Appeal by plaintiff from order entered 7 February 2006 by
Judge Chester C. Davis in Forsyth County District Court. Heard in
the Court of Appeals 27 March 2007.
Parrish, Smith & Ramsey, LLP, by Steven D. Smith, for
plaintiff-appellant.
David E. Shives, PLLC, by David E. Shives, for defendant-
appellee.
GEER, Judge.
Plaintiff, The Cadle Company, appeals from an order entered by
the Forsyth County District Court dismissing plaintiff's attempted
appeal of a prior order of the same court. Although the
proceedings following plaintiff's filing of its first notice of
appeal are confusing, at least this much is apparent: plaintiff
failed to file a settled record on appeal with this Court within
the time allowed by our appellate rules. As a result, the district
court acted within its authority, pursuant to N.C.R. App. P. 25(a),
when it dismissed plaintiff's appeal. Accordingly, we affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
This appeal arises out of a dispute between the parties over
a commercial lease. On 21 March 2005, plaintiff instituted an
action in summary ejectment, and a magistrate granted judgment in
plaintiff's favor. Defendant then appealed to the district court,
which overruled the magistrate in an order dated 10 June 2005. In
this order, Judge Lawrence J. Fine decreed: "Plaintiff's complaint
and claims are dismissed, and the judgment of the Magistrate is
superceded by this order in every respect." On 8 July 2005,
plaintiff filed a notice of appeal "to the Superior Court of
Forsyth County." On 19 August 2005, 42 days after the notice of
appeal, plaintiff served defendant with a proposed record on
appeal.
On 23 August 2005, defendant filed a motion to dismiss
plaintiff's appeal, asserting: (1) that in violation of N.C.R. App.
P. 3, plaintiff failed to direct its appeal to the proper court,
i.e., to the Court of Appeals rather than "to the Superior Court of
Forsyth County" and (2) that in violation of N.C.R. App. P. 11,
plaintiff failed to serve its proposed record on appeal within the
required 35-day time frame. At the 6 September 2005 hearing on
defendant's motion to dismiss, plaintiff made an oral motion to
extend the time to serve its proposed record on appeal. On 29
September 2005, Judge Lisa V.L. Menefee entered an order granting
plaintiff's oral motion and deeming "timely filed" the proposed
record that plaintiff served on 19 August 2005. Judge Menefee
denied defendant's motion to dismiss the appeal, but granted him
"30 days from the signing of this Order to serve objections orcorrections to the Plaintiff/Appellant's Proposed Record on
Appeal."
Subsequently, on 27 October 2005, defendant filed a "Notice of
Appeal/Cross-Appeal" from Judge Menefee's order. On the same date,
defendant also served his "Objections and Amendments" to
plaintiff's proposed record on appeal. Over two months later, on
6 January 2006, plaintiff delivered a "final" record on appeal, by
hand, to defendant.
On 13 January 2006, defendant filed his second motion to
dismiss plaintiff's appeal, contending that "[t]he Record on Appeal
has never been filed with the N.C. Court of Appeals." That motion
to dismiss was accompanied by an affidavit of defendant's counsel,
David E. Shives, and several exhibits. According to Mr. Shives, he
made several unsuccessful attempts in early November 2005 to
contact plaintiff's counsel regarding settlement of the record. On
16 November 2005, the two attorneys finally communicated and,
according to Mr. Shives, plaintiff's counsel "stated that: (a)
Plaintiff had no problem with Defendant's Objections and Amendments
to Proposed Record on Appeal; and (b) that counsel for Plaintiff
would prepare the final Record on Appeal."
On 26 January 2006, plaintiff filed with the district court a
"Response to Motion to Dismiss and Motion to Extend Time Pursuant
to Rule 27(c) of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure."
Plaintiff asserted that it "feels that the Final Record on Appeal
was properly submitted to the Defendant['s] attorney on January 6,
2006 and was ready to file same with the North Carolina Court ofAppeals on that date and therefore was able to be timely served on
the North Carolina Court of Appeals on January 6, 2006." In its
response, plaintiff did not dispute Shives' assertion that
"[p]laintiff had no problem with [d]efendant's Objections and
Amendments" as of 16 November 2005. Indeed, according to
plaintiff's version of the relevant events, "shortly" after 27
October 2005 "the Plaintiff[] and the Defendant[]
agreed upon the
contents and the setup of the 'Record on Appeal' for both the Order
. . . by Judge Lawrence Fine and the Order of Judge Menefee . . .
." (Emphasis added.)
On 30 January 2006, Judge Chester C. Davis conducted a hearing
on the pending motions. On 7 February 2006, the court entered an
order denying plaintiff's motion for an extension of time and
granting defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's appeal of the
June 2005 decision by Judge Fine. Following the district court's
dismissal of the appeal, plaintiff gave timely notice of appeal of
Judge Davis' order.
Discussion
"If after giving notice of appeal from any court, . . . the
appellant shall fail within the times allowed by these rules or by
order of court to take any action required to present the appeal
for decision,
the appeal may on motion of any other party be
dismissed." N.C.R. App. P. 25(a) (emphasis added). The appellate
rules that regulate the timing of the settlement and filing of the
record on appeal are not arbitrary formalities, but "'are designed
to keep the process of perfecting an appeal flowing in an orderlymanner.'"
