Title: Ex parte Alabama Department of Transporation. PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS: CIVIL (In re: Russell Petroleum, Inc. v. Alabama Department of Transportation)

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

Rel: 10/24/08
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance
sheets of Southern Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334)
229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made
before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.
SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
OCTOBER TERM, 2008-2009
_________________________
1070721
_________________________
Ex parte Alabama Department of Transportation
PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS
(In re:  Russell Petroleum, Inc.
v.
Alabama Department of Transportation)
(Montgomery Circuit Court, CV-05-2534)
On Application for Rehearing
WOODALL, Justice.
APPLICATION OVERRULED; NO OPINION. 
See, Lyons, Stuart, Smith, Bolin, and Parker, JJ.,
concur.
Cobb, C.J., and Murdock, J., dissent.
1070721
This case was decided on original submission by a
1
division on which I do not sit.  The application for
rehearing, however, was considered by the entire Court.
2
MURDOCK, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.   
1
The opinion on original submission relies in part upon
the decision of this Court in Ex parte Alabama Department of
Transportation, 978 So. 2d 17 (Ala. 2007) ("Good Hope").  I
concurred in this Court's opinion in Good Hope.  Were I voting
in that case today, however, I would dissent as to Part III of
the Court's opinion, "Proper Parties."  Specifically, I would
vote to remand the case for the trial court to consider
whether to allow the plaintiff to amend the complaint to add
a proper defendant.  There was no statute of limitations or
other temporal bar to bringing a claim against a properly
named party in Good Hope.  Based on the position I outlined
recently in my dissenting opinion in Cadle Co. v. Shabani,
[Ms. 1070116, Sept. 5, 2008] ___ So. 2d ___, ___ (Ala. 2008),
I see no reason why the trial court in Good Hope should not
have been given the opportunity to consider whether to allow
an amendment to the complaint in that case.
Aside from the payment of any necessary filing fee,
whether a trial court has subject-matter jurisdiction over an
1070721
3
action depends on whether the complaint states a claim, of a
type and against a defendant, over which the trial court has
subject-matter jurisdiction.  In the present case, as in Good
Hope, the attempt to amend the complaint to cause it to do
exactly 
that 
comes 
before 
the 
applicable 
statute 
of
limitations has run.  For the reasons articulated in my
special writing in Cadle, ___ So. 2d at ___, I see no
persuasive reason for not allowing the plaintiff to amend the
complaint already on file with the trial court, thereby making
that complaint one over which the trial court has subject-
matter jurisdiction, rather than requiring the plaintiff to
initiate an entirely new action.