FSM SUPREME COURT APPELLATE DIVISION
Cite as Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353 (App. 2023)
[24 FSM R. 353]
ESMOND MOSES, in his official capacity as the
Speaker of the FSM Congress, and THE TWENTY-
THIRD CONGRESS OF THE FEDERATED STATES
OF MICRONESIA,
Appellants,
vs.
YOSLYN G. SIGRAH, JASON F. SIGRAH, MARUKO
T. SIGRAH, and FIONA AULIVIA HEIN,
Appellees.
APPEAL CASE NO. P6-2023
SINGLE JUSTICE ORDER DENYING DISMISSAL
Larry Wentworth
Associate Justice
Decided: December 1, 2023
APPEARANCES:
For the Appellants:
Maximo Mida, Esq.
Ramp & Mida Law Firm
P.O. Box 1480
Kolonia, Pohnpei FM 96941
For the Appellees:
Salomon M. Saimon, Esq.
P.O. Box 911
Kolonia, Pohnpei, FM 96941
Kathleen M. Burch, Esq.
P.O. Box 1365
Koror, Palau PW 96940
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Generally, appeals in civil cases can only be taken from final decisions, but the appellate rules allow appeals from interlocutory orders involving injunctions, receivers and receiverships, and determining the rights and liabilities of the parties in admiralty cases. The appellate rules also acknowledge that appeals are allowed in any other civil case in which an appeal to the FSM Supreme Court appellate division is permitted as a matter of law. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 355-56 (App. 2023).
FSM statutory law permits appeals from orders granting declaratory relief regardless of whether the case involved, or could involve, further relief. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 356 (App. 2023).
Although 6 F.S.M.C. 1501 refers to the Trust Territory High Court, it is a carryover provision from the Trust Territory Code and can be read as or applied to FSM Supreme Court trial division. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 356 n.2 (App. 2023).
A judgment is appealable when entered in conformity with Rule 58, but compliance with Rule 58, although a great time saver, is not jurisdictional. If the trial judge is through with the case, there is a final judgment, even if not memorialized in conformity with Rule 58. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 356 (App. 2023).
A declaratory judgment is appealable when the trial court's declaration appears to be final and unaffected by the fact that the plaintiff might later move for injunctive relief if the defendant refuses to accept the declaration. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 356 (App. 2023).
A procedural statute takes precedence over a procedural rule because while the chief justice has the power to promulgate procedural rules, the rules may be amended by statute, and since the chief justice does not have the power to amend a statute, when Congress has enacted a procedural rule, it is valid. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 356-57 (App. 2023).
Section 1501 gives a trial court order granting declaratory relief, the force and effect of a final judgment or decree even though it was only a partial adjudication. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 357 (App. 2023).
A single FSM Supreme Court appellate division justice may not dismiss or otherwise determine an appeal other than on all the parties' stipulation or on a party's failure to comply with the appellate rules' timing requirements, but a single justice may deny a motion to dismiss an appeal, and that single justice's action may be reviewed by the full panel. Moses v. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. 353, 357 (App. 2023).
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LARRY WENTWORTH, Associate Justice:
This comes before the court on the Appellees' Motion to Dismiss Appeal and the Appellees' Brief in Support of their Motion to Dismiss Appeal, both filed on November 14, 2023. The appellants had seven days to respond. FSM App. R. 27(a). They filed their opposition on November 21, 2023. The motion is denied.
Appellee Yoslyn G. Sigrah was a candidate in the July 4, 2023 special election to fill the vacant four-year seat representing Kosrae in the Twenty-Third FSM Congress. She received a plurality of the votes cast in that election and the National Election Director certified her as the winning candidate. None of the other eight candidates contested that certification.
On September 28, 2023, the Credentials Committee submitted a report to Congress, recommending that Sigrah not be seated because, although she met the Constitutional and statutory qualifications to be a Congress member, she was, in the Committee's view, not qualified to be a Congress member because of various past misdeeds while practicing law. Congress, relying on the constitutional provision that "Congress shall be the sole judge of the elections and qualifications of its members," FSM Const. art. IX, § 17(a), adopted the report and did not seat Sigrah. The seat was declared vacant and a new special election was scheduled for November 21, 2023.
