Yuncker v. Dodds Logistics, LLC

• Decision Date: 17 May 2022
• Docket Number: WD 84645
• Citation: 649 S.W.3d 141
• Parties: Thomas YUNCKER and Christopher Gutierrez, Respondents, v. DODDS LOGISTICS, LLC and Keith Dodds; Respondents, Zurich American Insurance Company, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

649 S.W.3d 141

Thomas YUNCKER and Christopher Gutierrez, Respondents,

v.DODDS LOGISTICS, LLC and Keith Dodds; Respondents,Zurich American Insurance Company, Appellant.

WD 84645

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

OPINION FILED: May 17, 2022

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied July 21, 2022

Application for Transfer Denied August 30, 2022

Russell Watters, St. Louis, MO, Counsel for Appellant.

Timothy Wolf, St. Louis, MO, Co-Counsel for Appellant.

Lucas Ude, St. Louis, MO, Co-Counsel for Appellant.

Jeffrey Burns, Kansas City, MO, Counsel for Respondent, Yuncker.

Tim Dollar, Kansas City, MO, Co-Counsel for Respondent, Yuncker.

Lauren Dollar, Kansas City, MO, Co-Counsel for Respondent, Yuncker.

Joshua Scott, Kansas City, MO, Counsel for Respondent, Dodds.

Mark Emison, Lexington, MO, Counsel for Respondent, Gutierrez.

Michael Manners, Lexington, MO, Co-Counsel for Respondent, Gutierrez.

Alex Thrasher, Lexington, MO, Co-Counsel for Respondent, Gutierrez.

Before Division Four: Cynthia L. Martin, C.J., Janet Sutton, J. and Gary W. Lynch, Sp. J.

Janet Sutton, Judge

Zurich American Insurance Co. (Zurich) appeals a Jackson County Circuit Court judgment confirming an arbitration award that found Mr. Keith Dodds and Dodds Logistics, LLC (Dodds Logistics) negligent in an October 2020 tractor-trailer/motor vehicle accident in Kansas and awarded damages to Mr. Thomas Yuncker and Mr. Christopher Gutierrez. Zurich contends that the circuit court erred in failing to rule on its post-judgment motion to intervene, denying or impliedly denying its motion to vacate or set aside the judgment, and entering the judgment without proper notice to Zurich under section 537.065.2.¹ Because Zurich is not a party to the suit, nor aggrieved by the judgment, we dismiss the appeal.

Driving on behalf of Dodds Logistics, Mr. Dodds fell asleep behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer in October 2020 and struck Mr. Yuncker's vehicle as it slowed while he approached vehicles and a police car with flashing lights parked on the shoulder of a highway in Johnson County, Kansas. Mr. Yuncker was working as an Uber driver at the time, and passenger Mr. Gutierrez was in the back seat. The impact pushed Mr. Yuncker's vehicle into a tractor-trailer at the side of the highway. Both men had to be extricated from the Uber vehicle, and both sustained serious injuries that will have lasting consequences.

Mr. Yuncker and Mr. Gutierrez filed a petition alleging negligence and negligence per se in Jackson County Circuit Court on December 28, 2020, against Mr. Dodds and Dodds Logistics. Mr. Yuncker, Mr. Gutierrez, and Mr. Dodds are Kansas residents. Dodds Logistics is a Kansas corporation. The Dodds Respondents did not object to jurisdiction or venue, although their January 2021 answer to the petition denied a number of allegations and asserted several affirmative defenses.²

Counsel for the Dodds Respondents wrote to four insurance companies, Zurich among them, on February 5, 2021, enclosing a flash drive with information about the accident and injuries, and a more detailed letter from counsel containing the VIN numbers for vehicles involved in the crash, including an "Amazon box trailer." The more detailed letter on the flash drive also stated that Mr. Dodds and Dodds Logistics were tendering their defense to the letter's recipients. Noting that time was of the essence, the letter requested a response within 14 days of receipt as to whether the companies would defend and indemnify Mr. Dodds and/or Dodds Logistics. The letter further stated that the primary insurance carrier had paid the policy limits ($1 million) to the injured parties "pursuant to a non-execution agreement[.]"³

Zurich was potentially implicated because it had issued a commercial auto insurance policy covering the Amazon trailer that Mr. Dodds was hauling when the accident happened.⁴ Two insurers responded that they had not insured the Dodds vehicle in October 2020; a third insurer did not ultimately respond, but had asked for a replacement flash drive, apparently lost in transit, which request was accommodated; Zurich acknowledges that it received the cover letter on February 10, 2021, and claims that it did not receive the flash drive but attempted to contact counsel by purportedly leaving a voicemail message.⁵ Without indicating that the flash drive was missing, the company formally responded in a February 12, 2021, letter stating that it could not "confirm a valid policy number or alleged insured entity based on the information you provided." Zurich stated that it had, accordingly, "cancelled" the claim.⁶ Zurich also stated that it would create a new claim number if a valid policy number for an allegedly insured entity were forwarded to the company.

