Usually, appellate counsel can confidently say that a grant of
partial summary judgment, standing alone, will not allow for an interlocutory appeal. A complete grant of summary judgment is a final, appealable judgment, but a partial grant is usually not appealable until the end of the case. A recent published opinion from the Court of Appeals, however, staked out a new path.
In
Woody v. Vickrey, the litigants disputed whether Woody was competent to revoke a trust agreement and convey property. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant-trustee on all the claims involving Woody’s competency, determining that there was no genuine dispute that Woody was in fact incompetent to revoke the trust and convey property to family members.