On October 2, 2023, Sigrah and three Kosrae voters1 filed in the trial division a Petition for Declaratory Relief and Injunctive Relief against Speaker Esmond Moses, the 23rd FSM Congress, and National Election Director Ausen Lambert. The petitioners sought a declaratory judgment that Yoslyn Sigrah ought to be seated in Congress because she met all the Constitutional and statutory qualifications and an order enjoining scheduled for November 21, 2023 special election. On October 13, 2023, they filed their First Amended Petition for Declaratory Relief and Injunctive Relief, which added a cause of action for violation of constitutional rights.
After hearing, the trial court, on November 2, 2023, issued its Order Granting Declaratory Relief. Sigrah v. Moses, 24 FSM R. 327 (Pon. 2023). The trial court concluded that the Constitution's plain text committed to Congress's consideration only those qualifications "enumerated in the FSM Constitution or prescribed by statute," id. at 334, and that since Sigrah met all of those qualifications and the Credentials Committee's report acknowledged that, all that remained was for Sigrah to be administered the oath of office, id. at 334-36. No Civil Procedure Rule 58 judgment was entered.
On November 9, 2023, Speaker Esmond Moses and the 23rd FSM Congress appealed the trial court's November 2, 2023 decision. The trial court petitioners – the appellees herein – now move to dismiss the appeal. They contend that this appeal must be dismissed because it is not from a final decision, order, or judgment. They contend that the November 2, 2023 decision is not a final, appealable decision because it did not address the plaintiffs' other causes of action and claims.
Generally, appeals in civil cases can only be taken from final decisions. See FSM App. R. 4(a)(1)(A); see, e.g., In re Extradition of Jano, 6 FSM R. 23, 24 (App. 1993) ("The well established general rule is that only final judgment decisions of trial courts may be appealed."). The appellate rules allow appeals from interlocutory orders involving injunctions, FSM App. R. 4(a)(1)(B), receivers and receiverships, FSM App. R. 4(a)(1)(C), and "determining the rights and liabilities of the parties in admiralty cases," FSM App. R. 4(a)(1)(D). The appellate rules also acknowledge that appeals are allowed "in any other civil case in which an appeal to the FSM Supreme Court appellate division is permitted as a matter of law." FSM App. R. 4(a)(1)(E).
FSM statutory law permits appeals from orders granting declaratory relief regardless of whether the case involved, or could involve, further relief. The FSM statute provides:
In a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction, the High Court or a District Court, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought. Any such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and shall be reviewable as such. . . .
6 F.S.M.C. 1501. An appropriate pleading was filed in the trial court,2 and the trial court declared the rights of petitioner Yoslyn G. Sigrah and the rights of the Twenty-Third Congress in relation to her. Sigrah, 24 FSM R. at 334-36. The appellees rely on a United States Supreme Court case, which ruled that a declaratory judgment was not a final, appealable order when it involved only a single legal theory applied to only one set of facts and constituted a grant of partial summary judgment on the issue of the defendant's liability and left unresolved the plaintiffs' requests for an injunction, compensatory and punitive damages, and for attorneys' fees. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U.S. 737, 741-44, 96 S. Ct. 1202, 1205-06, 47 L. Ed. 2d 435, 440-41 (1976).
Appellate Procedure Rule 4(a)(6) says that a judgment is appealable when entered in conformity with Rule 58, but "compliance with Rule 58, although a great time saver, is not jurisdictional. If the [trial] judge is through with the case there is a final judgment, even if not memorialized in conformity with Rule 58." Abbs v. Sullivan, 963 F.2d 916, 923 (7th Cir. 1992) (citing Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis, 435 U.S. 381, 98 S. Ct. 1117, 55 L. Ed. 2d 357 (1978) (per curiam); First Nat'l Bank v. Comptroller of the Currency, 956 F.2d 1360, 1363 (7th Cir. 1992); Rosser v. Chrysler Corp., 864 F.2d 1299, 1305 (7th Cir.1988)).
