Joe P. Guinn & State Farm v. Schweitzer

OPINION

FIDEL, Judge.

A premature appeal to this court from a superior court ruling is not jurisdictionally defective. Barassi v. Matison, 130 Ariz. 418, 421-22, 636 P.2d 1200, 1203-04 (1981). Rather, it takes effect when the ruling is later embodied in an appealable judgment and entered by the clerk of court. Id.

We now consider the parallel question whether, after the superior court has referred a case for compulsory arbitration, a premature appeal to the superior court from the arbitration award is jurisdictionally defective. We hold, as in Barassi, that the appeal is not jurisdictionally…