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.