Page:Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee, 351 Ark. 31 (2002).pdf/79

Rh the funding problems facing our state's schools. These issues, however, could have been appropriately dealt with if this court had required the parties to follow this court's existing rules of procedure, appellate rules, and its case law interpreting those rules. I discussed this subject in my earlier dissent, and there is no need to rehash that dissenting opinion here, except to say that when this court strays from its established rules and laws to create new remedies to resolve hard and controversial issues, it invariably makes matters worse. See, e.g., Republican Party of Arkansas v. Kilgore, 350 Ark. 540, 98 S.W.3d 798 (Glaze, Corbin, and Imber, JJ., dissenting).

Because of this court's unusual decision to allow the chancellor's 1994 order to be held in abeyance for two years, matters changed afterwards — Arkansas voters approved Amendment 74, and the General Assembly enacted acts bearing on the state's school funding problems and raising new issues. Because this court did not correctly conclude the litigation over which Chancellor Imber presided, our court now is confronted with the question of which findings and decision it is to review, since new laws have surfaced after the 1994 orders, and a new judge, Collins Kilgore, has been assigned to decide the Lake View case. This issue as to what this court should review is most perplexing, and, once again, would not have existed if our court had ended its review of Judge Imber's 1994 orders, by denoting those orders final and deciding the issues in that appeal. Alas, the court's failure to do so now forces this court to choose whether it should review Judge Imber's or Judge Kilgore's orders. The majority court has decided Judge Kilgore's findings and order are now the ones before this court. The majority court submits that Judge Imber's case has officially ended, and Judge Kilgore's order springs forth for review, even though ordinarily any final order brought on appeal brings up for review any intermediate order involving the merits. See Ark. R. App. P.—Civ. 2(b).

While I thoroughly disagree with the new and unusual manner in which this court has taken jurisdiction of this case on appeal, I recognize I am outnumbered. However, I am hopeful