In Abbs, the trial "judge declared the government's investigative procedures for scientific misconduct invalid," and that this decision "was a final declaratory judgment" whose "finality was unaffected by the fact that the plaintiffs might later move for injunctive relief if the government refused to accept the declaration." Abbs, 963 F.2d at 923 (construing 28 U.S.C. § 2201). The Abbs court determined that it had jurisdiction over an appeal from a declaratory judgment based on 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a), from which 6 F.S.M.C. 1501 is drawn and which in its pertinent parts is identically worded. The U.S. statute reads:
In a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction . . . any court of the United States, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought. Any such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and shall be reviewable as such.
28 U.S.C. § 2201(a). In the current case, the trial court's declaration in Yoslyn Sigrah's favor appears to be final and unaffected by the fact that Sigrah might later move for injunctive relief if the government refuses to accept the declaration that she should be seated in Congress. (This has apparently since occurred.)
Even if Appellate Rule 4(a)(1)(E) did not allow appeals where permitted by statutory law, the statute itself would authorize the appeal. A procedural statute takes precedence over the procedural rules because while the chief justice has the power to promulgate procedural rules, the rules may be amended by statute, and since the chief justice does not have the power to amend a statute, when Congress has enacted a procedural rule, it is valid. Setik v. Mendiola, 21 FSM R. 537, 550 (App. 2018); Setik v. FSM Dev. Bank, 21 FSM R. 505, 517 (App. 2018); See also Jano v. King, 5 FSM R. 326, 331 (App. 1992). Section 1501 gives the trial court's November 2, 2023 Order Granting Declaratory Relief, Sigrah v. Moses, 24 FSM R. 327 (Pon. 2023), the force and effect of a final judgment or decree even though it was only a partial adjudication.3
Although is a close case, the court therefore concludes that the trial court's November 2, 2023 Order Granting Declaratory Relief, Sigrah v. Moses, 24 FSM R. 327 (Pon. 2023), which declared the rights of certified winning candidate Yoslyn G. Sigrah and of the Twenty-Third Congress in relation to her, is similar enough to Abbs, that it has the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and is reviewable as such.
Accordingly, the undersigned single justice denies the appellees' motion to dismiss. A single FSM Supreme Court appellate division justice may not dismiss or otherwise determine an appeal other than on all the parties' stipulation or on a party's failure to comply with the appellate rules' timing requirements, but a single justice may deny a motion to dismiss an appeal, Nena v. Saimon, 19 FSM R. 136, 138 (App. 2013), and that single justice's action may be reviewed by the full panel, Heirs of Henry v. Heirs of Akinaga, 18 FSM R. 207, 209 (App. 2012); Pohnpei v. AHPW, Inc., 14 FSM R. 1, 12 (App. 2006); see FSM App. R. 27(c).
_______________________________Footnotes:
1 Apparently, these voters are her husband and their two children.
2 Although 6 F.S.M.C. 1501 refers to the Trust Territory High Court – it is a carryover provision from the Trust Territory Code – and it can be read as or applied to FSM Supreme Court trial division. Cf. Carl v. FSM Dev. Bank, 23 FSM R. 525, 535 n.7 (App. 2022) (same reasoning for 6 F.S.M.C. 1404).
3 The trial court chose to rely on 6 F.S.M.C. 1501 for finality and appealablity, Sigrah v. Moses, 24 FSM R. 327, 331 (Pon. 2023), although it might also have been possible to utilize Civil Procedure Rule 54(b) to find no just cause for delay and to direct the entry of a partial final judgment on Sigrah's claim to be a Congressperson-elect entitled to be seated if the injunctive relief claim was not against Speaker Moses and the 23rd Congress but only against National Election Director Ausen Lambert. See Iriarte v. Individual Assurance Co., 17 FSM R. 356, 358 (App. 2011); Hartman v. Bank of Guam, 10 FSM R. 89, 94 (App. 2001).
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