Christopher A. Smith, Appellant-Defendant v. Gateway Financial Solutions, Appellee-Plaintiff (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION ON REHEARING

[1] Christopher A. Smith, pro se, petitions for rehearing of our decision affirming the small claims court's grant of summary judgment to Gateway Financial Solutions (“Gateway”). We affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment without addressing the merits of Smith's arguments on appeal because his Appellant's Brief was permeated with hallucinated quotes falsely attributed to actual Indiana caselaw.¹ Smith v. Gateway Financial Solutions, Case No. 25A-SC-407, at paragraph 13 (Ind. Ct. App. Sept. 2, 2025) (mem.).

[2] On rehearing, Smith acknowledges that his “small-claims action functioned as a miscaptioned attempt to challenge a void judgment” in Cause No. 02D02-1608-CC-1608 (hereinafter “CC-1608”), which should have brought in that court instead of the small claims court. (Petition for Rehearing at 5.) He nevertheless asks us to consider a new Appendix volume that he submitted with his Petition for Rehearing that he says contains evidence that will demonstrate the judgment in CC-1608 was void for lack of jurisdiction over him.

[3] First, we cannot consider Smith's new appendix. An appendix can be filed with a petition for rehearing only if an appeal was dismissed before the appendix was filed, Ind. Appellate Rule 49(A), and that did not happen herein. Nor did Smith petition for permission to file an amended appendix. See App. R. 49(A) (“Any party must seek leave of court to amend a filed appendix.”).

[4] Second, we cannot consider evidence that was not presented to the trial court. See Ind. Appellate Rules 2(L) (“Record on Appeal” consists of Clerk's Record and proceedings before trial court) & 2(E) (“Clerk's Record” includes chronological case summary and all materials filed in trial court). Smith's references to the new evidence in his Petition for Rehearing indicate it includes leases that demonstrate when he lived at varied addresses, but no such evidence was attached to Smith's complaint or admitted into evidence at the hearing held on Gateway's motion for summary judgment. Accordingly, we could not consider that evidence even if Smith had included it in his initial appendix in this appeal.

[5] Third, the question of whether the trial court in CC-1608 had jurisdiction over Smith to enter the default judgment was not and is not before us in this appeal. The only question before us was the propriety of the small claims court's determination that Smith's attempt to collaterally attack the judgment in CC-1608 was barred by res judicata. The alleged new evidence that Smith references in his Petition for Rehearing is irrelevant to that question.

[6] Now, to hopefully put this issue to rest forever, we note the motion for summary judgment that Gateway filed in the small claims court was accompanied by a copies of the following court orders: (1) an order from this court dismissing with prejudice Smith's direct appeal of the default judgment in 2016 because he failed to file the proper documents; (2) a February 15, 2023, order from the trial court in CC-1608 denying Smith's motion to set aside the default judgment; (3) a June 2, 2023, order of this court dismissing Smith's appeal of the motion to set aside the default judgment because Smith failed to file a brief; (4) a November 15, 2023, order from the trial court in CC-1608 denying another motion for relief from judgment filed by Smith; (5) a December 19, 2023, order from this court dismissing as untimely Smith's new attempt to appeal from the trial court's February 2023 order; and (6) an order denying Smith's petition for rehearing of that December 2023 dismissal of his appeal.² Those documents demonstrate the small claims court did not err when it granted summary judgment to Gateway based on res judicata,³ because Smith is trying to litigate issues that were, or could have been, litigated in CC-1608 and the prior appeals therefrom. See Towne & Terrace v. City of Indianapolis, 170 N.E.3d 659, 662 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (when appellant's issue on appeal was decided in prior appeal between the same parties, the issue is precluded by res judicata).

[7] We accordingly grant rehearing to explain to Smith that the jurisdictional challenge to the default judgment in CC-1608 that he attempted to bring in this small claims action is precluded by the various proceedings that already occurred in CC-1608. Having provided that explanation to Smith, we again affirm the small claims court's grant of summary judgment to Gateway.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Smith's petition indicates we “affirmed on res judicata grounds without addressing controlling precedent on void judgments.” (Petition for Rehearing at 5.) Smith is incorrect. We did not address res judicata. We held Smith's arguments were waived because his argument was permeated with fake statements of law.

2.   Smith's Appendix did not contain a copy of Gateway's motion to dismiss, but we were able to access that document and its attachments from the trial court's record on Odyssey.

3.   The legal doctrine of res judicata prevents a party from having a “second bite at the apple.” HERCO, LLC v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 167 N.E.3d 770, 774 (Ind. Ct. App. 2021) (quoting First Am. Title Co. v. Robertson, 65 N.E.3d 1045, 1054 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), reh'g denied, trans. denied. Its purpose is prevent a party from repeatedly challenging the same issue that was already decided. Id.

May, Judge.

Mathias, J., and Bradford, J., concur.