Grant v. Ward Cabin Co.

288 A.2d 708, 109 R.I. 605, 1972 R.I. LEXIS 1224
CourtSupreme Court of Rhode Island
DecidedMarch 23, 1972
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 288 A.2d 708 (Grant v. Ward Cabin Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grant v. Ward Cabin Co., 288 A.2d 708, 109 R.I. 605, 1972 R.I. LEXIS 1224 (R.I. 1972).

Opinion

Powers, J.

This is a civil action to collect commissions allegedly earned by the plaintiff as a sales representative of the defendant from September 13, 1965 through September 6, 1968. The complaint alleges that the commissions earned amounted to $6,178.11.

In its answer, defendant denied owing the amount claimed but admitted that it did owe plaintiff the sum of $3,173.24 in commissions for said period.

After some additional pleadings, which require no discussion, plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment on August 6, 1969, under Super R. Civ. P. 56(b). The defendant filed no affidavit in opposition. The plaintiff apparently •had second thoughts regarding the efficacy of his allegations in support of his motion and, on October 4, 1969, filed an amended motion which incorporated correspondence from defendant which included defendant’s itemized statement of commissions owed.

The defendant then filed an affidavit in opposition on October 18, 1969. The thrust of its affidavit was that, while defendant admitted owing $3,173.24, that amount was in offer of judgment under Super. R. Civ. P. 68, which offer had not been accepted.

The amended motion and counter-affidavit were considered by a Superior Court justice on November 17, 1969, and decision thereon was reserved. Thereafter, on December 9, 1969, the justice rendered a decision for plaintiff. Accordingly on January 5,1970, an order was entered which, in pertinent part reads as follows: “Partial judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $3,173.24.”

[607]*607On May 14, 1970, defendant filed a motion for relief from said partial judgment and on June 19, 1970, the same Superior Court justice who had ordered partial judgment further ordered, in part, as follows:

“That the ‘partial judgment’ referred to above is not a final judgment as to. that sum and no final judgment having been entered, no execution may issue on the said ‘partial judgment’ without further order of this court.”

Some ten months later, on February 12, 1971, plaintiff moved for issuance of execution upon his partial judgment, together with interest and costs. This motion was heard on March 15, 1971, by a Superior Court justice other than the justice who had ordered the partial judgment and stay of execution.

In the opinion of the justice hearing this motion, defendant showed no good reason why execution should not issue, holding, in essence, that defendant’s objection on the ground that the partial judgment was not a final judgment was no reason to withhold from plaintiff that which defendant admitted it owed.

From the order accordingly entered, defendant seasonably claimed an appeal to this court. In support thereof, it argues that execution should not have been ordered to issue on plaintiff’s partial summary judgment because such a judgment is an interlocutory order only, and not a final judgment, citing Biggins v. Oltmer Iron Works, 154 F.2d 214 (7th Cir. 1946), which, in turn, was followed by this court, in Norberg v. Warwick Liquors, Inc., 107 R. I. 129, 265 A.2d 648 (1970).

In Biggins, supra, the court traced the history of Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, upon which our own Rule 56 is patterned. So doing, the court concluded that the phrase “partial summary judgment” is a misnomer for the reason that when all of the case was not adjudicated on a motion for summary judgment, all that the movant was entitled to was a determination as to that part of the [608]*608case regarding which no genuine issue of material fact existed.

Continuing, the Biggins court, quoting at length from other cases and textwriters, held that partial relief granted pursuant to a motion for summary judgment, rather than being a final judgment, was an interlocutory order similar to a pretrial order under Rule 16 of said federal rules. It should be noted, parenthetically, that our Super. R. Civ. P. 16 is also patterned after the federal rule. See 1 Kent, R. I. Civ. Prac. §56.9 at 422.

The significant language of Biggins, supra, is to be found at 217:

“All that plaintiff was entitled to at the time of the entry of the judgment was an order (not a judgment) fixing the amount of his claim no longer in dispute, which, under proper procedure, would have ripened into a judgment only upon the ultimate disposition of the whole of his claim.”

The obvious and logical reason for thus limiting the effect of a partial result under Rule 56 is to avoid piecemeal review of a case by this court. Even so, plaintiff argues that the dispositive holding of the Federal Court in Biggins v. Oltmer Iron Works, supra, is that, although an order granting partial relief is not a final judgment per se, it acquires the characteristics of a final judgment when execution is ordered thereon. This being so, plaintiff further argues, all that defendant here is entitled to is to have the so-called partial summary judgment reviewed on its merits. Since defendant makes no argument, either orally or in its brief, as to the correctness of the Superior Court justice’s finding that $3,173.24 was not in dispute, plaintiff concludes that defendant has waived any such contention and its appeal should be denied and dismissed. In support thereof he cites a number of cases of which Major v. Grieg, 102 R. I. 379, 230 A.2d 846 (1967) and Pettella v. Corp Brothers, 107 R. I. 599, 268 A.2d 699 (1970) are but two.

[609]*609We reaffirm the waiver rule applied in that line of cases, but, in the view we take of the instant proceedings, plaintiff takes nothing thereby.

We reach this conclusion because of the significant factual distinctions between Biggins and the case at bar.

In Biggins, plaintiff brought an action to recover $13,-308.80 allegedly owed as commissions earned from the period beginning on November 1942 and extending to March 1, 1944. The claim was broken down by plaintiff into five designated items, two of which were for $8,566.55 and $307.50, respectively.

The defendant wrote to plaintiff, enclosing two checks. One was for $8,566.55 and the other for $307.50. Both checks were offered in full settlement of plaintiff’s claim “without prejudice.”

On the basis of the foregoing, plaintiff moved for summary judgment as to the two items in his complaint to which the proffered checks related, alleging in his affidavit that there was no genuine issue of fact remaining to be tried. The defendant filed no counter-affidavit.

The trial justice granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on the two items to which the checks related which, together with interest, amounted to $9,243.75, and ordered that execution issue therefor.

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Bluebook (online)
288 A.2d 708, 109 R.I. 605, 1972 R.I. LEXIS 1224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grant-v-ward-cabin-co-ri-1972.