Yanmar Co v. Slater
| Decision Date | 02 March 2011 |
| Docket Number | CA10-398 |
| Parties | YANMAR CO., LTD., d/b/a YANMAR DIESEL ENGINE COMPANY, LTD., and YANMAR AMERICA CORPORATION, APPELLANTS v. WANDA H. SLATER, APPELLEE |
| Court | Arkansas Court of Appeals |
APPEAL FROM THE JEFFERSON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. CV-2006-160-2-5]
APPEAL DISMISSED
On October 4, 2004, Rudy Slater died when his tractor rolled over on him while he was mowing his property. Thereafter, Slater's widow, appellee Wanda Slater, and his son, Barton Slater, filed a wrongful-death action against the tractor's manufacturer, appellant Yanmar Co., Ltd. (Yanmar Japan), and several other defendants, including appellant Yanmar America Corp. (Yanmar America), who were either in the chain of distribution or had an alleged duty to impede the import of "gray market" tractors into the United States and warn of their lack of roll-over protection systems.1 Following a trial, the jury awarded Mrs. Slater $2.5 million against Yanmar Japan, Yanmar America, and a third defendant, LCI Equipment, Inc. (LCI), on theories of negligence and strict liability. The circuit court entered judgment on the verdicts, and the Yanmar defendants filed this appeal. For the reasons explained below, we dismiss the appeal for lack of a final order.
In their original and amended complaints, Wanda and Barton Slater named five defendants: Yanmar Japan, the tractor's manufacturer; Yanmar America, an authorized distributor of Yanmar Japan products in the United States; Lechau, a Vietnamese company that exported the tractor to the United States; LCI, a Texas company that imported the tractor from Vietnam; and Chris Elder Enterprises, Inc. (Elder), an Arkansas company that bought the tractor at auction and sold it to Rudy Slater. The complaints asserted causes of action for fraud, strict liability, breach of express and implied warranties, negligence, and violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA) against all defendants, and violation of Arkansas's odometer-regulation statutes, Ark. Code Ann. §§ 4-90-201 to-207 (Repl. 2001), against Lechau, LCI, and Elder. Before trial, the circuit court dismissed Elder as the result of a settlement and dismissed Barton Slater as a plaintiff, based on Wanda Slater's status as personal representative of her husband's estate. Thereafter, Wanda Slater moved to nonsuit her fraud claim and her claim against Lechau. The circuit court acknowledged the filing of the nonsuit motions but filed no written orders dismissing Lechau or the fraud claim.
Slater also orally withdrew many of her other claims during pretrial hearings or during trial, including those for express warranty, implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, violation of the ADTPA, and violation of the odometer-regulation statutes. Additionally, thecircuit court granted directed verdicts to Yanmar Japan and Yanmar America on Slater's implied-warranty-of-merchantability claim and to Yanmar America on Slater's strict-liability count. The record contains no written orders reflecting the withdrawal or dismissal of these claims. But, as the result of the oral withdrawals and dismissals, the case went to the jury only on theories of negligence against Yanmar Japan, Yanmar America, and LCI, and on strict liability against Yanmar Japan and LCI. The jury returned the abovementioned verdicts in favor of Wanda Slater on those counts, and the circuit court entered judgment accordingly. The judgment did not dismiss any other claims in the lawsuit or dismiss Lechau.
The question of whether an order is final and appealable is jurisdictional, and we are obligated to consider the issue on our own even if the parties do not raise it. See Cleary v. Sledge Props., Inc., 2009 Ark. App. 353 (per curiam). For an order or judgment to be final it must, with exceptions not applicable here, dispose of all parties and all claims in the lawsuit. See Martin v. Kat's Bar & Grill, LLC, 2009 Ark. App. 737; Ark. R. Civ. P. 54(b)(1) (2010); Ark. R. App. P.—Civ. 2(a) (2010). When a lawsuit contains more than one claim for relief, as did the lawsuit here, a judgment that adjudicates fewer than all of the claims is neither final nor appealable. Forever Green Athletic Fields, Inc. v. Lasiter Constr., Inc., 2010 Ark. App. 483 (per curiam).
The circuit court in this case entered judgment adjudicating Wanda Slater's claims against Yanmar Japan, Yanmar America, and LCI for negligence and strict liability. None of Slater's other causes of action were dismissed by a filed, written order. It...
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Yanmar Co. v. Slater
...The court of appeals dismissed the appeal without prejudice because some of the claims remained outstanding. Yanmar Co. v. Slater, 2011 Ark. App. 167, 2011 WL 715972. After obtaining a final order from the circuit court, the Yanmar defendants again appealed and, as previously stated, the ap......
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Yanmar Co. v. Slater, 11-370
...The court of appeals dismissed the appeal without prejudice because some of the claims remained outstanding. Yanmar Co. v. Slater, 2011 Ark. App. 167. After obtaining a final order from the circuit court, the Yanmar defendants again appealed and, as previously stated, the appeal was transfe......
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Splawn v. Wade
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Tabor v. Castle Invs., LLC, No. CV-19-411
...Castle's claim for violations of the ADTPA. It is axiomatic that a dismissal is not effective until reduced to writing. Yanmar Co. v. Slater, 2011 Ark. App. 167. In the absence of a written dismissal order on claims that have been withdrawn or orally dismissed, the circuit court's judgment ......