimely. We granted review and now reverse and remand to the court of appeals for further proceedings.

Rubey and Vannett were married in 1999 and had one child before separating in October 2002. As part of their dissolution, Rubey and Vannett stipulated to a property settlement, maintenance, and legal custody of their child, but were unable to resolve who would have physical custody of their child.

After a trial on that issue, the trial court issued its Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law, Order for Judgment, and Judgment and Decree on June 21, 2004. The order for judgment granted Vannett sole physical and legal custody of the child. Vannett served Rubey with a Notice of Filing and Entry of Decree by mail on June 23, 2004. After being served with the Notice of Filing and Entry of Decree, Rubey had 30 days in which to serve new trial and amended findings motions. Minn. R. Civ. P. 59.03.¹

Rubey served and filed a motion for new trial/amended findings on July 23, 2004. It is undisputed that Rubey served the motion within the required 30-day time period. In addition to requiring that the motion be served within 30 days, the rule requires that a new trial motion be heard within 60 days of service of the Notice of Filing and Entry of Decree "unless the time for hearing be extended by the court within the 60-day period for good cause shown." Id. To comply with Rule 59.03, the hearing here should have taken place or an extension granted on or before August 25, 2004. Rubey's notice of motion and motion did not provide a date certain for the hearing. On July 28, 2004, Rubey's attorney telephoned the trial court's scheduling clerk to schedule a date for the hearing on the motion. The only dates the court had available for the hearing were more than 60 days after Vannett served Rubey with the Notice of Filing and Entry of Decree. The date selected for the hearing was September 17, 2004.

On August 30, 2004, after the 60-day period had run, Vannett moved to dismiss Rubey's motion based on the court's lack of jurisdiction. In the alternative, Vannett sought to have Rubey's motion denied on the merits. According to Vannett, the district court lost jurisdiction over Rubey's motion when no extension had been granted and the hearing had not occurred within the required 60-day period.

On September 17, 2004, rather than hearing Rubey's motion on its merits, the district court heard arguments on the court's jurisdiction to hear the motion. At the hearing, the attorneys for each of the parties appeared and the court's scheduling clerk testified. According to an affidavit filed by Rubey's attorney, during his July 28 conversation with the scheduling clerk, after being told the court's available dates, he "asked the scheduling clerk if the Judge would be issuing an order extending the time for hearing. [He] was told that the Judge would issue an order since he was not available to hear the matter until September 17, 2004." In contrast, the scheduling clerk testified that she did not tell Rubey's attorney that the court would prepare an order and did not recall having a conversation with Rubey's attorney regarding the court preparing an order. Moreover, the scheduling clerk testified: "I don't believe I would ever say the court would prepare an order," and that it was not the judge's or his law clerk's practice to prepare an order without a motion.

According to Rubey's attorney, based on the July 28 conversation, he "did not pursue the matter any further, expecting that the Court would take care of the order." On August 20, Rubey's attorney sent a letter to Vannett's attorney informing her that the court had scheduled the hearing for September 17. That same day, Rubey's attorney left a voice message for the scheduling clerk confirming the hearing date of September 17 and inquiring about the status of the extension.

Based on that voice message, on August 23, the scheduling clerk pulled the file for the case and did not find any order granting an extension. The scheduling clerk testified that she left a voice message for Rubey's attorney and faxed a letter to both Rubey and Vannett's attorneys explaining that there was no order in the file. Vannett's attorney received the fax and had subsequent conversations with the scheduling clerk regarding the hearing date. However, the fax that the scheduling clerk sent to Rubey's attorney did not reach him because it was sent to the wrong fax number. Rubey's attorney also claimed that he did not receive a voice message from the scheduling clerk on August 23. Rubey's attorney asserted that when he did not hear back from the scheduling clerk, he "assumed that the matter had been taken care of." The record indicates that Rubey's attorney did not make a formal motion or any other request, other than his conversations with the scheduling clerk, asking the court to extend the time for the new trial/amended findings motion hearing beyond the 60-day limit.

On December 9, 2004, the district court issued an order concluding that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the new trial/amended findings motion because Rubey "failed to schedule the hearing with in [sic] the sixty-day time limit, to obtain an order to extend the sixty-day time limit, and to demonstrate that good cause exists to hear his motion." Considering the possibility that its jurisdictional determination might be in error, the court, in the alternative, denied Rubey's new trial/amended findings motion on the merits.

On February 14, 2005, Rubey appealed the underlying judgment and decree of dissolution and the December 9, 2004, order disposing of his new trial/amended findings motion. Under Minn. R. Civ.App. P. 104.01, subd. 1, a party generally has 60 days to appeal a judgment or order. A proper and timely motion for a new trial will toll the period for appeal, and the 60 days will run from the service of notice of filing of the order disposing of the motion for a new trial/amended findings. Minn. R. Civ.App. P. 104.01, subd. 2(b), (d).

The court of appeals dismissed Rubey's appeal, holding that Rubey's new trial/amended findings motion was untimely because no hearing on the motion took place within the required 60-day period and the time for hearing the motion had not been extended by the district court. Based on that holding, the court of appeals further held that Rubey's new trial/amended findings motion did not toll the time to appeal the underlying judgment. Finally, the court of appeals declined to consider due process arguments raised by Rubey because they were not raised below. We granted Rubey's petition for review and now reverse and remand to the court of appeals.

This case requires us to interpret Minn. R. Civ. P. 59.03 and Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 104.01, subds. 1, 2. Interpretation of procedural rules presents questions of law, which we review de novo. Madson v. Minn. Mining & Mfg. Co., 612 N.W.2d 168, 170 (Minn.2000). In construing procedural rules, we first look to the plain language of the rule and its purpose. See id. at 171. We also review jurisdictional questions de novo. See id. at 170.

I.

We first address whether the district court was deprived of jurisdiction over Rubey's motion because the motion was not heard within 60 days of the service of notice of filing and entry of decree. Rubey argues that the 60-day period is merely directional and that failure to comply with the 60-day requirement does not deprive the district court of jurisdiction. Vannett argues, and the district court and court of appeals concluded, that a district court has no jurisdiction to hear a motion outside the required 60-day time period unless the party bringing the motion sought, and the court granted, an extension for good cause.

Our case law in this area has, at best, been confusing. In a number of cases predating Rule 59.03, we suggested that the failure to comply with the time period for hearing a new trial/amended findings motion was jurisdictional. See, e.g., Farmers Co-op. Ass'n of Bertha, Minn. v. Kotz, 222 Minn. 153, 156, 23 N.W.2d 576, 578 (1946) ("When heard, the motion for new trial could no longer be entertained by the court on the minutes, since its authority to hear the motion had ceased."); Edelstein v. Levine, 179 Minn. 136, 137, 228 N.W. 558, 558 (1930) (holding that, when the plaintiff had moved for a new trial outside the allotted 30 days without getting an extension from the court, "[t]he power or authority of the court to hear the motion had ceased"). In at least one other case, however, while we indicated that the timing of the hearing was a jurisdictional issue, we deemed the opposing party to have waived the timeliness issue. In...