Title: Illinois Cent. Gulf RR Co. v. Price

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

539 So. 2d 202 (1988)
ILLINOIS CENTRAL GULF RAILROAD COMPANY
v.
Steve I. PRICE.
87-216.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 9, 1988.
Rehearing Denied January 13, 1989.
Paul W. Brock and Archibald T. Reeves IV, of Hand, Arendall, Bedsole, Greaves & Johnston, Mobile, for appellant.
*203 Eric D. Jackstadt of Pratt and Callis, East Alton, Ill., and John M. Tyson of Tyson & Tyson, Mobile, for appellee.
HOUSTON, Justice.
Steve Price elected to and did file this Federal Employers' Liability Act action against Illinois Central Gulf Railroad Company in the State courts of Alabama on July 7, 1986, for an injury that Mr. Price received on June 7, 1985, in Hinds County, Mississippi. Thereafter, Mr. Price died of unrelated causes. On January 20, 1987, an attorney for Illinois Central filed a suggestion of death in the State court action, and served a copy of this on attorneys of record for Mr. Price. On July 31, 1987, a motion to dismiss with prejudice was filed by Illinois Central, in which it was alleged that six months had passed since Mr. Price's death was suggested on the record and no motion for substitution had been filed in accordance with Rule 25(a)(1), A.R.Civ.P. The fact that no substitution was filed within the six months or prior to the filing of the motion to dismiss is not disputed.
The trial court dismissed the action without prejudice, correctly noting that this Court has not decided whether Rule 25(a)(1) dismissals should be with or without prejudice. We granted Illinois Central's petition for permission to appeal pursuant to Rule 5(a), A.R.App.P.
The trial court dismissed the action; therefore, the issue of whether the order of dismissal is discretionary with the trial court after six months, subject to denial upon a showing of excusable neglect, is not before us. See Jernigan v. Collier, 234 Ga. 837, 218 S.E.2d 556 (1975).
The issue presented for review is whether dismissal under Rule 25(a)(1) for failure to substitute a personal representative for a plaintiff, after the death of the plaintiff has been suggested on the record for more than six months, must be with prejudice, where the defendant has moved for dismissal with prejudice.
Rule 25(a)(1), A.R.Civ.P., provides, in pertinent part:
In Henderson v. Briarcliff Nursing Home, 451 So. 2d 282 (Ala.1984), a personal injury action was pending at the time of the death of the plaintiff. There is no indication that the plaintiff died as a proximate cause of these injuries. The defendant nursing home filed a suggestion of death, in accordance with Rule 25(a)(1). No substitution was made within six months after the suggestion was filed. The nursing home then filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted by the trial court. Justice Beatty wrote:
"`Unless the motion for substitution is made not later than six months after the death is suggested ..., the action shall be dismissed as to the deceased party.'
451 So. 2d  at 284.
Whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice was not addressed by the Court, since a dismissal of a personal injury action sounding in tort would be a dismissal on the merits, due to the fact that the cause of action does not survive the death of the plaintiff.
Under Alabama law, a cause of action sounding in tort, as opposed to an *204 action, for personal injuries does not survive in favor of a personal representative. Code 1975, § 6-5-462; Bates v. L & N Employees Credit Union, 374 So. 2d 323 (Ala.1979); Carroll v. Florala Memorial Hospital, 288 Ala. 118, 257 So. 2d 837 (1972); see Gillilan v. Federated Guaranty Life Insurance Co., 447 So. 2d 668, 674 (Ala.1984). Therefore, the effect of a dismissal with prejudice or a dismissal without prejudice, in a case factually similar to this, in which we would apply Alabama law, would be the same. The personal representative could not file an action to recover for the personal injuries of a decedent who died of causes unrelated to his injuries.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia, in a six-to-three decision, construed the dismissal under a statute substantially identical to our Rule 25(a)(1) (Georgia Code Ann. § 81A-125(a)(1)) as being a dismissal on the merits. Jernigan v. Collier, 131 Ga.App. 162, 205 S.E.2d 450 (1974).
In Eastern Credit Association, Inc. v. Braxton's Estate, 215 A.2d 485, 486-87 (D.C.App.1965), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote:
"`... The federal law embodied in Rule 25(a) has a direct impact on the probate of estates in the state courts. It should not be construed to be more disruptive of prompt or orderly probate administration in those courts than its language makes necessary.'
329 U.S.  at 486, 67 S. Ct.  at 431.
We are persuaded that the dismissal under Rule 25(a)(1), A.R.Civ.P., acts as a rule of repose.
Code 1975 § 6-5-462, provides in pertinent part:
If a plaintiff dies, a pending action for "injuries to the reputation" is extinguished. All other pending actions survive in favor of or against personal representatives. If within six months after suggestion of death upon the record, a motion for substitution has not been made by any party or by the successors or representatives of the deceased party, "the action shall be dismissed as to the deceased party." If this *205 dismissal is not a rule of repose, the dismissal has the effect of being an adjudication on the merits of all actions, except actions based upon an express or implied contract, because, if the action is dismissed, even without prejudice, there is nothing left but a cause of action that death has abated. Whether the dismissal of a contract action would act as a rule of repose would depend solely upon whether the statute of limitations had run on that cause of action. Such disparity as to actions that had been filed prior to death was not the intent of this Court in promulgating Rule 25(a)(1). If death did not extinguish the claim (even if an action had been filed), the pending actions, regardless of their designation as contractual or non-contractual, should be treated similarly. The dismissal under Rule 25(a)(1) is a rule of repose as to Alabama common law causes of action and Alabama statutory causes of action, unless the statute creating the cause of action provides otherwise.
