Title: Ex Parte Arrington

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

599 So. 2d 24 (1992)
Ex parte Mayor Richard ARRINGTON, Jr., Mayor of the City of Birmingham.
(Re Leon F. "Buddy" KELLY, Jr. v. Mayor Richard ARRINGTON, Jr., Mayor of the City of Birmingham).
1910688.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 15, 1992.
*25 Donald V. Watkins and Kenneth L. Thomas of Thomas, Means & Gillis, and Joe R. Whatley, Jr. and Samuel H. Heldman of Cooper, Mitch, Crawford, Kuykendall & Whatley, Birmingham, for appellant.
Stephen D. Heninger of Heninger, Burge & Vargo, Birmingham, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
This case arises out of an action filed in Shelby County Circuit Court by Leon Kelly against Richard Arrington, Jr., mayor of the City of Birmingham, in Arrington's individual capacity, alleging that an article written by the mayor and published in the Birmingham Times[1] contained false and defamatory statements regarding Mr. Kelly. On December 12, 1991, Mayor Arrington filed a motion to transfer the case to Jefferson County. On January 21, 1992, the trial court denied the motion. Mayor Arrington subsequently petitioned this Court for a writ of mandamus directing the trial judge to vacate the order denying his motion. We grant the writ.
Venue in this case is to be determined pursuant to Ala.Code 1975, § 6-3-2(a)(3), which provides:
(Emphasis added.) Because Mayor Arrington, whose permanent residence is in Jefferson County, is the only defendant in this case, venue lies only in that county unless "the act or omission complained of" occurred in Shelby County. The disposition of this case thus turns on the proper interpretation of the phrase, "act or omission," in the context of an action alleging defamation through the newspaper medium.[2]
Kelly concedes that if this action had been brought against the corporate newspaper publisher rather than the author of the newspaper column, venue would have been proper only in Jefferson County, pursuant to Ala.Code 1975, § 6-3-7, which provides for actions against corporations "in the county where the injury occurred" (emphasis added). He insists, however, that the phrase "in which the act or omission... occurred," § 6-3-2(a)(3), denotes the county in which the damage allegedly occurred. In this respect, he contends that Alabama law recognizes a distinction between suits against newspaper publishers and suits against individual columnists. We disagree.
In Age-Herald Publishing Co. v. Huddleston, 207 Ala. 40, 92 So. 193 (1921), which involved a corporate defendant, this Court held that in libel actions involving "newspaper publications," venue is proper in the county in which the newspaper is printed. Kenney v. Gurley, 208 Ala. 623, 625, 95 So. 34, 36 (1923) (emphasis added). In Age-Herald, the Court set forth the following rationale:
Id., 207 Ala. at 44, 92 So.  at 197 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). As the Court's analysis clearly indicates, the rule laying venue in the county in which the defendant publisher's newspapers were printed flowed from the Court's construction of the predecessor of § 6-3-2, the section at issue in this case. Thus, if the phrase "where the injury occurred" denotes the county in which the newspaper was printed in actions against a newspaper publisher, then, a fortiori, the phrase "in which the act or omission... occurred" denotes the county in which the newspaper was printed, that is, in Jefferson County. See also Ex parte Wilson, 408 So. 2d 94, 96 (Ala.1981) ("injury happens in only one county, the county of original publication" [emphasis in original] ). Consequently, we hold that in actions against individuals alleging the publication of libelous matter in a newspaper article, venue lies in the county in which the newspaper was printed.
The logic and equity of this rule become even more apparent when the rule is contrasted with the one proposed by Mr. Kelley. In oral argument before the trial judge, counsel for Mr. Kelly conceded that "[w]hen you sue a newspaper that is published at one location, it would be unfair to expose that newspaper to litigation everywhere the newspaper is sold." (Emphasis added.) Nevertheless, he contends, in effect, that an individual who publishes an article in a newspaper of statewide circulation should be subject to suit in any of this state's 67 counties. As the above-cited cases indicate, Alabama law has not recognized such an anomaly, and we decline to adopt a rule that would result in one. Because the petitioner had a "clear legal right," Ex parte Izundu, 568 So. 2d 771, 772 (Ala.1990), to an order transferring the case to Jefferson County, his petition is hereby granted.
WRIT GRANTED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and ALMON, ADAMS, HOUSTON, KENNEDY and INGRAM, JJ., concur.
[1]  Relevant portions of this article were also subsequently republished in the Birmingham News.
[2]  The undisputed facts reveal that the newspapers are printed and published in Jefferson County and that Mayor Arrington researched and wrote the article in Jefferson County.