Kellihan v. Thigpen, 140 N.C. App. 762, 763, 538 S.E.2d
232, 234 (2000) (quoting
Craver v. Craver, 298 N.C. 231, 236, 258
S.E.2d 357, 361 (1979)). N.C.R. App. P. 12(a) establishes a 15-day
window for the filing of a settled record on appeal with the clerk
of the appellate court: "Within 15 days after the record on appeal
has been settled by any of the procedures provided in Rule 11 or
Rule 18, the appellant shall file the record on appeal with the
clerk of the court to which appeal is taken."
In determining whether Judge Davis properly dismissed
plaintiff's appeal, we first observe that Judge Menefee had no
authority, under the circumstances of this case, to grant plaintiff
an extension of time for service of its proposed record on appeal.
Under N.C.R. App. P. 11, plaintiff was required to serve a proposed
record on appeal upon defendant within 35 days of the date of the
notice of appeal _ in other words, within 35 days of 8 July 2005.
When plaintiff served the proposed record upon defendant on 19
August 2005, the time allowed for service had clearly expired.
Although a "trial tribunal for good cause shown by the
appellant may extend once for no more than 30 days the time
permitted by Rule 11," N.C.R. App. P. 27(c)(1), "motions made after
the expiration of the time allowed in these rules for the action
sought to be extended
must be in writing and with notice to all
other parties and may be allowed only after all other parties have
had opportunity to be heard," N.C.R. App. P. 27(d) (emphasis
added). Because plaintiff made only an oral motion after the time
for service of the proposed record had expired, Judge Menefeelacked authority to grant plaintiff's motion, and her order was
ineffective.
See Richardson v. Bingham, 101 N.C. App. 687, 689,
400 S.E.2d 757, 759 (1991) (holding that trial court's order
extending appellant's time to serve proposed record on appeal "was
ineffective" because of Rule 27 violation).
Similarly, we see no authority in the appellate rules for
Judge Menefee's decision to grant defendant an additional 30 days
for the service of his objections to plaintiff's proposed record on
appeal. Rule 27(c)(1) grants authority to the trial tribunal to
allow one extension of 30 days "for the service of the proposed
record on appeal." Rule 27(c)(2) in turn provides that "[a]ll
motions for extensions of time other than those specifically
enumerated in Rule 27(c)(1)
may only be made to the appellate court
to which appeal has been taken." (Emphasis added.) In other
words, a motion to extend the time for making objections to the
proposed record on appeal should have been directed to this Court.
Since Judge Menefee had no authority to extend defendant's
time to object, arguably the record on appeal was settled under
N.C.R. App. P. 11(b) ("If all appellees within the times allowed
them either serve notices of approval or fail to serve either
notices of approval or objections, amendments, or proposed
alternative records on appeal, appellant's proposed record on
appeal thereupon constitutes the record on appeal."). Plaintiff
was then required to file the record on appeal with this Court 15
days after the non-extended deadline for serving objections.
N.C.R. App. P. 12(a). Even if Judge Menefee had authority to enter her order and
regardless of any impact of defendant's notice of appeal from that
order,
(See footnote 1)
the record establishes that the parties agreed upon the
record on appeal "shortly" after 27 October 2005, according to
plaintiff, and by 16 November 2005, according to defendant. Once
the parties settled the record by agreement, plaintiff was required
to file the agreed-upon record with this Court within 15 days.
Id.
See also White v. Carver, 175 N.C. App. 136, 143, 622 S.E.2d 718,
723 (2005) (holding that appeal was not properly filed in
accordance with appellate rules when appellant agreed to some of
appellee's amendments and objections to the proposed record, did
not seek judicial settlement regarding those points upon which
agreement not reached, and did not file record with this Court
within 15 days of the record being settled by operation of Rules 11
and 12).
When, on 13 January 2006, defendant filed his second written
motion to dismiss plaintiff's appeal, plaintiff, in violation of
Rule 12(a) of the Rules of Appellate Procedure, had still not filed
a record of any kind with this Court. Since plaintiff "fail[ed]
within the time[] allowed . . . to take an[] action required to
present the appeal for decision," N.C.R. App. P. 25(a), the trial
court could properly dismiss plaintiff's appeal.
See Kellihan, 140
N.C. App. at 766, 538 S.E.2d at 235 ("Plaintiffs failed to meet thetime deadline set out in N.C.R. App. P. 12(a), and therefore their
filing of the record on appeal in this case was late. This
violation of our appellate rules subjects this appeal to dismissal
on defendants' motion.");
Bledsoe v. County of Wilkes, 135 N.C.
App. 124, 124-25, 519 S.E.2d 316, 317 (1999) (dismissing appeal
where, among other things, appellant "failed to file the record on
appeal with this Court within fifteen (15) days after it was
settled, in violation of Rule 12(a)").
Plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in dismissing
its appeal because the record was "available for filing in a timely
manner . . . ." Our appellate rules require actual filing and not
mere "availability" for filing. We note that rather than
attempting to file the record on appeal after receipt of the second
motion to dismiss, plaintiff instead asked the trial court for a
second extension of time _ a motion the trial court had no
authority to grant under N.C.R. App. P. 27. Plaintiff has
presented no persuasive basis for setting aside the trial court's
dismissal of its appeal, and accordingly, we affirm Judge Davis'
order.
Affirmed.
Chief Judge MARTIN and Judge WYNN concur.
Footnote: 1