Jane P. Wiseman

The case involved a dispute between neighboring property owners, the Barretts and the Humphreys, over whether the Barretts held an easement for ingress, egress, and utilities across the Humphreys' land, and whether the Humphreys had negligently obstructed or damaged a bridge on the roadway by storing items like lids that allegedly caused flooding and harm. The Barretts sued for trespass and damages, while the Humphreys counterclaimed for trespass, and the trial court found that the Barretts had established an easement in a prior 1982 case and awarded damages based on negligence. On appeal, the court reversed the judgment, concluding that the record did not support the trial court's finding that an easement had been proven or previously established, and remanded the case for further proceedings on the Humphreys' motion to reconsider.

propertytorts & liability

The case involved a pro se plaintiff, an incarcerated inmate serving as executor of his mother's estate, who filed a replevin action seeking to recover personal property allegedly taken by defendants connected to a funeral home. The trial court dismissed the action with prejudice, citing the plaintiff's failure to comply with statutory requirements for inmate-initiated civil actions under 12 O.S. § 2003.1 (or related sections like 2008.1) and related procedural shortcomings such as lack of proper service. On appeal, the court reversed the dismissal order, determining that while compliance with the inmate pleading statute is required, dismissal with prejudice was not warranted and the case should proceed after allowing the plaintiff an opportunity to meet the statutory mandates, with directions on handling summons and other issues.

procedureproperty

This case involved a workers' compensation claim by Danny Ray Watson against his employer, Tyson Foods, for a 2004 knee injury. The trial court awarded permanent partial disability benefits and rejected the employer's statute of limitations defense under 85 O.S. § 43(B), a decision affirmed by a three-judge panel. On appeal, the court vacated the award and remanded for dismissal, holding that the claimant failed to take positive action in good faith to request a hearing and final determination within the three-year limitation period after the 2007 order denying temporary benefits. The court reasoned that settlement conference requests, a miscellaneous order denying dismissal, and other filings did not toll the statute, distinguishing prior cases where specific court actions like appointing a medical examiner had done so.

labor & employmentprocedure

This case involved former attorneys for plaintiff Michael Anderson appealing the trial court's denial of their motion to vacate an order dismissing Anderson's medical malpractice lawsuit against Access Medical Centers and others. The attorneys sought to vacate the dismissal, which was entered due to failure to cooperate in discovery, arguing irregularities in the process, but they filed the motion after the plaintiff had retained new counsel and without his authorization. The Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals dismissed the appeal, holding that the attorneys lacked standing because they no longer represented the plaintiff and had no independent legally protected interest in the outcome.

procedure

This case involved two former employees of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission who brought a qui tam action to recover public funds paid out through settlement agreements from the Petroleum Storage Tank Release Environmental Cleanup Indemnity Fund, claiming the underlying claims were improper. State law requires a written demand signed and verified by ten resident taxpayers as a prerequisite to filing such an action, but one of the ten signatures on the demand was not properly verified before a notary or equivalent. The trial court dismissed the case without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the demand was defective, and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, concluding that the statute demands strict compliance with the verification requirement and that the defect could not be cured mid-litigation.

environmentprocedure

The case involved a post-divorce dispute over division of the husband's military retirement benefits from a 1999 decree between Brian Galarza and Eunice Denise Galarza. Years later, the wife sought a Qualified Domestic Relations Order and an order nunc pro tunc to correct language in the decree that had omitted adequate provisions for dividing the retirement pay due to a scrivener's error. The trial court granted the motions after finding the decree's intent clear and unambiguous, and the appellate court affirmed, ruling that the corrections clarified rather than modified the final property division and that the court had jurisdiction to enter such orders without violating time limits on modifying judgments.

family lawpropertyprocedure

This case involved a declaratory judgment action by Oklahoma Attorneys Mutual Insurance Company (OAMIC) against attorney Stephen Capron and his firm, Capron & Edwards, seeking a ruling that OAMIC had no duty to defend or indemnify them under a professional liability policy in a pending Tulsa County lawsuit. The underlying suit, brought by the Holden law firm, alleged claims including breach of contract and fiduciary duty arising from a dispute over how to divide attorneys' fees earned in a 2004 federal personal injury case that Capron had handled while at Holden before forming his own firm. The trial court granted summary judgment to OAMIC, and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. The court reasoned that the policy unambiguously excluded coverage for any claims arising out of the division of fees between lawyers, and all of the allegations against Capron and his firm stemmed directly from that fee dispute rather than from professional services rendered to clients.

