A notice-of-claim case illustrating how not to do a number of things.

Slaughter, a security guard at the Superior Court and some Justice Courts, sued the County for discrimination. The County argued that she was not its employee but instead the State’s and moved for summary judgment. The trial court ruled that there was an issue of fact about whether the County acted as the State’s agent. Slaughter then amended her Complaint to name both the County and the State. The State moved to dismiss because her notice of claim had been directed to the County. She asked for time for discovery to prove that she had somehow asserted a valid State claim, which the court granted. But she never did any discovery. So the State eventually moved again on the notice-of-claim issue and both State and County moved to dismiss for failure to prosecute. The motion was granted. Slaughter appealed.

Having taken four years (that’s how long the case had lasted by that point) to not figure out who employed her, she then didn’t figure out how to appeal. Instead of including transcripts in the record on appeal she attached them to her brief. But the defendants didn’t object, so the Court of Appeals accepted them.

Slaughter argued that because the County was arguably the State’s agent for purposes of her employment it was also the agent for purposes of receiving a notice of claim. But the notice-of-claim statue requires service on the person identified by the Rules of Procedure, Rule 4.1 provides that the State is served by delivery to the attorney general, so serving the County didn’t satisfy the rule or statute. The court distinguishes Ames, which let a plaintiff bring in the DOT without a notice of claim because he had already sued the Corporation Commission in the same action and so the State had notice anyway. Lest anyone think it too mean, the court adds that Slaughter had been told of her mistake in 2005 and again in 2006 and had done nothing about it.

The Court upholds with little problem the dismissal for failure to prosecute. She hadn’t in four years done anything. Why the case clunked along so haphazardly for so long, and how it stayed on the active calendar, are the kinds of mysteries that turn up too often.

(link to opinion)

The question here is whether an adopted child can sue for his natural father’s death. The Court of Appeals says “no.”

Edonna’s stepfather had adopted him years before his natural father died in a motorcycle crash with Heckman; in the interim, though, they had grown close and the stepfather had, apparently, gone out of the picture. When Edonna sued for the wrongful death Heckman moved to dismiss. The trial court denied it

The Court of Appeals reverses. It points out that the wrongful-death statute does not allow for weighing how close a relationship was.  By naming spouses, children, and parents as beneficiaries, the statute leaves out others who may have a close association with the decedent. While the statute does not define “child,” an adoption statute (8-117) says that upon adoption the original parent-child relationship “is completely severed and all the legal rights, privileges, duties, obligations and other legal consequences of the relationship cease to exist, including the right of inheritance . . .”  The right to sue for wrongful death is a legal consequence of the relationship.

Edonna cited an intestate-succession statute (14-2114) to the effect that adoption by the spouse of a natural parent has no effect on child’s right to inherit from the other natural parent. But the statute also says “An adopted person is the child of that person’s adopting parent or parents and not of the natural parents.” In Arizona the right to sue for wrongful death does not involve inheritance, it’s a claim for the beneficiary’s own loss. Edonna could inherit from his natural father but so could a lot of other people; that does not mark them all as statutory beneficiaries.

(link to opinion)

This is a ruling on a motion for partial dismissal of an appeal. It is published as an opinion, however, presumably to draw attention to a point of procedure.

The parties sued each other because of a business dispute. At trial Leonesio made an unsuccessful motion for JMOL, which he made again at the close of the evidence. The jury found for him on some things but awarded Marquette damages on others. The parties cross-appealed.

On appeal, Marquette moved to dismiss Leonesio’s contention that the verdict wasn’t supported by the evidence because the appeal statute (12-2102) requires a motion for new trial to preserve that argument. Leonesio’s position was that his “renewed” motion for JMOL did that.

(The court points out, in one of those very occasional useful footnotes, that Leonesio didn’t renew his JMOL motion. This is a difference between directed verdict and JMOL. DV had to be renewed at the conclusion of the evidence, which presumably explains why Leonesio did so. When JMOL replaced it the take-away was that you didn’t have to do that any more, lawyers having considered the renewal requirement a “trap,” i.e., a requirement that careless ones tended to forget. JMOL does get renewed, though, but after judgment rather than during trial.)

(The court implies that proper renewal would have preserved the argument. But that’s not the holding and, though it’s right, is technically an open issue. A 1950 case says that a Rule 50(b) motion will do; but while today that’s renewal of JMOL in 1950 it was judgment NOV, a slightly different beast that is mostly extinct, as are those of us who cut our teeth on DVs and NOVs.)

The court holds, citing a U.S. Supreme Court case construing the similar federal rule, that a trial motion for JMOL does not preserve on appeal the issue of the sufficiency of the evidence.

Applying that to this case, the court first says that Leonesio’s statute-of-limitations claim is barred. It’s a bit hard to tell whether that’s because the court considers that generically a sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue or whether (more likely, we think) Leonesio had failed to make his record on the limitations issue and so tried to argue it under a sufficiency rubric.

The court next says that Leonesio’s contention that Marquette ratified his actions was also a sufficiency argument. (But he hadn’t made a record on that, either, and in fact hadn’t argued it below at all.) Whether the evidence showed that certain provisions of an agreement were met was also a barred sufficiency argument, as was whether the evidence was sufficient for punitive damages (Leonesio raised a new one on appeal about that, too, and although it was a constitutional issue the court refused to consider it.)

(link to opinion)