McGinnis v. Beatty

196 P. 311, 27 Wyo. 287, 1921 Wyo. LEXIS 15
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 21, 1921
DocketNo. 909
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 196 P. 311 (McGinnis v. Beatty) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McGinnis v. Beatty, 196 P. 311, 27 Wyo. 287, 1921 Wyo. LEXIS 15 (Wyo. 1921).

Opinion

PotteR, Chief Justice.

This ease, here on direct appeal, has been heard the second time on a motion to dismiss, reinstatement having been ordered and a re-hearing granted after a former decision sustaining the motion. Thereupon the record on appeal was ordered returned to the district court, on appellant’s application, for amendment so as to include a certified copy of the journal entry of the order appealed from, the appeal having been dismissed for the reason that the record did not contain such journal entry or anything to show that the order had been entered. 26 Wyo. 409, 186 Pac. 120. The amended record contains a certified copy of the journal entry of the order and a certificate of the clerk of the district court that such order, dated March 3,1917, was entered on March 5, 1917.

After the amended record was returned to this court the respondent filed a renewal of the motion to dismiss on the grounds stated in the original motion and additional specified grounds. Briefly stated the_ grounds of the original motion are: 1. Insufficiency of the proceedings to give the court jurisdiction. 2. The failure of appellant to file briefs within sixty days after the filing of the record on appeal. And the following reasons are specified under the first ground: (A) That the record fails to show service of the notice of appeal within the time required by law after the entry of the order appealed from. (B) It fails to show service of specifications of error upon respondent or his attorney. (C) That specifications of error were not prepared and filed as required by section 8 of the direct appeal statute or otherwise. (D) That no record on appeal was prepared and filed as required by section 4 of the direct appeal statute. The renewed motion states in addition to the above, in substance: 1. That the appeal is from an order made on March 5, [291]*2911917, and tbe appellate proceedings were not' perfected until after April 17, 1920. 2 & 3. That there is no bill of exceptions, and no summons in error filed or served and no precipe therefor filed. 4. That the record on appeal had not been certified by either the clerk or judge of the district court at the time of the former hearing, and that it was not certified until April 10, 1920. 5. That no steps having been taken prior to the submission of the cause to correct the record, any subsequent correction is without authority of law. 6. That no sufficient correction of the record has been made to give this court jurisdiction of the cause, or to vacate or modify its former decision dismissing the appeal. 7. That the record is without a proper certificate of the clerk that it contains all or any of the pleadings, or that the transcript of judgments and orders is full and complete, or that the record contains a transcript of all the record of the cause in the clerk’s office.

Instead of following the order in which the several grounds are stated in the motions, they will be considered in the order seeming more convenient for discussion. The failure of the appellant to file his brief herein within sixty days after the filing of the record on appeal in this court, stated as the second ground of the original motion, was waived by respondent by his filing of a brief upon the merits without having objected to the delay in the filing of appellant’s brief. (Union Pac. R. R. Co. v. Grace, 22 Wyo. 234, 137 Pac. 881; Reynolds v. Morton, 22 Wyo. 378, 144 Pac. 18; Nicholson v. State, 23 Wyo. 482, 153 Pac. 749.) It was held in those cases that the filing of a brief out of time is not jurisdictional, and that the failure to file the same within the time required by the rules may be waived. The filing by the defendant in error of an application for an extension of time within which to file his answering brief was held such a waiver in U. P. v. Grace, supra; and in Reynolds v. Morton, supra, the waiver was held to result from a written stipulation of the [292]*292parties filed in this court extending the time for the filing of the brief of plaintiff in error, which was entered into and filed when the latter was in default. In Nicholson v. State, supra, the default was held to be waived where the Attorney General, representing the defendant in erroi recognized the brief of plaintiff in error filed out of time by a letter referring to it and other papers in the case and offering to submit the case on said papers. It was also held in that case that, since the filing of a brief out of time is not jurisdictional, a defendant in error, if desiring to insist upon the right to move for a dismissal on that ground or to strike t'he brief from the files, is required to act without unreasonable delay or be understood as waiving the objection; and a delay of ten months after the filing of the brief objected to on the ground stated was held to be unreasonable and to constitute a waiver. In the case at bar the record on appeal was filed on May 7, 1917, and appellant’s brief on July 13, 1917. Respondent’s answering brief was filed on July 31, 1917. The original motion to dismiss was not filed until November 8, 1919. That delay, as well as the filing of respondent’s answering brief, was a waiver of the objection now being considered.

The notice of appeal was filed on March 10, 1917, seven days after the date of the order and five days after its entry. Written upon the face of and underneath the notice are the words and name, all appearing in the same handwriting, “Received copy of above M. H. Neil Attorney for Respondent.’’ M. H. Neil was the attorney for plaintiff and respondent, and his name is signed to respondent’s brief upon the merits filed in this court. The objection is made in the original motion that the record does not show service of the notice, that is, within ten days after the entry of the order appealed from, and counsel for respondent relies, in support of the objection, upon the principle established by our decisions that a notice filed or served before the entry of the judgment or order [293]*293appealed from, and not after such entry, is premature, and upon Culbertson v. Ainsworth, 26 Wyo. 214, 181 Pac. 418, holding that the fact of due service and filing of the notice must appear from the record to confer appellate jurisdiction, and that where a notice was dated prior to the filing and entry of judgment and the endorsement thereon acknowledging service was without date, no presumption of service after the entry of judgment arose from the record. In that case we said:

“Upon the record, therefore, it does not appear that the notice was served after and not before the entry of the judgment, unless it may b.e presumed from the facts appearing by the record that it was so served, * * *. And we do not think the presumption legally or properly follows from the facts in the record that the notice was served within the time prescribed by the statute, though no doubt it might be presumed that it was served prior to the time the notice was filed and either before or on the date of such filing, from the fact that as filed the notice bears the endorsement acknowledging service as aforesaid. But that filing occurred on the next day after the entry of -the judgment, and the notice is dated * * * four days before the judgment was entered, making it possible for the notice to have been served prior to such entry.”

The .facts -of the present ease are different in that the notice as well as the acknowledgment of service is undated, and the- .only date upon the paper is that of filing, which was five days after the date of the filing and entry of the order appealed from.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
196 P. 311, 27 Wyo. 287, 1921 Wyo. LEXIS 15, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcginnis-v-beatty-wyo-1921.