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A family dispute over ownership in a piece of property spilled into court when one family member sued other family members under a variety of legal theories. The matter proceeded to a jury trial, which awarded the plaintiff damages. However, the claim for ejectment and quiet title was not submitted to the jury and no judgment on those claims was entered into the record. The defendants appealed.

On appeal, the Court appears to have sua sponte raised the issue of whether it had subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal. In particular, the Court was concerned with the fact that the trial court has not entered a final order or certified its partial judgment as final under Trial Rule 54(B). In National Gen. Ins. Co. v. Riddell, 705 N.E.2d 465, 465 n.1 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998), the Court indicated that a partial judgment awarding damages was not an interlocutory order appealable as of right. However, the Court noted that this was merely dicta and expressed disagreement with that conclusion.


Attorneys should take the Court's decision to heart, so that they do not accidentally blow the date for filing a notice of appeal because they understood that they needed to wait for a final judgment in order to appeal from a partial judgment awarding damages.

Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC
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