Alabama Appellate Watch

Answering a question of first impression, the Alabama Supreme Court held that an amendment to the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure applies retroactively to cases pending when the amendment was adopted. The Court issued a writ of certiorari, requiring the Court of Civil Appeals to reinstate an appeal which was timely under the Court’s recent amendment to ARCP 58(c). Ex parte Luker, No. 1051805 (August 31, 2007).

The parties tried the appellees’ claims in a bench trial. The day following the trial, the judge issued an order in favor of the appellees. The order was recorded on the case action summary sheet and signed by the judge, but the clerk of court did not mail copies of the judgment to the parties until nearly two months later. Pursuant to ARCP 60(a), the trial court amended the judgment, post-dating it to coincide with the date on which the clerk mailed copies of the judgment to the parties. The trial court denied the appellant’s subsequent post-judgment motions, and the appellant filed a notice of appeal with the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. The Court of Civil Appeals found that the trial court could not use Rule 60(a) to alter the date of judgment, so the appeal was untimely.

The appellant filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Alabama Supreme Court. While the petition was pending, the Court amended Rule 58 to provide that a judgment is “entered” when it is put into the State Judicial Information System. The Court adopted to the amendment to remediate potential unfairness created by the old rule, under which the time for filing a notice of appeal began to run even if a party did not receive notice of a judgment because of a clerical error. The Court held that because the amendment to Rule 58(c) did not change a substantive rule, and because the appeal at issue presented the precise situation that the amendment was designed to prevent, the amendment should apply to the pending appeal.