The case originated as a land dispute between the children of Ana Deleon Guerrero Demapan and her children’s children over title to five tracts of land on Saipan on Capital Hill.
Ana Demapan, who originally owned all the property at issue in this case, had three children (Eugenia Dela Cruz, Asuncion Demapan, and Gregorio Demapan). When Ana Demapan died in 1969 her three children inherited her property pursuant to the law of the Trust Territory.
In 1992, Gregorio and Asuncion executed deeds to Gregorio’s son Jose Demapan to all their interest in their mother’s land, which he thereafter recorded at the Office of the Commonwealth Recorder.
However, between the time of Ana Demapan’s death and 1992, Ana Demapan’s other daughter — Eugenia — and her husband had made multiple conveyances of their mother’s property.
The present suit was instituted in the Superior Court by Eugenia Dela Cruz, her two daughters (Victoria Dela Cruz and Maria Dela Cruz Camacho), and Antonio Camacho (Maria’s husband) against Jose Demapan and as the plaintiffs they filed a quite title action — asking the trial court to declare that they owned the Capital Hill property.
They also sued for slander of title, claiming that Jose Demapan should pay them damages for improperly recording the deeds to the property with the Recorder’s Office.
The trial court ruled on the ownership issue in favor of the plaintiffs, the Dela Cruzes and Camachos, holding that they were “entitled to be declared owners of the property in dispute,” but reserved judgment on the plaintiffs’ other claim. Before all the issues were resolved at the trial court the defendant, Jose Demapan, filed an appeal.
Under Article IV, section 3 of the Commonwealth Constitution, the CNMI Supreme Court has jurisdiction over final judgments and orders of the Superior Court.
The CNMI Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a judgment or order is not final unless it resolves all the issues between all the parties and leaves nothing for the trial court to do but execute the judgment.
In Commonwealth v. Kumagai, 2006 MP 20, the court held that in cases involving multiple parties or multiple claims, a decision which resolves fewer than all the claims at issue is not a final judgment within the meaning of Article IV, section 3 of the Commonwealth Constitution.
Commonwealth Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides an exception to the above rule and allows the trial court to certify for appeal an order that resolves less than all the issues in a case if certain conditions are met.
In order to take advantage of the rule, the trial court is required to specifically mention the rule in its judgment and state that it believes that the non-final judgment should be immediately appealable.
In this case, the trial court did not certify its partial summary judgment under Rule 54(b) which it is required to do to make a partial order appealable.
Since the order granting partial summary judgment was not a final order within the meaning of the Commonwealth Constitution because it did not resolve all the issues in the case and the trial court did not certify the order under Commonwealth Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), the Supreme Court held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal and dismissed the case.
The case remains pending in the trial court and the Supreme Court stated in its opinion that once all the issues are resolved below, the parties are free to then appeal if they so wish.
The full opinion can be found at the CNMI Judiciary’s Web site under “News Archives” on the Home page. (http://www.justice.gov.mp/news_archive.aspx)
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