Oklahoma Turnpike Authority v. Kitchen

1959 OK 33, 337 P.2d 1081, 1959 Okla. LEXIS 404
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 10, 1959
Docket37796
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 1959 OK 33 (Oklahoma Turnpike Authority v. Kitchen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Oklahoma Turnpike Authority v. Kitchen, 1959 OK 33, 337 P.2d 1081, 1959 Okla. LEXIS 404 (Okla. 1959).

Opinions

JACKSON, Justice.

The plaintiff, Manson C. Kitchen, was injured in an automobile accident on the Turner Turnpike when his car was struck from the rear by another car driven by Barbara Reno. Plaintiff obtained judgment for $21,666 and defendant appealed. Plaintiff filed a motion to dismiss the appeal which was heretofore overruled. However in his brief on the merits, he re-argues the motion to dismiss.

The motion to dismiss is based on the fact that the case-made filed in this court did not contain a journal entry overruling defendant’s motion for new trial. Subsequent to the expiration of the time in which an appeal could be perfected the defendant, with leave of this court, withdrew the case-made for correction, and after a hearing the trial court signed a Nunc Pro Tunc order wherein it is recited that such an order was made on the date indicated in the reporter’s transcript and then signed a journal entry overruling the motion for new trial as of said date.

In Lillard v. Meisberger, 113 Okl. 228, 240 P. 1067, 1069, we said:

“An order of the trial court overruling a motion for a new trial must be made with the same solemnity as a judgment on the merits, and a mere recital in the clerk’s minutes as in the case at bar, which finds its way into the case-made, cannot be substituted for such an order, or supply the defect for failure to make it.”

We are here confronted with a similar problem. The case-made contained the court reporter’s transcript of the hearing on motion for new trial which includes the verbatim order of the court overruling the motion for new trial, but did not contain a journal entry.

However, Lillard v. Meisberger, supra, and other decisions to the same effect are not controlling because in the instant case there was an application made to withdraw and correct the case-made by inserting the order therein. Argentoes v. Fidelity Bldg. & Loan Ass’n, 127 Okl. 183, 260 P. 55. This leads us to an examination of the statute governing corrections of the case-made after it has been filed in this court.

12 O.S.1951 § 959, provides in part as follows:

“If, after any record or case-made is filed in the appellate court, in either a civil or a criminal cause, it. shall appear that any matter which is of record in the court from which the appeal is taken, touching the cause appealed, or that any evidence heard on the trial of said cause, or that any statement or certificate or motion, or other matter is omitted from such record or case-made * * * the appellate court may * * * prepare such omitted parts and file such corrections in the appellate court, with like force and effect as though such corrected or added parts had been originally incorporated in the record or case-made. * * (Emphasis supplied.)

[1084]*1084Plaintiff insists that the above statute only authorizes the withdrawal of the case-made for the purpose of including omitted matter if such omitted matter is of record at the time the application to withdraw is made. This contention is clearly supported by the fifth paragraph of the syllabus in Alexander v. First National Bank of Duncan, 136 Okl. 251, 277 P. 667, 668, wherein it is held:

“This court is authorized by section 786, C.O.S.1921 [12 O.S.1951 § 959], to permit the withdrawal of the record or case-made for the purpose of including therein matter omitted therefrom and which is of record in the court from which the appeal was taken, but such a withdrawal will be permitted only where it is made to appear that the matter sought to be included in the record or case-made is of record in the court from which the appeal was taken.”

It will be noted that the rule there announced requires that the matter sought to be included must be both omitted matter and of record. This is a patently erroneous construction of the statute. The statute authorizes corrections so as to include “any matter which is of record” which is omitted from the case-made, “or other matter (which) is omitted” from the case-made.

In Seibold v. City of Muskogee, 155 Okl. 81, 8 P.2d 35, we said, in an opinion written by Justice Andrews who also wrote the opinion in the Alexander case, that “or other matter omitted” referred to other omitted matter not required to be of record in the trial court, and that the case-made could be withdrawn to include such matter though not of record, but re-affirmed the rule announced in the Alexander case as to matters which are required to be of record.

We think the interpretations placed on the statute in the Alexander and the Sei-bold cases are erroneous. The use of the disjunctive “or” in front of the words “other matter” clearly shows an intent to include all other matters which were omitted from the case-made, and necessarily refers to matters other than those which are of record. The conclusion that we can only permit corrections to show omitted matters not of record, if such matters were not required to be of record, can only be supported by reading into the statute considerable language which it does not contain.

The basic error of the Alexander and Seibold cases results from the erroneous assumption that an order overruling motion for new trial which is to be entered on the journal of the court is ineffective if not so entered. In the Seibold case the court expressly so declared by way of justifying or explaining the rule announced in the Alexander case, citing Carson v. State ex rel. Dudley, 137 Okl. 153, 278 P. 392. The cited case does not hold an order to be void merely because it is not entered on the journal. It, like Lillard v. Meisberger, supra, merely holds that the evidence of such order must be before this court before we can review the judgment.

In Cope v. Dancy, 99 Okl. 43, 222 P. 987, we held that the case-made could be withdrawn to show an order which was not on file and not of record at the time we made the order permitting correction, though it had been signed prior to such time.

In Bettis v. Cargile, 23 Okl. 301, 100 P. 436, it was held that 12 O.S.1951 § 959, did not authorize this court to begin proceedings to correct the trial court’s record, (to show something not of record) nor to have Nunc Pro Tunc orders made in that court, as this should be done by the trial court. However, in Werfelman v. Miller, 180 Okl. 267, 68 P.2d 819, we held that we did have authority to order a correction of the trial court’s record by order Nunc Pro Tunc, and that this authority stemmed from 12 O.S.1951 § 959. In such case the trial court sits as a special master.

After the Alexander case we decided Russell v. Motor Mortgage Co., 154 Okl. [1085]*108549, 6 P.2d 820. In that case we, in effect, overruled the Alexander case in that we permitted a case-made to be withdrawn for the purpose of including therein an order overruling a motion for new trial which was not shown on the journal of the court, and had not been filed in the case.

It is readily apparent that there is a lack of harmony in our decisions on the question of whether a case-made may be withdrawn to include therein orders which do not appear of record in the trial court.

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Oklahoma Turnpike Authority v. Kitchen
1959 OK 33 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1959)

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Bluebook (online)
1959 OK 33, 337 P.2d 1081, 1959 Okla. LEXIS 404, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oklahoma-turnpike-authority-v-kitchen-okla-1959.