The Arkansas Court of Appeals issued fifteen signed decisions this week. The Supreme Court did not issue any decisions, but Thursday's docket reflected several case submissions. A number of those Court of Appeals decisions deserve attention.
Hughes v. Turner, 2025 Ark. App. 58, addresses several aspects of Ark. R. App. P.-Civ. 2(a). This property ownership dispute involved a number of descendants of the original members of a hunting club. They will be referred to by last name here. Hart initiated the litigation, seeking appointment of a successor trustee for the club. Clarke asked to be declared a member of the club and successor trustee. The Turners brought adverse possession claims against everyone else. And Hughes filed a general answer and sought dismissal of the petition.
Long story short, the Turners purportedly settled with Clarke and Hart, leaving a dispute with Hughes that the Turners won at trial. Hughes appealed. The Turners moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of a final order. Hughes responded that Rule 2(a)(1-4) all applied to make the trial court's order final.
The Court of Appeals disagreed. With regard to Rule 2(a)(2), the trial court's order was not final because it did not dispense with the other parties and claims - for example, no order was ever entered dismissing Hart's and Clarke's claims for relief. With regard to Rule 2(a)(3), while Hughes did request a new trial in a post-trial motion, he abandoned that argument on appeal. With regard to Rule 2(a)(4), "Hughes is not arguing on appeal that the circuit court erred in granting the Turners' motion to strike, so it appears inappropriate to assert appellate jurisdiction on this basis." Hughes, 2025 Ark. App. 58, at 5.
That left Rule 2(a)(1). Hughes noted that the trial court's order declared itself to be final, but the court observed that "a circuit court's declaration that an order is final does not necessarily make it so." Hughes, 2025 Ark. App. 58, at 6. As noted, fewer than all of the claims or parties' liabilities had been adjudicated. There was no Ark. R. Civ. P. 54(b) certification addressing that problem. The trial court's order was not final, so the appeal was dismissed without prejudice.
Hughes is worth reading for a better understanding of Rule 2(a).
H.C. v. Nesmith, 2025 Ark. App. 59, considered whether the Arkansas General Assembly could revive claims despite the expiration of the statute of limitations. The panel said "no," but it had to consider whether the issue was preserved for review first. Below, appellants did not respond to appellee's summary judgment motion. The trial court granted summary judgment for the appellee, but did not specify the grounds or issue upon which judgment was granted. Thus, the question: were any of appellant's arguments preserved for appeal?
The court determined that the trial court necessarily ruled on the limitations issue when it entered summary judgment, thus preserving the issue for appeal. (The court referred to the legislature's attempt to revive claims as the "Revival Window"; the appellee's defense based on the expired limitations period is the "vested-right(s) argument.")
[T]he circuit court in the case at bar had to chose between two conflicting limitations periods - the original statute of limitations or the Revival Window. In finding that the appellants' claims were barred, the circuit court necessarily determined that the Revival Window was invalid because the appellee had a vested right in the expired statute of limitations. Because the vested-right argument was raised below and ruled on by the circuit court, the appellants' challenge to the vested-rights argument is preserved.
Id. at 6. A concurring opinion disagreed that this issue was preserved for review. H.C. is worth reading for a better understanding of issue preservation.
In Bobo v. Askew, 2025 Ark. App. 62, the court noted the trial court's duty in property disputes "to fix and describe the boundary lines... to discourage piecemeal litigation." Id. at 9. The trial court didn't provide a description in its order, raising the issue of finality for appellate jurisdiction purposes. Rather than dismiss the appeal, the court noted precedent allowing it to remand the matter for the trial court to include a legal description, and did just that.
The court affirmed without discussing the issues in a probate appeal, Lynchard v. Parks, 2025 Ark. App. 69. The trial court dismissed a petition to probate, finding the petitioner lacked standing and that an existing open case was administering the estate. Appellant only challenged the standing ruling on appeal. That was fatal: "When the circuit court bases its decision on two or more independent grounds and the appellant challenges fewer than all the grounds, we will affirm without addressing any grounds." Id. at 3.
Finally, the court made an interesting comment about rebriefing in a termination of parental rights case, Harris v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 2025 Ark. App. 70. The appellant parent's counsel filed a motion to withdraw and a no-merit brief. Note 2 states:
We note that counsel failed to brief a few adverse rulings. Although counsel failed to address why these adverse rulings do not present meritorious grounds for reversal, a counsel's failure to address every adverse ruling does not always require rebriefing. None of the unbriefed adverse rulings present meritorious grounds for reversal; therefore, we will not require rebriefing.
Id. at 3 (citations omitted). My suspicion is that counsel omitting adverse rulings still does so at his or her own peril.
Congratulations if you've made it this far - thanks for reading, and your comments are welcome.
