Christopher Wayne Roberts v. Robin Yanyan Yang (formerly Roberts)
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NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION II
No.
CA08-52
CHRISTOPHER WAYNE ROBERTS,
APPELLANT
Opinion Delivered
V.
APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
[NO. DR-2005-5518]
ROBIN YANYAN YANG
(FORMERLY ROBERTS),
APPELLEE
19 NOVEMBER 2008
THE HONORABLE MACKIE M.
PIERCE, JUDGE
REBRIEFING ORDERED
D. P. MARSHALL JR. , Judge
This appeal by Christopher Roberts is the sequel to Roberts v. Yang, 102 Ark.
App. 384, ___ S.W.3d ____ (2008). Roberts’s petition to the supreme court for
review of our decision in Yang I remains pending. In this appeal, Roberts challenges
the circuit court’s division and valuation of the parties’ marital assets. It is a one-brief
case.
We cannot reach the merits because Roberts’s brief is deficient. He has not
abstracted all the key parts of the hearings at which the circuit court took evidence
about the value of the parties’ assets. His addendum does not contain the divorce
decree; further, it contains at least one document that is missing a page. Roberts also
failed to include “Plaintiff’s Exhibit 5,” on which the circuit court based its order
dividing and valuing the parties’ property. Without all the essential record materials,
we are unable to conduct a meaningful review of the issue on appeal. Campbell v.
State, 349 Ark. 111, 112, 76 S.W.3d 271, 272 (2002). So the case must be rebriefed.
During the rebriefing, the parties should also address whether the law-of-thecase doctrine bars our consideration of Roberts’s argument on appeal. This doctrine
prevents consideration of an argument that could have been raised in the first appeal
but is not made until a later appeal. Turner v. Northwest Arkansas Neurosurgery Clinic,
P.A., 91 Ark. App. 290, 298–99, 210 S.W.3d 126, 133–34 (2005). The doctrine only
applies, however, where the facts on the second appeal are substantially the same as
those involved in the prior appeal. Ibid. at 299, 210 S.W.3d at 134. The record in the
first appeal is part of the record for this case. Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 3-1(e). The circuit
court appears to have addressed the property-division issue in the divorce decree, from
which Roberts appealed in Yang I. He did not assert any division/valuation errors in
the first appeal. We therefore ask both parties to address whether the law-of-the-case
doctrine has any application in this second appeal.
We order rebriefing. Roberts shall file a brief complying with our Rule 4-2
within thirty days of this opinion. Yang’s appellee brief, and Roberts’s reply brief,
shall be due thereafter as prescribed in Rule 4-4(b) and (c). If Roberts does not file a
conforming brief, then we may affirm based on his current inadequate brief. Ark. Sup.
Ct. R. 4-2(b)(3).
BIRD and BAKER, JJ., agree.
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