Boyle County Fiscal Court v. Shewmaker

666 S.W.2d 759, 1984 Ky. App. LEXIS 479
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMarch 23, 1984
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 666 S.W.2d 759 (Boyle County Fiscal Court v. Shewmaker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boyle County Fiscal Court v. Shewmaker, 666 S.W.2d 759, 1984 Ky. App. LEXIS 479 (Ky. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

DUNN, Judge.

This appeal, a procedural maze, both in the trial court and in this court, resulting from the indictment of Pete Hancock by the Boyle County grand jury for the crime of assault in the first degree and for the *761 crime of carrying a concealed and deadly weapon, at first blush is seemingly impossible to solve.

In a trial as a result of that indictment in the Boyle Circuit Court in a criminal case styled “Criminal Indictment No. 82-CR-027, Commonwealth vs. Pete Hancock,” the defendant, Hancock, was successfully defended by appointed counsel, James B. Sparrow, an attorney participating in the public defender program for Boyle County pursuant to KRS Chapter 31. On June 8, 1982, the trial judge, since deceased, the named appellee having been substituted in his stead as appellee herein, upon Sparrow’s motion, set Sparrow’s fee for representing Hancock at $325.00 and ordered the Boyle County Fiscal Court to pay it within 7 days. The trial court recited KRS 31.190 as authority. At that time the funds allocated by the state to the Boyle County public defender fund had been depleted. After the expiration of the seven days, on Sparrow’s affidavit to the effect that payment had not been made, the trial court on June 16, 1982, issued its order holding the fiscal court in contempt and directing it to pay $100.00 per day fine until it purged itself, citing KRS 31.190 and KRS 31.240(3).

Thereupon, the fiscal court unsuccessfully petitioned this Court for a Writ of Prohibition against the trial judge from enforcing the orders of June 8,1982, and June 16, 1982. A one judge panel of this court, treating the petition as one for ex parte relief, denied the petition on June 18, 1982, on the basis that the fiscal court had advanced no reason why the relief sought could not be achieved by filing notice of appeal from the two orders and, pending appeal, stay the orders pursuant to CR 62.03(2) and CR 81A.

Notice of the instant appeal from the orders was filed on June 21, 1982, by the Boyle County Fiscal Court in the aforementioned Boyle Circuit Court criminal case styled “Indictment No. 82-CR-027, Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Pete Hancock.” The fiscal court recited its status on appeal as being the appellant, “a non party to the above styled criminal action.” It named the trial judge as the sole appellee. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.

The jugular vein issue on this appeal is appellant fiscal court’s contention that the trial court was without jurisdiction to issue and enter the orders in question. Before we address that issue, however, we are inclined to answer several points raised by Sparrow in a specious motion and brief to dismiss this appeal, in both of which he mistakenly styles himself as an appellee. He was not designated as an appellee in the notice of appeal and he is not an appel-lee. Appellant’s first reference to him as such in its statement of appeal filed August 11, 1982, did not cure its failure to designate him as an appellee in its notice of appeal. In view of our holdings to follow, it is immaterial that Sparrow has no standing in this appeal either to file the motion to dismiss or an appellee brief.

We are satisfied that this appeal was timely filed with respect to both the order of June 8, 1982, ordering the appellant to pay the fee and the order of June 16, 1982, holding it in contempt and assessing a fine. Regarding the latter, even if we were of the opinion the 10 day requirement to bring an appeal of RCr 12.04(2) were applicable, the notice of appeal was timely filed well within time on June 21, 1982, only five days after the order’s entry. We do not rely on RCr 12.04(2), however. Contempt, though it partakes of the nature of a crime, is only quasi criminal and the civil 30 days requirement of CR 73.02(l)(a) rather than the 10 days criminal appeal time of RCr 12.04(2) applies. Young v. Knight, Ky., 329 S.W.2d 195 (1959). It likewise follows, therefore, that since the notice of appeal on the first order was filed also on June 21, 1982, 13 days after its entry, it also was timely filed.

As one of its grounds attacking the trial court’s jurisdiction, the appellant fiscal court argues that the trial court’s procedural defect in failing to require service of the motion that it pay Sparrow’s fee *762 voided the resulting June 8, 1982, order. We agree. The notice served on the county attorney, its counsel, was not notice on the appellant fiscal court since it was not a party to the basic criminal action and ordinarily such a procedural defect would void the resulting order. In this case, however, the appellant is guilty of a procedural defect on appeal of its own making and, therefore, has lost the benefit of the trial court’s procedural defect that otherwise would have inured to it. It failed to join and designate as an appellee in the notice of appeal Sparrow, the beneficiary of the fee about which the appealed from order was concerned. An order concerning an award of attorney fees is not reviewable if the attorney is not made a party by designation in the notice of appeal. See Wilhelm v. Wilhelm, Ky., 504 S.W.2d 699 (1973); Beaver v. Beaver, Ky.App., 551 S.W.2d 23 (1977)—attorney’s fee awarded in Divorce actions; Coyle v. Horseman’s Executrix, 271 Ky. 100, 111 S.W.2d 590 (1937)—commissioner’s fee in suit to settle an estate; Bartlett v. Louisville Trust Co., 212 Ky. 13, 277 S.W. 250 (1925)—attorney’s fee in administration of estate. On the narrow basis of this procedural defect on appeal, we are obliged to ignore the trial court’s procedural defect of failing to notice the appellant fiscal court.

This brings us to the basic issue on the merits of whether the appellant fiscal court had the responsibility to provide funds to pay the fee in question. This is the keystone to the trial court’s basic jurisdiction to issue either or both orders.

Without question the fiscal court had the responsibility to provide funds to pay the fee. KRS 31.160 and KRS 31.170 provide alternate means by which a county may elect to establish and maintain an office for public advocacy to represent needy persons. KRS 31.190 directs the fiscal court of each county to appropriate sufficient funds “to administer the program of representation it has elected under KRS 31.160.” KRS 31.050

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Bluebook (online)
666 S.W.2d 759, 1984 Ky. App. LEXIS 479, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boyle-county-fiscal-court-v-shewmaker-kyctapp-1984.