Clearly, 45 U.S.C. § 59 provides that "[a]ny right of action given by this chapter to a person suffering injury shall survive to his or her personal representative." (Emphasis added.) So an F.E.L.A. cause of action does survive death.
In the case at issue, we are dealing with a right to recover derived not from the statutory laws or common law of the State of Alabama, but from the statutory laws of the United States. The laws of the United States provide that an F.E.L.A. cause of action can be enforced in a State court, as well as in a federal court. The forms and mode of enforcing the right may vary because the procedural rules of the two judicial systems are not identical.
We are persuaded that we should not be overly concerned with characterizing a rule that authorizes the revival of an action as either procedural or substantive.
In an action involving a State cause of action brought in federal court because of diversity of citizenship of the litigants (the reverse side of federalism from the case at issue), Justice Frankfurter, in Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 65 S. Ct. 1464, 89 L. Ed. 2079 (1945), wrote:
326 U.S.  at 109-10, 65 S. Ct.  at 1470.
In a case such as this, where Congress has given a State court concurrent jurisdiction to adjudicate a federally-created cause of action, a State court should not afford, deny, or curtail recovery by an overly protective insistence upon its dominance in matters procedural.
Judicial comity causes us, as a State court, to defer to federal law as to consequences *206 that intimately affect recovery or non-recovery in a case involving a federal cause of action over which the courts of this State have concurrent jurisdiction. We are aware that it has been written that "[u]nder the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution, `[t]he relative importance to the State of its own law is not material when there is a conflict with a valid federal law,' for `any state law, however clearly within a State's acknowledged power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must yield.' Free v. Bland, 369 U.S. 663, 666, 82 S. Ct. 1089, 1092, 8 L. Ed. 2d 180 (1962)." Felder v. Casey, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 2302, 2306, 101 L. Ed. 2d 123 (1988). Under the concepts of civility and courtesy (which we reach before we reach the concept that an Alabama law that interferes with a federal law must yield), we defer to federal law, whether it be substantive or procedural, in enforcing a federal cause of action, just as the federal courts have deferred to State law, whether it be substantive or procedural, see Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. York, supra, in exercising jurisdiction over a cause of action solely because of the diversity of citizenship of the parties.
If this is "outcome-determinative" or seems to be based upon "a sort of upside-down theory of federalism," as Justice O'Connor suggests in her dissent in Felder v. Casey, supra, ___ U.S. at ___, 108 S. Ct.  at 2318, so be it.
The United States Supreme Court in Anderson v. Yungkau, 329 U.S. 482, 485, 67 S. Ct. 428, 430, 91 L. Ed. 436 (1947), construed the predecessor of Rule 25(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as a rule of repose. We see no reason why that Court would not construe the present rule, which merely shortened the time for the revival of such actions, as a rule of repose. This is consistent with our interpretation of Rule 25(a)(1), A.R.Civ.P., which does not stop at setting a period within which substitution might be made, but directs the court to dismiss the action if substitution has not been made within that time. In Anderson v. Yungkau, 329 U.S.  at 485, 67 S. Ct.  at 430, Justice Douglas wrote: "Rule 25(a) [F.R.Civ.P.,] operates both as a statute of limitations upon revivor and as a mandate to the court to dismiss an action not revived within the two-year period." Its purpose is "to close the doorfinally, not qualifiedly or conditionally." 329 U.S.  at 486, 67 S. Ct.  at 430. We must infer that if Price had filed this action in a federal district court and had then died and his death had been suggested on the record and over six months had elapsed without a motion for substitution being filed, and Illinois Central had then filed a motion to dismiss for failure to revive the action, the federal district court would have been required to dismiss the action with prejudice, since Rule 25(a), F.R.Civ.P., acts as a rule of repose. Anderson v. Yungkau, supra. This would be so, in spite of the fact that three years had not expired from the date of Price's injury until the order of dismissal, which is the time bar for F.E.L.A. actions.
It is not for us to determine in this case whether the 90-day period in Rule 25(a), F.R.Civ.P., or the 6-month period in Rule 25(a)(1), A.R.Civ.P., would control in an F.E.L.A. case filed in a State court in Alabama. Justice O'Connor, in her dissent in Felder v. Casey, supra, at ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct.  at 2318-19, wrote:
In this case, more than six months passed after Mr. Price's death was suggested *207 on the record and no motion for substitution had been filed when Illinois Central filed its motion to dismiss. For the reasons stated, the dismissal should have been with prejudice.
We have reviewed all the cases cited in briefs and at oral argument by the parties. These cases do not change our decision in this case, and we do not feel that a detailed discussion of the cases not cited in this opinion is necessary to a proper resolution of the issue involved in this case.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for the trial court to enter an order consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C.J., and MADDOX, JONES, ALMON, SHORES, ADAMS and STEAGALL, JJ., concur.
BEATTY, J., dissents.