Wiechman v. Huddleston
Annotate this CaseIn 2008, Plaintiff settled his negligence case against Defendant. The district court dismissed the litigation for lack of prosecution later that year. More than four years later, Plaintiff filed a motion to set aside the dismissal order, alleging that he never received payment. The district court set aside the dismissal order. Defendant then filed this interlocutory appeal arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to set aside the dismissal order because Plaintiff’s motion was untimely under Kan. Stat. Ann. 60-260(c). Defendant did not seek certification for his interlocutory appeal but, instead, argued that a common-law jurisdictional exception permitted an appeal from an order setting aside a final judgment, citing Brown v. Fitzpatrick. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that Brown was no longer viable in light of more recent case law from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Brown is overruled to the extent it endorsed a judicially created appeal right in a civil case outside of those created by statute; and (2) Plaintiff’s appeal in this case must be dismissed because it was not brought in accordance with the statute governing interlocutory appeals.
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