Gibner v. Oman

459 F. Supp. 436, 1977 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15031
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Mexico
DecidedJuly 11, 1977
DocketCiv. No. 76-630-B
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 459 F. Supp. 436 (Gibner v. Oman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Mexico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gibner v. Oman, 459 F. Supp. 436, 1977 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15031 (D.N.M. 1977).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BRATTON, Chief Judge.

This action challenges the New Mexico peremptory writ statute as violative of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

The action arose initially out of the issuance of a peremptory writ of prohibition directed to a state district court judge by the New Mexico Supreme Court. A complaint in intervention, arising out of the issuance of another such writ to another state district court has also been filed. Both plaintiffs seek a declaration that N.M. Stat.Ann. § 22-12-71 and N.M.Stat.Ann. § 21-12-12(b)2 are violative of the fourteenth amendment insofar as they allow for the issuance of peremptory writs which amount to final judgments without providing notice and an opportunity to be heard to the real party in interest. Also sought is injunctive relief, permanently enjoining the New Mexico Supreme Court from enforcing the peremptory writs of prohibition it issued in the matters affecting these plaintiffs.

There is no argument as to what happened in connection with both plaintiffs’ state court actions and the prohibition proceedings.

The plaintiff Gibner had filed an action in state court to which the defendant’s response was a motion for summary judgment. This motion was denied, but an interlocutory appeal was allowed. The New Mexico Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s order denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.

The defendant then moved the trial court for entry of judgment on the appellate court’s mandate. Plaintiff filed supplementary documentation with the trial court, [438]*438and the trial court denied the defendants’ motion for entry of judgment on the mandate and again denied defendant summary judgment. However, another interlocutory appeal was allowed to resolve unanswered issues raised in the first interlocutory appeal and to ascertain whether the trial court was empowered under the previous appellate decision and mandate to proceed in the matter.

The New Mexico Court of Appeals granted defendant’s second application, and then, following plaintiff’s response thereto, withdrew its grant as improvident and denied defendant’s application for interlocutory appeal.

The defendant then sought a writ of prohibition in the New Mexico Supreme Court. That court issued a peremptory writ of prohibition/mandamus directed to the trial judge, prohibiting him from proceeding further in the cause and directing him to abide by the mandate of the Court of Appeals issued upon the first interlocutory appeal.

The writ was sought ex parte, and plaintiff was not notified of or represented at the hearing thereon. Plaintiff thereafter filed a motion for rehearing, supporting it with a brief in which was stated his position on the law and the facts and his contention that he, as the real party in interest, was denied procedural due process by the court’s issuance of the peremptory writ without notice to him and without giving him an opportunity to be heard. He also subsequently filed a motion to supplement his motion for a rehearing. His motions were denied without a hearing.

Plaintiff next filed in the New Mexico Court of Appeals a motion for clarification of its opinion and decision in the first interlocutory appeal, including therein reference to the writ of prohibition issued by the state supreme court. This motion was denied on the bases that the court lacked jurisdiction on the first appeal since its mandate had issued, that its further orders in the matter were self-explanatory, and that it had no authority to review an action of the New Mexico Supreme Court.

The plaintiff in intervention, Kenneth G. Brown, had filed a petition in the district court of Sandoval County, New Mexico, setting as a probate court, for letters of ancillary administration in the estate of decedent John Watson. An order appointing him ancillary administrator was entered.

He thereafter filed, as ancillary administrator of the estate, a wrongful death action against the city of Raton and others. This action also was filed in the Sandoval County district court. One of the defendants moved to dismiss on the basis that the court lacked jurisdiction over the action for failure of plaintiff to comply with the New Mexico Ancillary Administrator statute. The district court denied the motion to dismiss.

A writ of prohibition directed to the trial judge was then sought in the New Mexico Supreme Court, and it was granted without notice to, or participation in the hearing thereon, by the plaintiff in intervention.

Counsel for plaintiff in intervention did not receive notice of the issuance of the writ until after the expiration of the ten days following the entry of the court’s decision and during which a motion for rehearing could be filed. A request for an extension was not sought, but almost three months later a motion for clarification of the record was filed, setting forth the status of movant’s case in the lower court. The motion was denied without a hearing.

The district judge to whom this writ was directed acknowledged receipt of it five days after its issuance.

The plaintiffs complain, not only of the issuance of such writs without notice to, and an opportunity to be heard by, the real party in interest, but also of the fact that no records were made of the hearings following which the peremptory writs are issued. This, they claim, makes impossible any review of the matter by the United States Supreme Court.

The defendants in the present action have asserted a variety of legal defenses to plaintiffs’ action, including the defense of collateral estoppel. It is defendants’ posi[439]*439tion that the motion for rehearing filed by counsel for Gibner in the prohibition matter raised the constitutional argument here presented and that the New Mexico Supreme Court, in ruling on the motion, ruled on that argument, so that Gibner’s only recourse is by appeal or writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court.

Defendants also claim that the grounds for the issuance of the peremptory writ are sufficiently narrow, the rules governing its issuance sufficiently rigorous, and the right to petition for rehearing sufficient to satisfy notice and hearing requirements, so that the statute comports with due process.

It should first be noted that the New Mexico Supreme Court has superintending powers over the inferior courts of the state and that its actions vis-a-vis these plaintiffs were taken pursuant to those powers. Its superintendence of the state’s lower courts is a legitimate activity and important to the administration of the state’s judicial system. Its right of supervision cannot be challenged in federal district court.

Whether the state supreme court’s practice of issuing peremptory writs directed to inferior state courts without giving notice and an opportunity to be heard to the real party in interest is unconstitutional cannot be presented to this court by the plaintiff Gibner. He actually submitted his due process claim to the state supreme court in his brief in support of his motion for rehearing. See generally Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 67 S.Ct. 657, 91 L.Ed. 832 (1947); American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U.S. 156, 163, 53 S.Ct.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
459 F. Supp. 436, 1977 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gibner-v-oman-nmd-1977.