Mr. Dodds and Dodds Logistics entered an arbitration agreement in early March 2021 with Mr. Yuncker and Mr. Gutierrez. An evidentiary hearing was held before an arbitrator in April 2021. The arbitrator issued an award in May 2021. While the arbitrator did not find sufficient evidence to support a punitive-damages award, compensatory damages of $13,500,197.25 were awarded to Mr. Yuncker, and $7,500,000 to Mr. Gutierrez.

Mr. Yuncker and Mr. Gutierrez filed an unopposed application in the circuit court on May 13, 2021, to confirm the arbitration award.⁷ The court entered a judgment confirming the arbitration award on May 26, 2021, and thus resolved all issues then pending before the court. Two days later, Zurich filed a motion to intervene which included a request that the court allow Zurich to file a motion to vacate and set aside the judgment.⁸ Mr. Yuncker and Mr. Gutierrez filed a response to the motion, and, on June 14, 2021, Zurich filed a pleading requesting a hearing before June 24, 2021, on the motion to intervene, but made no attempt to notice a hearing for a specific date. The court issued no ruling on the motion to intervene within the 30-day period after entry of its May 26, 2021, judgment confirming the arbitration award. Zurich filed a notice of appeal to this Court on July 2, 2021.⁹

Legal Analysis

Zurich has raised nine points relied on. Five relate to the circuit court's failure to rule on the motion to intervene. Three relate to the court's alleged denial or implied denial of the motion to vacate and set aside the judgment. One alleges that it was error to enter a judgment when Zurich did not receive the notice required by section 537.065.2.

We cannot address these points without first considering the question of Zurich's standing to bring the appeal. See Stichler v. Jesiolowski , 547 S.W.3d 789, 793 (Mo. App. W.D. 2018) ("The right to appeal ... within the meaning of § 512.020 is jurisdictional." (citation omitted) (footnote omitted)). "Any party to a suit aggrieved by any judgment of any trial court in any civil cause from which an appeal is not prohibited by the constitution" is permitted to take an appeal from a "[f]inal judgment in the case ...." § 512.020 (emphasis added). We asked the Appellant and Respondents to address whether Zurich's post-judgment motion to intervene afforded it standing to appeal the judgment. We conclude that it did not.

The May 26, 2021, judgment qualified as a judgment under Rule 74.01(a),¹⁰ as it was "a decree" or "any order from which an appeal lies" that was "signed by the judge and denominated ‘judgment.’ " An appeal lies from a judgment that resolves all issues as to all parties pending before the court when entered. See Boley v. Knowles , 905 S.W.2d 86, 88 (Mo. banc 1995) ("An appealable judgment disposes of all issues in a case, leaving nothing for future determination."); § 511.020 (defining a "judgment" as "the final determination of the right of the parties in the action.").¹¹

The circuit court's entry of a Rule 74.01(a) judgment triggered Rule 75.01, which states that a "trial court retains control over judgments during the thirty-day period after entry of judgment and may, after giving the parties an opportunity to be heard and for good cause, vacate, reopen, correct, amend, or modify its judgment within that time." See In re Marriage of Short , 847 S.W.2d 158, 162 (Mo. App. S.D. 1993) ("The purpose of Rule 75.01 is to enable the trial court to rectify any errors in the judgment, and thus simplify or forestall any further litigation at the appellate level. Once a [Rule 74.01(a)] judgment is entered ... the thirty-day time period under Rule 75.01 begins to run." (citation omitted)).

Zurich was not a party to the underlying suit when the court's judgment was entered on May 26, 2021. See State ex rel. AJKJ, Inc. v. Hellmann , 574 S.W.3d 239, 242 (Mo. banc 2019) (holding that subdivision residents who filed a motion to intervene in a deed-reformation case after judgment was entered were not parties to the suit when judgment was entered). Plainly, when the judgment was entered, Zurich was neither a party to the suit nor aggrieved by the judgment, thus affording it no standing to appeal.

Zurich contends that, because it is permissible to file a motion to intervene within 30 days after a Rule 74.01(a) judgment is entered, it became a "party" to the suit with the right to appeal the judgment once its motion to intervene was filed. We disagree.

Zurich's contention relies on caselaw involving motions to intervene filed before a Rule 74.01(a) judgment was entered. When a motion to intervene is filed before the entry of a Rule 74.01(a) judgment, the trial court's interlocutory ruling on the motion is incorporated into a later-filed Rule 74.01(a) judgment, such that resolution of the motion affords any person aggrieved by the ruling standing to appeal. See State ex rel. Koster v. ConocoPhillips Co. , 493 S.W.3d 397, 401-02 (Mo. banc 2016). Also, when a motion to intervene is filed before the entry of judgment, a trial court's failure to rule on the motion disqualifies the judgment as a Rule 74.01(a) judgment, because no appeal will lie from a denominated judgment that fails to resolve all...