business & regulatory

Arthur Been sued MK Enterprise, the owner of a bar, and its bartender Theodore Massey for negligence after he was served low-point beer while visibly intoxicated, leading to an altercation, his arrest, and subsequent incarceration for assault and related offenses. Been claimed the defendants' violation of the statute prohibiting service to intoxicated persons caused his imprisonment and sought damages. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants, and the appellate court affirmed. The court reasoned that Oklahoma precedents interpreting dram shop liability statutes do not permit an intoxicated adult consumer to recover from a vendor for injuries or incarceration resulting from his own voluntary overconsumption and criminal conduct, as the consumer's actions break the chain of causation.

torts & liability

The case concerned GuideOne America Insurance Company suing Shore Insurance Agency for indemnification and contribution after GuideOne settled a federal bad faith and breach of contract lawsuit brought by its insured, who had been given incorrect information about her uninsured motorist coverage by the agency and whose claim was not promptly reported. The trial court granted summary judgment to the agency on all claims. On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that the parties' 1999 agency contract contained no indemnity provision favoring GuideOne, that no common-law indemnity applied, and that contribution was unavailable because the agency was not a joint tortfeasor liable for the same damages in the underlying action.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

In this case, Genoff Farms sued Seven Oaks South for breach of contract and unjust enrichment, claiming it was owed $9,432 for providing and installing grass sod in a subdivision. After Defendant failed to respond to the petition, the trial court entered a default judgment against it, including attorney fees and costs. Defendant later moved to vacate the judgment, arguing lack of proper service and procedural errors, but the trial court denied the motion. On appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals reversed, holding that the default judgment was void because service by certified mail was unclaimed rather than refused, depriving the court of jurisdiction, and that the motion to vacate was properly filed. The court vacated the default judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved the estate of Linda Doyle suing Sprint Nextel and Samsung after Doyle was killed in a car accident caused by Christopher Hill, who was allegedly using his cell phone while driving. The plaintiff claimed the companies were negligent for failing to warn about the hazards of cell phone use while driving. The trial court dismissed the claims, and the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed, holding that the defendants owed no duty to Doyle because the risk of harm from a customer's cell phone use was not foreseeable in a manner that would impose such a duty under Oklahoma negligence law.

torts & liability

In Woods v. Computer Sciences Corp., the plaintiff appealed from the trial court's dismissal of his petition to vacate an earlier order that had dismissed without prejudice his 2007 negligence action arising from a 2005 incident. The original suit was dismissed in 2008 after the plaintiff failed to respond to discovery requests despite multiple attempts by the defendant to obtain responses, and the plaintiff later sought to vacate that order on grounds including procedural irregularities under local rules, lack of notice, and unavoidable casualty due to health issues. The trial court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the petition to vacate. On appeal, the court affirmed, reasoning that the one-year savings statute did not apply because the filing was a petition to vacate rather than a refiling of the claims, the request was untimely under other statutes for certain grounds, and the plaintiff failed to establish any statutory basis for vacating the prior dismissal.

proceduretorts & liability

In this case, Jerry Woods appealed the trial court's dismissal of his petition to vacate an earlier without-prejudice dismissal of his negligence lawsuit against Computer Sciences Corporation. The original action, filed in 2007 and arising from a 2005 vehicular incident, had been dismissed in 2008 for Woods's failure to respond to discovery requests. Woods sought vacatur under 12 O.S. § 1031 on grounds of procedural irregularity, local rule violations, and unavoidable casualty due to health issues, but the appellate court affirmed the dismissal. It held that the one-year savings statute under 12 O.S. § 100 did not apply to a petition to vacate, that no qualifying grounds for vacatur existed, and that any refiled claim would be time-barred.

proceduretorts & liability

The case involved Christopher Benton seeking to vacate a certificate tax deed held by Ted Parks, LLC, and to quiet title to real property in Oklahoma City after Parks acquired it through a 2009 tax sale stemming from unpaid 2005 taxes. Benton alleged that neither he nor the prior owner received proper statutory notice of the initial 2006 tax sale or the later proceedings. The trial court granted summary judgment to Benton and denied Parks' motion. On appeal, the court affirmed, holding that the tax sale and deed were void because the record showed no evidence of required notice by certified mail, publication, or otherwise to the property owners, rendering any subsequent steps invalid regardless of later notice attempts. The case was remanded for redemption of the property upon payment of the tendered funds.

