Dale Sundby, Trustee v. Marquee Funding Group, Inc., et al.

This case concerns a revocable family trust represented by a non-lawyer trustee, which prevailed on the merits in the district court. Neither the district court nor Respondents ever challenged the trustee’s standing to represent the trust. On appeal Respondents challenged the trustee’s right to represent the trust, but only as to the appeal. A divided court of appeal sua sponte refused to decide the fully-briefed appeal, instead vacated the judgment and remanded “to afford the trust an opportunity to obtain legal representation.” The three questions presented are:

1. Can the court of appeal ignore its own precedential rulings that “there would be no sound ground upon which to declare the judgment in this case void inasmuch as the party so represented was the successful litigant” and “once a panel resolves an issue in a precedential opinion, the matter is deemed resolved, unless overruled by the court itself sitting en banc, or by the Supreme Court”?

2. Can the court of appeal ignore the principle of party presentation to sua sponte vacate a judgment earned on merit, and by doing so prejudice the unrepresented trust beneficiaries the court states it wants to “safeguard”?

3. Is vacating a judgment without deciding an appeal an unconstitutional depravation of the awarded property without due-process of law?