Content
This page will link you to brief summaries of recently decided opinions to be published by the New Mexico Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. These summaries will inform you of opinions before they are published in the State Bar Bulletin. The summaries are grouped by month and divided into civil and criminal categories. They are kept on this site for the four most recent months.

Do not rely on these summaries for either accuracy or completeness, but rather for prompt notice of newly decided cases. A lawyer at the Court of Appeals prepares the summaries for her purposes and graciously allows their use here. The Judicial Education Center does not edit the summaries.

Note that if the Supreme Court reverses the Court of Appeals, the summary of the Supreme Court opinion will repeat the prior Court of Appeals summary and indicate the higher court’s action.

Timeliness
While these cases are usually prepared within a day or two of the date of decision, vacations or the press of other business may cause unannounced delays. You should not rely on the timeliness of these summaries.

Additional Source of Summaries
For an unofficial digest of New Mexico appellate cases (2004-date) arranged by subject, as prepared by an attorney in private practice, see "Digest of New Mexico Appellate Cases" on the University of New Mexico Law School Library website. These case summaries are not affiliated with the courts or the Judicial Education Center.

Full Opinions - Online
Effective August 31, 2005, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals post their slip opinions to their web sites shortly after the opinions are filed. You can find the opinions at the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals websites.

Full Opinions - Hard Copy
If a case interests you, you can get a hard copy of the full opinion from the appropriate Clerk of the court. The policy of the Clerks of both courts is to provide copies of opinions free of charge to members of the judiciary. Others may go to the respective court clerk’s office and borrow an opinion for a few minutes to copy it.

Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals Clerk’s office has two locations where you can briefly borrow opinions for copying.

Santa Fe:
237 Don Gaspar Avenue
827-4925
The Supreme Court library (located in the same building) has facilities for copying.

Albuquerque:
1117 Stanford NE
841-4618
The University of New Mexico Law Library (located next to the Court of Appeals office) has facilities for copying.

Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Clerk’s office has one location, at 237 Don Gaspar Avenue, 827-4860. The Supreme Court library (located in the same building) has facilities for copying.

Full Opinions - Email
In the Court of Appeals, you may be able to have a copy of the opinion emailed to you by requesting it from the authoring judge's legal assistant. The authoring judge's name is included in the summary information for cases decided after September 26, 1999. A list of the legal assistants and their phone numbers appears below. If you use this method, please note:

1. Some chambers do not participate in this service.
2. The opinion will not be file-stamped, and it will not be signed (the date of the opinion is given in the summary).
3. The e-mail opinion may appear on your screen or when you print it out in a different format than the hard copy, particularly as regards
page numbering.
4. The opinion is subject to change on rehearing or certiorari, and the Court sometimes will substitute pages after an opinion is filed to correct minor errors.

Judge Alarid: Marla Baxman, 841-4611
Judge Bustamante: Kathy Ciarlotta, 841-4650
Judge Castillo: Linda Johnson, 827-4913
Judge Fry: Delila Kittson, 841-4626
Judge Kennedy: Angela Ferrero, 827-4911
Judge Pickard: Lori Buvinghausen, 827-4903
Judge Robinson: Yvonne Klopp, 827-4909
Judge Sutin: Anna Box, 841-4609
Judge Vigil: Diane Chavez, 827-4906
Judge Wechsler: Onnie Wooten, 827-4908

PLEASE NOTE. The following notice applies to each Supreme Court opinion made available prior to release for publication:

NOTICE: THIS OPINION HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE PERMANENT LAW REPORTS. UNTIL RELEASED, IT IS SUBJECT TO REVISION OR WITHDRAWAL. UNTIL RELEASED FOR PUBLICATION THIS OPINION SHALL NOT BE CITED IN ANY COURT. See Weinstein v. City of Santa Fe, ___ N.M. ___, 916 P.2d 1313 (1996); Rule 12-405(C) NMRA 1996.

Civil Cases: May 2008 (most recent cases listed first)

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. v. Montoya, CA 27,465 (Sutin) May 7, 2008
Under the former redemption statute, a junior mortgagee that foreclosed its mortgage in a proceedings in which a senior mortgage was also foreclosed is entitled to redeem and because its assignee exercised its right prior to the debtor’s assignee, its assignee was entitled to the property.