Arkansas Supreme Court Admonishes Appellants to Abstract Relevant Hearing Transcripts, Not Include Them In the Addendum
Hanners v. Giant Oil Co. of Arkansas, Inc., No 06-800, is another "Rule 54(b) dismissal-with-instructions-on-abstracting" opinion released on March 15, 2007. In this case the culprit was not undismissed John Doe defendants, but an unruled-upon counterclaim.
The Court also admonished the parties to abstract the arguments presented at an admittedly relevant hearing, rather than reproducing them verbatim in the addendum:
In the case at bar, the abstract submitted contains the following statement:
Since the case on appeal involves an appeal from a summary judgment and an order granting Appellee’s motion for attorney fees, neither of which includes a transcript of testimony, there will be no abstract of testimony in this case.
Although there was no testimony presented at the hearing on summary judgment or the hearing on attorney fees, transcripts of both of those hearings are included in the Addendum to this Brief. Arguments of counsel are not abstracted, but are included in the Addendum. The trial court’s ruling at the summary judgment hearing held February 3, 2006, is abstracted below along with the trial court’s ruling from the bench at the attorney fee hearing held July 6, 2006, for the convenience of the Court.
The Court did not find this arrangement to be convenient:
[I]nstead of abstracting the transcript of these hearings as required by Rule 4-2(a)(5), Hanners has included a copy of each transcript in the addendum. This does not comply with Rule 4-2(a)(5). See Simons v. Marshall, ___ Ark. ___, ___ S.W.3d ___
(Mar. 1, 2007) (per curiam).
Although this abstracting decision is distinguishable from Vimy Ridge Muni. Water Imp. Dist. v. Ryles (the Ryles appellant considered the unabstracted hearing "necessary to an understanding of all questions presented to the Court for decision,") Judge Crabtree's advice still holds:
"If you argue it, abstract it." Terry Crabtree, Abstracting the Record, 21 U. Ark. Little Rock 1, 10 (1998).
