Case Title: Glenn v. Wilson

Citation: 455 So. 2d 2

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1984-07-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
455 So. 2d 2 (1984)
Louellen GLENN
v.
Edward WILSON.
82-1185.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 23, 1984.
Rehearing Denied August 24, 1984.
Joseph W. Adams, Birmingham, for appellant.
G. Hampton Smith, III, Birmingham, for appellee.
SHORES, Justice.
The original opinion and the dissent issued on May 11, 1984, are withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor.
This is an appeal from a final order of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Birmingham Division, setting aside a decree ordering a public sale of property in a suit for sale for division, because the land lay in the Bessemer Division of Jefferson County.
Appellant Louellen Glenn initiated these proceedings against Appellee Edward Wilson for sale for division of a lot in which Glenn owns a three-fourths interest and Wilson owns a one-fourth interest. The action was filed in the Birmingham Division of Jefferson County Circuit Court. Service of process was ultimately perfected by publication, and a default judgment was entered thereafter against Wilson.
The trial court on January 4, 1983, ordered a sale of the property. The property was sold on March 9, 1983, to Glenn, and a deed was subsequently executed and delivered to her on April 7, 1983. On May 6, 1983, Wilson filed a motion to set aside the sale on grounds that the land was situated in the Bessemer Division of Jefferson County, Alabama. On August 2, 1983, the Circuit Court, Birmingham Division, granted the relief sought. This appeal followed. We affirm.
Pertinent portions of the trial court's final decree describe the history of the case:
The trial court correctly held that the original action should have been brought in Bessemer. In United Supply Co. v. Hinton Construction and Development, Inc., 396 So. 2d 1047 (Ala.1981), the Court held that a suit to enforce a lien should be filed in the division of the Jefferson County circuit where the land was located. There we said of Local Act No. 213, Section 2, p. 62, Ala. Acts 1919, re-creating the Bessemer Division of the Circuit Court in Jefferson County:
396 So. 2d  at 1050.
That decision leads to the conclusion reached by the learned trial judge that the Birmingham Division of the Tenth Judicial Circuit had no authority in an action in rem to enter a judgment affecting real estate located exclusively within the territorial boundaries of the Bessemer Division. See Berry v. Berry, 266 Ala. 252, 95 So. 2d 798 (1957); Clark v. Smith, 191 Ala. 166, 67 So. 1000 (1915). Nevertheless, while the court in the Birmingham Division could not enter such a judgment affecting the real estate, it would have been appropriate for the court in the Birmingham Division to transfer the case to the Bessemer Division, in accordance with § 12-11-11, Code 1975, infra. While such a transfer would have been appropriate in this case, we can see no reason to reverse the trial court's order vacating its prior decree instead.
The appellant's reliance on Ex parte Central of Georgia Ry. Co., 243 Ala. 508, 10 So. 2d 746 (1942), for the proposition that all equity cases arising in the Bessemer Division may be properly brought either in Bessemer or in Birmingham, is misplaced. The discussion of equity cases in that case was based on an amendment to Section 2, p. 62, Local Act No. 213, Ala.Acts 1919 (designated Section 9½, p. 65, Local Act No. 213, Ala.Acts 1919). That section (9½) did contain a provision that:
243 Ala. at 512, 10 So. 2d  at 749.
Section 9½ was expressly repealed by a general act of September 9, 1927, p. 711, Ala.Acts 1927, and was again repealed by a local act of September 7, 1935, p. 216, Ala. Acts 1935. Why the Court in Central of Georgia did not acknowledge the repeal of that part of the act is unclear. The holding of that case, however, is sound, since Section 9½ had no application to the facts of that case.
We acknowledge that some of the cases are less than clear and seem to confuse venue and jurisdiction by use of the term "territorial jurisdiction." See C. Cleveland, "Territorial Jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in the Bessemer Cutoff," Vol. 3, No. 2, Birmingham B. Ass'n Bull. (Summer 1982). However, we are convinced thatexcept for those cases which by their nature can be adjudicated only in a particular county, such as suits for partition of land, see Clark v. Smith, supra, or suits to enforce a lien on land, see United Supply Co., supra, both of which must be brought in the county where the land liessuits "arising in" the geographical boundaries of the Bessemer Cutoff but filed in Birmingham (or, vice versa, suits "arising in" the Birmingham Division but filed in Bessemer) are subject to transfer to the proper division pursuant to the provisions of § 12-11-11, Code 1975. That statute, first adopted in 1915, reads as follows:
The Bessemer Cutoff legislation does not diminish the general jurisdiction of other circuit courts, either in Jefferson or other counties. Therefore, in those Jefferson County cases subject to transfer to the other division pursuant to § 12-11-11, a claim for transfer based on the improper filing may be waived, just as in a suit filed *5 in some other county the parties may waive claims of improper venue.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
ORIGINAL OPINION WITHDRAWN; OPINION SUBSTITUTED; AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C.J., and MADDOX, FAULKNER, JONES, ALMON, EMBRY, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.