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238 Ark. 974

Coffelt v. Gordon

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided January 25, 1965

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1965-01-25

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““. . . [U]nder our settled rule ... an order which merely sustains a demurrer, without dismissing the complaint, is not a final appealable order. ...””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Brown v. Phillips

Relies on Arkansas State Board of Architects v. Larsen · Nunez v. O. K. Processors

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1965-01-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently October 1980

6 state decisions

30196519701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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George Rose Smith, J.

¶1In each of these two companion cases the trial court entered an order sustaining a demurrer to the complaint and granting the plaintiff ten days in which to amend. Roth plaintiffs filed notices of appeal and in due time lodged the records in this court.

¶2The appellees have filed motions to dismiss the appeals, under our settled rule that an order 'which merely sustains a demurrer, without dismissing the complaint, is not a final appealable order. Ark. State Board of Architects v. Larsen, 226 Ark. 536, 291 S. W. 2d 269. The appellants, citing Nunez v. O. K. Processors, 238 Ark. 346, 381 S. W. 2d 754, have asked us to withhold our ruling upon the motions to dismiss and to permit the appellants to perfect the records by obtaining and bringing up the necessary final orders and notices of appeal therefrom.

¶3We are unwilling to extend the doctrine of the Nunes case to the situation now before us. That case was unusual in that, despite the absence of a final order, both parties filed printed briefs in which the case was argued on its merits. It was evident that the appellee was willing to forego its right to have the appeal dismissed and preferred instead to submit the case for a decision on the merits. In the circumstances we invited the litigants to supply the deficiency in the record by agreement.

¶4These cases are markedly different from that one. Here no briefs have been filed. The appellees, by filing their motions to dismiss, are insisting upon their right to take advantage of the jurisdictional defect in each record. We have no reason to think that the appellants are actually seeking a delay, but it is quite apparent that if we should allow time for the perfection of the records in this instance a precedent would be established that might readily be used for dilatory purposes in the future.

¶5The appeals must be dismissed. To avoid needless expense, however, we think it appropirate to sav that if the appellants elect to obtain the necessary final orders and to file their appeals therefrom we will entertain motions to permit the present transcripts to be used in those cases.

¶6Appeals dismissed.

Robinson, J., not participating.
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