Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach, LLP v. Stoelk

92 P.3d 154, 193 Or. App. 700, 2004 Ore. App. LEXIS 696
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 9, 2004
DocketCCV0205809; A122808
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 92 P.3d 154 (Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach, LLP v. Stoelk) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach, LLP v. Stoelk, 92 P.3d 154, 193 Or. App. 700, 2004 Ore. App. LEXIS 696 (Or. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

BREWER, P. J.

After defendants filed their notice of appeal from a judgment, the trial court entered an amended judgment. Thereafter, plaintiff Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach, LLP (Ramis Crew) cross-appealed from the original judgment and plaintiffs Ramis Crew and Hibbard Caldwell & Schultz, P.C., appealed from the amended judgment.1 This court issued an order to show cause, requesting that plaintiffs demonstrate the reason that their appeal from the amended judgment should not be dismissed on the ground that the filing of the notice of appeal from the original judgment had terminated the trial court’s jurisdiction to amend it. We allow defendants’ appeal and Ramis Crew’s cross-appeal from the original judgment to proceed and dismiss plaintiffs’ appeal from the amended judgment.

The pertinent facts are undisputed. On October 7, 2003, the trial court entered a judgment. That judgment provided, in pertinent part:

“1. Plaintiff Ramis Crew Corrigan & Bachrach, LLP is awarded judgment against Defendant Stephen L. Stoelk and B.A.S.S. Construction Company, Inc., jointly and severally, in the amount of $592,193.58, together with interest at 9% per annum from March 28, 2002, until paid; plus Plaintifffs] reasonable attorney fees and all costs and disbursements incurred herein, and that a writ of execution may issue thereforf]
í*í íjí % :jt
“FIRST MONEY JUDGMENT
* * * *
“Amount of Judgment:
$592,193.58 (not including pre-judgment interest, costs and attorney fees)
[704]*704“Pre-judgment interest thru 10/6/03; “Post Judgment interest:
$82,063.43.
Simple interest on $592,193.58 at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of entry of judgment until paid; plus simple interest on the costs, disbursements and attorney fees of $7,376.50 at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of entry of judgment until paid[.]”

(Underscoring and boldface in original.) The money judgment portion of the judgment did not indicate that post-judgment interest also accrued on the award of prejudgment interest. On October 16, 2003, defendants filed a notice of appeal from that judgment.

On October 20, 2003, the trial court entered an amended judgment.2 3 Paragraph one, as quoted above, was not amended. With regard to the money judgment, the trial court initialed the following changes that it made by interlineation:4

“Amount of Judgment;
$592,193.58 (not including pre-judgment interest, costs and attorney fees)
“Pre-judgment interest thru 10/6/03; 10/7/03 “Post Judgment interest:
$ 82,063.43. $82,209.45 Simple interest on 1,403.03 at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of entry of judgment until paid; plus simple interest on the costs, disbursements and attorney fees of $7,376.50 at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of entry of judgment until paid[.]”

[705]*705(Underscoring in original.)

Defendants did not appeal from the amended judgment. However, on November 17, 2003, Ramis Crew cross-appealed from the original judgment. Thereafter, plaintiffs appealed from the amended judgment, and we issued our order to show cause.

Plaintiffs contend that, even though defendants had filed a notice of appeal from the original judgment, the trial court retained jurisdiction to correct clerical errors in that judgment. Thus, plaintiffs assert that the amended judgment should be “deemed the final appealable judgment in this action,” and defendants’ appeal from the original judgment should be dismissed. Defendants respond that the trial court lacked jurisdiction when the amended judgment was entered because they already had appealed from the original judgment. See ORS 19.270(1) (2001) (providing, in part, that “[t]he Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction of the cause when the notice of appeal has been served and filed as provided in ORS 19.240, 19.250 and 19.255”).5 Consequently, defendants contend that the amended judgment has no legal effect, and that we should dismiss the appeal from that judgment.

The parties’ arguments require that we resolve the following two issues: (1) whether the trial court had jurisdiction to enter the amended judgment after defendants had filed their notice of appeal from the original judgment, and (2) if the trial court had jurisdiction, whether the amended judgment superseded the original judgment. In resolving those issues, the parties generally refer us to several cases, but they do not address the particular statutes and rules that apply to this case. Nevertheless, “the parties may not prevent a court from noticing and invoking an applicable statute by relying only on other sources of law.” Miller v. Water Wonderland Improvement District, 326 Or 306, 309 n 3, 951 P2d 720 (1998). For that reason, in determining whether the trial court had jurisdiction to enter the amended judgment [706]*706after defendants had filed their notice of appeal from the original judgment, we begin with the applicable statutes and rules.

ORS 19.270 provides, in pertinent part:

“(5) Notwithstanding the filing of a notice of appeal, the trial court has jurisdiction:
“(a) To enter an order under ORCP 71 * * *[.]”

In turn, ORCP 71A provides:

“Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other parts of the record and errors therein arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time on its own motion or on the motion of any party and after such notice to all parties who have appeared, if any, as the court orders. During the pendency of an appeal, a judgment may be corrected as provided in subsection (2) of section B of this rule.”6

Taken together, ORS 19.270(5)(a) and ORCP 71 A provide that a trial court has jurisdiction to correct clerical mistakes in a judgment after a party files a notice of appeal from that judgment.

In Hopkins and Hopkins, 102 Or App 655, 658-59, 796 P2d 660 (1990), rev den, 311 Or 87 (1991), this court explained the meaning of the term “clerical mistakes”:

“When the Oregon Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted in 1978, ORCP 71A codified Oregon case law, which had previously given the court power to correct ‘clerical, as contrasted with judicial errors, in order to make the record speak the truth and conform it to what actually occurred.’ Hubbard v. Hubbard, 213 Or 482, 487, 324 P2d 469 (1958). In Hubbard, the Supreme Court adopted a broad definition of ‘clerical error’:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
92 P.3d 154, 193 Or. App. 700, 2004 Ore. App. LEXIS 696, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ramis-crew-corrigan-bachrach-llp-v-stoelk-orctapp-2004.