Appellate Law

Procedural Errors Doom Appeal

The Court of Civil Appeals's decision in Chaney v. Ala West et al., No. 2070599 (Ala. Civ. App. Dec. 31, 2008), illustrates why parties should be particularly vigilant about appellate procedure in cases involving numerous parties and claims.  The trial court over a two year period entered summary judgment in favor of all of the defendants on all of the plaintiffs' claims.  The trial court certified the first summary judgment order under Rule 54(b) for immediate review, but the plaintiffs did not appeal that order until they appealed from the final summary judgment.  Because the appellants filed their notice of appeal more than 42 days following the Rule 54(b) certification, the Court of Civil Appeals, in a case that the Alabama Supreme Court assigned to it, dismissed that portion of the appeal because it was untimely (and an untimely appeal is a jurisdictional error).  The Court of Civil Appeals also rejected the arguments that the appellants submitted in opposition to another defendant's summary judgment motion because the appellants recycled arguments that they had offered in opposition to a third defendant's summary judgment motion.  The Court found that the the "largely unresponsive" submission did not satisfy the appellants' burden of proof. 

Full post as published by Alabama Appellate Watch on January 12, 2009 (boomark / email).