Trujillo v. Hilton of Santa Fe

• Decision Date: 25 March 1993
• Docket Number: No. 21072,21072
• Citation: 115 N.M. 397,851 P.2d 1064,1993 NMSC 17
• Parties: Gloria TRUJILLO, Petitioner, v. HILTON OF SANTA FE and Crawford & Company, Respondents.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 1064

851 P.2d 1064

115 N.M. 397

Gloria TRUJILLO, Petitioner, v. HILTON OF SANTA FE and Crawford & Company, Respondents.

No. 21072.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

March 25, 1993.

Rehearing Denied May 8, 1993.

James A. Burke, Santa Fe, for petitioner.

Stirling & Stepleton, Todd M. Aakhus, Albuquerque, for respondents.

OPINION

RANSOM, Chief Justice.

We issued our writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals to review its dismissal of an appeal taken by Gloria Trujillo from a compensation order entered by the workers' compensation judge. Dismissal was entered on the ground that notice of appeal was not timely when filed within thirty days of a subsequent order awarding attorney's fees but more than thirty days from the compensation order. See SCRA 1986, 12-201(A) (Repl.Pamp.1992) (mandating notice of appeal within thirty days of the filing of final order). The dispositive issue before the Court of Appeals was whether, under Kelly Inn No. 102, Inc. v. Kapnison, 113 N.M. 231, 824 P.2d 1033 (1992), an order awarding compensation and medical benefits but not resolving the issue of attorney's fees is a final order for purposes of appeal. The Court of Appeals held that the order was final and that the worker's time to file her notice of appeal ran from the date of the compensation order, 115 N.M. 398, 851 P.2d 1065. We reverse.

Kelly Inn held that a judgment declaring the rights and liabilities of the parties (ruling that lessors had properly terminated a lease) and awarding attorney's fees, but reserving for future determination the amount of the fees, is final; and that the trial court had jurisdiction to fix the amount of fees after more than thirty days had passed following entry of the initial judgment and after the losing party had appealed. Kelly Inn relied on Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988), and opinions from the supreme courts of Connecticut, Colorado, and Kansas that "a bright-line rule regarding the finality of a decision on the merits, regardless of the pendency of a request for attorney's fees, is preferable to a case-by-case approach." Kelly Inn, 113 N.M. at 235, 824 P.2d at 1037. Regardless of how a claim for attorney's fees might be justified or raised, Budinich favored " 'a uniform rule that an unresolved issue of attorney's fees for the litigation in question does not prevent judgment on the merits from being final.' " Id. at 239, 824 P.2d at 1041 (quoting Budinich, 486 U.S. at 202, 108 S.Ct. at 1722).

Although the rationale in support of the holding in Kelly Inn may apply to other proceedings, the holding is nonetheless limited to attorney's fees. The rationale is that the term "finality" is to be given a practical, rather than a technical, construction to satisfy the policies of facilitating meaningful appellate review and of achieving judicial...