IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE
AT NASHVILLE
June 2004 Session
TOM ALBERT, ET AL. v. PAT FRYE, ET AL.
Appeal by permission from the Court of Appeals, Middle Section
Circuit Court for Robertson County
No. 9571 Hon. Ross H. Hicks, Judge
No. M2003-00883-SC-R11-CV - Filed August 20, 2004
The issue in this case is whether the defendant’s notice of appeal was timely filed. The Court
of Appeals held that it was not. We disagree. Under Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 59.04, the
thirty-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal was tolled until the trial court issued its decision
on the defendant’s post-trial motion to alter or amend. Therefore, we reverse the decision of the
Court of Appeals and remand the case to the Court of Appeals to consider the merits of the
defendant’s appeal.
Tenn. R. App. P. 11; Judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed;
Remanded to the Court of Appeals
WILLIAM M. BARKER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which FRANK F. DROWOTA , III, C.J.,
and E. RILEY ANDERSON , ADOLPHO A. BIRCH , Jr., and JANICE M. HOLDER , JJ. joined.
Randle W. Hill, Jr., Hermitage, Tennessee, and Joseph V. Ferrelli, Nashville, Tennessee, for the
appellant, Vernon W. Frye.
Joe M. Haynes, Goodlettsville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Tom Albert, Hazel Albert, and Alcar
Associates, LLC.
OPINION
BACKGROUND
Tom Albert, Hazel Albert, and Alcar Associates, LLC (“Plaintiffs”) filed a complaint for
breach of contract against Vernon Frye and Pat Frye. The complaint alleged that the Fryes failed to
pay the purchase price on a business that they had purchased from Plaintiffs. The trial court
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dismissed the complaint against Vernon Frye on November 14, 2002. The trial court awarded a
judgment against Pat Frye in the amount of $65,680.75 plus interest.1
On November 20, 2002, Plaintiffs filed a Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 59.04 motion
to alter or amend the judgment dismissing Vernon Frye from the case. The trial court granted
Plaintiffs’ motion by order dated January 21, 2003, awarding a judgment to Plaintiffs against Vernon
Frye in the amount of $65,000.00 plus interest.
On January 21, 2003, the day the judgment was entered against him, Vernon Frye filed a
Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 59.04 motion to alter or amend the court’s judgment. The trial
court denied Mr. Frye’s motion on March 13, 2003. On April 7, 2003, Mr. Frye filed a notice of
appeal.
On May 13, 2003, Plaintiffs filed a motion to dismiss for failure to file a timely notice of
appeal. Mr. Frye did not file a response. On May 29, 2003, the Tennessee Court of Appeals for the
Middle Section dismissed Mr. Frye’s appeal as untimely. The court held that the time to appeal had
begun to run on January 21, 2003 and was not tolled by Mr. Frye’s Rule 59.04 motion. On June 27,
2003, Mr. Frye filed a petition to reconsider, which the Court of Appeals dismissed as untimely. We
granted Mr. Frye’s application for permission to appeal.
ANALYSIS
Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(a) provides that “[i]n civil actions every final
judgment entered by a trial court from which an appeal lies to the Supreme Court or Court of
Appeals is appealable as of right.” Appeals as of right are initiated by filing a notice of appeal with
the clerk of the trial court. Tenn. R. App. P. 3(e). The notice of appeal must “be filed with and
received by the clerk of the trial court within 30 days after the date of entry of the judgment appealed
from.” Tenn. R. App. P. 4(a).
The thirty-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal is mandatory and jurisdictional in civil
cases. Binkley v. Medling, 117 S.W.3d 252, 255 (Tenn. 2003). However, certain post-trial motions,
such as a motion to alter or amend pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 59.04, if timely
filed, toll commencement of the thirty-day period until an order granting or denying the motion is
entered. Tenn. R. App. P. 4(b); Binkley, 117 S.W.3d at 255.
Mr. Frye argues that the thirty-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal was tolled under
Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b) when Mr. Frye filed his motion on January 21, 2003
to alter or amend the trial court’s judgment. Plaintiffs rely upon the language in Rule 4(b) that states
that “the time for appeal for all parties shall run from the entry of the order” granting or denying a
Rule 59.04 motion. Tenn. R. App. P. 4(b) (emphasis added). This language in Rule 4(b), as
1
It is unclear when this order was entered, as the filed copy of the order is not before this Court.
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interpreted in Gassaway v. Patty, 604 S.W.2d 60 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1980), provided the basis for the
Court of Appeal’s decision to deny Mr. Frye’s notice of appeal as untimely.
In Gassaway, the Court of Appeals held that the thirty-day time limit for filing the appeal was
not tolled where one party was filing post-trial motions in a serial manner in an attempt to extend
the time to appeal. 604 S.W.2d at 61. However, unlike the appellant in Gassaway, Mr. Frye did not
file successive post-trial motions. Rather, Plaintiffs filed the first post-trial motion to alter or amend,
and then Mr. Frye filed his motion to alter or amend after the court ruled on Plaintiffs’ motion. In
fact, January 21, 2003 was the first opportunity that Mr. Frye had to file a motion to alter or amend
because it was at that time when the trial court first entered a judgment for monetary damages against
him. Therefore, the thirty-day time limit applicable to the filing of Mr. Frye’s notice of appeal did
not begin to run until the trial court denied his motion to alter or amend on March 13, 2003.2
Because the notice of appeal was filed within thirty days of March 13, 2003, the appeal was
timely.
CONCLUSION
Under Rule 59.04 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, Mr. Frye’s motion to alter or
amend, filed January 21, 2003, tolled the thirty-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal until the
trial court denied his motion to alter or amend on March 13, 2003. Because Mr. Frye’s notice of
appeal, filed on April 7, 2003, was filed within the thirty-day time limit, his appeal was timely. We
remand the case to the Court of Appeals to consider the substance of Mr. Frye’s appeal.
Costs of this appeal are assessed to Tom Albert, Hazel Albert and Alcar Associates, LLC,
and their sureties, for which execution may issue if necessary.
_____________________________
WILLIAM M. BARKER, JUSTICE
2
In two similar, but unreported cases, the Court of Appeals found that while Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure
59.01 prevents the same party from filing successive post-trial motions, it does not prevent a party from filing a Rule
59.04 motion to alter or amend a judgment that has been changed in response to another party’s Rule 59 motion. Savage
v. Hildenbrandt, No. 1999-00630-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Sept. 6, 2001); Brenneman v. Brenneman, No. M2000-
00890-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 23, 2001).
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