Opinion highlights for the week of March 29, 2026

 

Spring Break is over.  On April 1, 2026, the Arkansas Court of Appeals handed down eighteen decisions.  On April 2, 2026, the Arkansas Supreme Court did not hand down any decisions.  Let's take a look at three of those Court of Appeals decisions.

In Toney v. State, 2026 Ark. App. 197, Toney challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support her lesser-included second-degree murder and first-degree battery convictions.  She argued that there was insufficient evidence that she acted as an accomplice.  The Court of Appeals opined that she failed to preserve her arguments on appeal.

While it is not necessary to specifically state the lesser-included offense by name, the elements of that lesser-included offense must be addressed in the directed-verdict motion. Neither of the elements addressed by Toney are elements of the crimes of which she was convicted. Furthermore, none of the arguments below preserved the arguments raised on appeal regarding lack of evidence to prove that Toney was an accomplice. Accordingly, Toney has failed to preserve her challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence of either offense.

Id. at 5 (citations omitted).

Rebriefing was ordered in Mumtaz Mf v. Lindsey, 2026 Ark. App. 214.  The Court of Appeals noted "briefing deficiencies" that left it "unable to reach the merits of appellant's arguments...." Id. at 1.  These deficiencies under Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a) included:

• a brief cover that displayed an incorrect case number and failed to include attorney contact information;
• a jurisdictional statement that did not comply with Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 1-2 by stating which appellate court should hear the appeal;
• a one-page statement of the case and the facts that was argumentative, provided little to no factual or procedural information, and lacked record citations; and
• an argument section with improperly placed standards of review, case citations not in the format required by Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 5-2(d), and the use of at least two opinions that were not designated for publication issued before July 1, 2009.

The court could raise the issue of deficiencies sua sponte, at any time; the mandatory language of Rule 4-2 required doing so here.

Finally, Scallion v. State, 2026 Ark. App. 207, offers guidance for preserving a corroboration challenge.  Scallion argued the State failed to provide sufficient evidence to corroborate her co-defendant's testimony linking her to the murder.  The Court of Appeals determined that this argument was not preserved.

"In order to preserve an accomplice-corroboration challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for appellate review, a defendant must either have the trial court declare a witness to be an accomplice as a matter of law or submit the issue to the jury." Id. at 5.  Stallings never asked the trial court to declare her co-defendant to be an accomplice as a matter of law, and the trial court never did so.  Nor did she ask the jury to decide the matter, even though two model jury instructions were available for this purpose.  "Because Scallion failed to have [her co-defendant] declared an accomplice as a matter of law or to have the jury instructed on the issue, her claim is barred." Id. at 6.

Thank you for reading.

Opinion highlights for the week of March 15, 2026

 

This was a relatively slow week: the Arkansas Court of Appeals handed down twelve decisions on Wednesday, and the Arkansas Supreme Court handed down two decisions on Thursday.  We will note one of those Supreme Court cases, and two from the Court of Appeals.

In Relyance Bank v. Pharr, 2026 Ark. 55, Relyance's notice of appeal addressed outstanding tort claims against Caldwell with the following language: "Relyance... abandons any pending but unresolved claims but only to the extent required by" Ark. R. App. P.-Civ. 3.  One question on appeal was the propriety of that language - did it result in a final, appealable order by properly abandoning these unresolved tort claims?

"Under Rule 3, a party must abandon any pending but unresolved claims in the notice of appeal. This operates as a dismissal with prejudice of the claims." Relyance Bank, 2026 Ark. 55, at 4.  The rule addresses a past finality problem.  Substantial compliance with this rule suffices, so long as the appellee is not prejudiced.

Here, the Supreme Court held that Relyance substantially complied with the rule.  The "to the extent required" language in the notice of appeal did not affect the abandonment statement in the notice of appeal.  Further, Relyance confirmed its intent to abandon unresolved claims in the jurisdictional statement of its brief.  The tort claims were deemed dismissed, no pending claims remained, and the order appealed was final.

Wells v. Randall, 2026 Ark. App. 187, sounds like an odd little case.  Randall obtained a judgment in replevin against Wells; the latter appealed, arguing that he had title to the property.  Apparently, neither party advanced much in the way of argument on appeal (according to the majority): "the parties... have left all the analysis to us." Id. at 2.

The majority "decline[d] to step off into the void and argue the title issue de novo for one side or the other." Id. at 3.  The majority resolved the appeal by noting Randall prevailed below, and Wells did not demonstrate reversible error.  The trial court was affirmed.

Finally, in Henry v. Pierce, 2026 Ark. App. 194, Henry appealed a contingency fee award to Pierce's attorney, arguing that the fee agreement was erroneously entered into evidence.  The Court of Appeals found that, even if there was error, it was harmless.  At trial, Henry asserted that the issue was the reasonableness of the fee.  But there was a "plethora" of testimony about the reasonableness of the fee here. "Because there was an abundance of evidence regarding the reasonableness of the fee––which was the singular crux of Henry’s argument––any purported error in the admission of the contract was harmless." Id. at 8.

Next week, I think both courts are in recess - appellate courts like Spring Break too!  If that turns out to be incorrect, I'll post here accordingly.

Thanks for reading.

Opinion highlights for the week of March 8, 2026

 

The Arkansas Court of Appeals issued nineteen opinions on March 11, 2026.  The next day, the Arkansas Supreme Court's docket listed three opinions.  One of those Court of Appeals decisions addresses the type of issue I'm interested in posting about here.

In Maxwell v. Lavski Management, LLC, 2026 Ark. App. 162, the Court of Appeals remanded the case to settle and supplement the record.  The trial court issued a writ of possession and awarded damages against Maxwell, who then raised a number of points on appeal.

At a hearing on August 28, 2024, the trial court considered a number of motions and other matters relevant to Maxwell's appeal.  For some reason, the transcript of that August 28 hearing was not in the record.  This was the basis for remand.

... It is evident that the circuit court ruled on Maxwell’s outstanding motions, including the motion to dismiss and motion to set aside, following the hearing held on August 28 and the arguments presented therein. 

 

If anything material to either party is omitted from the record by error or accident, we may direct that the omission be corrected and, if necessary, that a supplemental record be certified and transmitted. Because our record does not contain a transcript of the motion and damages hearing, we cannot reach the merits of Maxwell’s claim at this time. We therefore remand to the circuit court to settle and supplement the record.

Id. at 3-4 (footnote omitted).

Thank you for reading.