Challenging The Dismissal Of An Appeal

The Court of Appeals today reaffirmed that when a trial court dismisses an appeal for an appellant's failure to perfect the appeal in a timely manner, that order may not be challenged by appeal but instead may be challenged only by a petition for a writ of certiorari per Appellate Rule 21. In today's case the trial court ruled that the appellant had not properly ordered the trial transcript, with the consequence that the appellant's timeline for serving a proposed record on appeal was not extended by the transcript order, with the ultimate consequence that the appellant failed to timely serve a proposed record (since an appellant gets more time to serve a proposed record when a transcript is ordered). On appeal the appellant challenged the trial court's order, but the Court of Appeals couldn't address the appeal, because such an order may be challenged only by way of a cert petition, which the appellant had not filed.