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427 N.W.2d 822

Williams Co. v. Hamilton

North Dakota Supreme Court

Decided September 20, 1988

North Dakota Supreme Court · decided 1988-09-20

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“... if multiple parties are involved, the court may direct the entry of a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the claims or parties only upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay and upon an express direction for the entry of judgment. In the absence of that determination and direction, any order or other form of decision, however designated, which adjudicates fewer than all of the claims or the rights and liabilities , of fewer than all the parties does not terminate the action as to any of the claims or parties, and the order or other form of decision is subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Dinger Ex Rel. Dinger v. Strata Corp.

Relies on Matter of Estate of Stuckle

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1988-09-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently July 2018

1 district · 15 state decisions

1001988199020002010decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1ON PETITION FOR REHEARING

¶2Williams Company filed a petition for rehearing contending that by dismissing its appeal we have made the district court’s summary judgment final, there can be no remand, that the action is finished, and the district court’s judgment that the deeds were royalty deeds will be res judicata, directly contrary to our holding that summary judgment was improper because the deeds were ambiguous.

¶3It is apparent from our opinion that we do not consider the judgment a final judgment because no money judgment was entered against Williams Company. See 1 Am.Jur.2d 437, Accounts and Accounting, § 63. “In the phrasing of Rule 54(b), it is obvious that these rulings adjudicate ‘fewer than all of the claims’ and do ‘not terminate the action.’ Therefore, the rulings are ‘subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims’...” Matter of Estate of Stuckle, 427 N.W.2d 96, 103 (N.D. 1988) (Meschke, J., concurring). Williams Company is entitled to move to reconsider the partial summary judgment entered against it and, if unsuccessful, may raise the issues on appeal from a final judgment entered against it.

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