propertytaxesprocedure

The case involved the distribution of a $14,649.89 personal injury settlement (after fees) among four medical providers who had treated plaintiff Miguel Ramirez following a 2007 car accident in Oklahoma. The trial court apportioned the funds pro rata among all providers, but Parkland appealed, arguing that only providers who had responded and appeared should receive shares. On de novo review, the appellate court held that only providers with properly perfected liens under Oklahoma statutes—Parkland via the hospital lien provisions (42 O.S. §§ 48-44) and Air Evac via the ambulance lien statute (§ 49)—were entitled to proceeds, while Bryan County EMS and Medical Center of S.E. Oklahoma had not established effective liens and thus could not share. The court reversed the awards to the latter two providers and remanded for recalculation of the distribution solely between the two lienholders.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved an employer's appeal of a Workers' Compensation Court award of permanent partial disability benefits to an employee injured in a slip-and-fall at work, claiming injuries to her back, neck, shoulders, and depression. The employer argued that the 2005 amendments to Oklahoma's workers' compensation law removed functional loss or abnormality as a factor in assessing permanent impairment, so the trial court erred by relying on a physician's report that included range-of-motion testing. The court held that the trial court did not err, because state law still requires physicians to follow the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, which explicitly incorporate both anatomic and functional measures when rating impairment. The decision was sustained.

labor & employment

The case concerned a lease of Oklahoma school trust land awarded to Cimarron River Ranch after a public auction; the plaintiff alleged that the Commissioners of the Land Office's later exchange of portions of the leased property with private owners materially altered the leasehold, entitling it to terminate under a lease provision, to exercise a preference right to purchase, or to invalidate the exchanges under the Oklahoma Enabling Act. The plaintiff also faced a counterclaim for unpaid rent after refusing to pay following the exchange. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendants on all of the plaintiff's claims and on the counterclaim. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the ruling on the Enabling Act claim but reversed on the lease-termination claim, the preference-right claim, and the rent counterclaim, holding that factual issues remained as to whether the exchange constituted a "sale" under the lease and remanding for further proceedings.

propertyfederal power

This case involved a mother's petition for a protective order on behalf of her minor daughter against the child's paternal grandfather, alleging inappropriate touching, which resulted in a final protective order and an award of costs against the grandfather. The mother later sought attorney fees and costs under the Protection from Domestic Abuse Act, prompting the grandfather to subpoena her financial records related to legal fees; the trial court quashed the subpoena on grounds of privilege and relevance. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court determined the grandfather had limited ability to pay and awarded the mother $19,750 in fees and costs after offsets. On appeal, the court affirmed the quashing of the subpoena and the fee award, finding no abuse of discretion in assessing the grandfather's ability to pay based on his testimony and financial evidence, and it granted the mother's request for appellate attorney fees.

family lawprocedure

In this workers' compensation case, claimant Mark Shapiro sought to reopen his 2000 cumulative trauma claim for a neck injury based on a change of condition for the worse, filing the motion in May 2009. The trial court denied the motion as untimely under the three-year statute of limitations in 85 O.S. Supp. 2009 § 43(C), and a three-judge panel affirmed. The court held that the last order addressing the neck injury was the August 2008 vocational rehabilitation order, while later orders from 2007-2009 concerned only the back injury and did not toll the limitations period for the neck claim. It interpreted 'last order' under Arrow Tool & Gauge v. Mead to require an order that substantially affects benefits for the specific injury at issue, and sustained the denial to give effect to the statutory time limit.

labor & employmentprocedure

This case arose from a January 2007 sewage backup that damaged a nursing home, leading the facility's owners to file a tort claim against the City of Westville under the Governmental Tort Claims Act and later seek to add the Westville Utility Authority as a defendant. The trial court denied the motion to amend, granted the Authority's motion to dismiss on GTCA grounds, and issued related orders, which the plaintiffs appealed after their motion to reconsider was denied. The appellate court dismissed the appeal, holding that it was premature because the November 2008 rulings, including the denial of the motion for new trial, were embodied only in a court minute that does not qualify as a final judgment or appealable order under 12 O.S. §§ 696.2 and 990.2, and no proper statutory-form order disposing of the post-trial motion had been entered. The core reasoning centered on the jurisdictional requirement that an appeal may commence only after a conforming judgment or appealable order is filed, which had not occurred here.

proceduretorts & liability