Case Name: Randolph C. (Dolph) TILLOTSON, Natchez Newspaper, Inc. and Susan Willey v. J. Odell ANDERS
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1989-08-16
Citations: 551 So. 2d 212
Docket Number: No. 89-IA-00013
Parties: Randolph C. (Dolph) TILLOTSON, Natchez Newspaper, Inc. and Susan Willey v. J. Odell ANDERS.
Judges: ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., and PRATHER, ANDERSON and BLASS, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 551
Pages: 212–228

Head Matter:
Randolph C. (Dolph) TILLOTSON, Natchez Newspaper, Inc. and Susan Willey v. J. Odell ANDERS.
No. 89-IA-00013.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Aug. 16, 1989.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 8, 1989.
R. Kent Hudson, Gwin, Lewis, Punches & Hudson, Natchez, for appellant.
John E. Mulhearn, Jr., Mulhearn & Mulh-earn, Natchez, for appellees.

Opinion:
ROBERTSON, Justice,
for the Court:
I.
This is a libel action wherein a former chancery clerk has sued his hometown newspaper and two of its reporters, complaining of articles and editorials about his conduct of his office and demanding actual and punitive damages. The former clerk attempted to disguise his action as one for an accounting and then filed it in the chancery court. The newspaper moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. When the Court below denied the motion, we accepted the newspaper's interlocutory appeal. We reverse.
II.
The parties to this appeal are as follows:
J. Odell Anders is an adult resident citizen of Adams County, Mississippi. He served as Chancery Clerk of Adams County from November of 1974 until January of 1988. Anders was the plaintiff below and is the appellee here.
Natchez Newspapers, Inc., is a Mississippi corporation and is the publisher of a daily newspaper known as The Natchez Democrat, which at all times relevant has had a general circulation in Adams County, Mississippi, and in surrounding areas.
Randolph C. (Dolph) Tillotson and Susan Willey were at all relevant times employees of Natchez Newspapers, Inc., serving as reporters for The Natchez Democrat. Natchez Newspapers, Inc., Tillotson and Willey were the defendants below and are the appellants here. They are hereafter collectively referred to as "the Newspaper".
Between May 30, 1987, and June 21, 1987, the Newspaper published a series of articles and editorials regarding Anders' conduct of the office of Chancery Clerk. These articles and editorials were critical of Anders for the substantial income his family derived from his service in office, commenting upon the fact that Anders had hired his wife and his two daughters as deputy clerks and had paid them allegedly handsome salaries. The Newspaper was generally critical of the system provided by state law for compensating chancery clerks and their deputies.
On October 19, 1987, Anders commenced this civil action by filing his complaint in the Chancery Court of Adams County, Mississippi. Anders charged that the articles were false, and maliciously so, and then charged that the proof in this case would be "extremely complex and complicated and present issues of accounting that could only be resolved by the Chancery Court because of the complex nature thereof." Anders demanded a declaratory judgment that all receipts and disbursements of funds discussed in the articles were in strict conformity with law and then demanded of the Newspaper actual damages in the amount of $500,000.00 and punitive damages in the amount of $8,000,000.00, plus attorneys fees and court costs.
On November 2, 1987, the Newspaper filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer the case to the Circuit Court of Adams County. The Newspaper charged that Anders' suit was a garden variety libel action which lay outside Chancery Court subject matter jurisdiction. The Newspaper also invoked its right to trial by jury, Miss. Const. Art. 3, § 31 (1890), and argued that this right would be denied if the matter remained in the Chancery Court.
On June 28, 1988, the Chancery Court denied the motion, holding that the action lay within chancery court subject matter jurisdiction because it is one "which requires a complex accounting and several issues upon which a multiplicity of suits could arise." On July 25, 1988, the Court entered its order denying the motion to dismiss or transfer.
Having found that there are substantial grounds for believing that the Chancery Court erred on the legal question of subject matter jurisdiction and that an interlocutory appeal might materially advance the termination of the litigation and protect the Newspaper from substantial and irreparable loss of its right to trial by jury, we granted the Newspaper's interlocutory appeal. See Rule 5(a), Miss.Sup.Ct. Rules.; American Electric v. Singarayar, 530 So.2d 1319, 1321-24 (Miss.1988).
III.
That this is a libel suit ordinarily cognizable as an action at law does not inexorably preclude its being heard in chancery court. Where there appears from the face of the well-pleaded complaint an independent basis for equity jurisdiction, our chancery courts may hear and adjudge law claims. Penrod Drilling Co. v. Bounds, 433 So.2d 916 (Miss.1983); Tideway Oil Programs, Inc. v. Serio, 431 So.2d 454, 464 (Miss.1983); Burnett v. Bass, 152 Miss. 517, 521, 120 So. 456 (1929). In such circumstances we consider that the legal claims lie within the pendent jurisdiction of the chancery court.
Anders proclaims independent equity grounds threefold. Foremost, he insists that this is an action for an accounting, noting that our chancery courts have historically enjoyed jurisdiction over suits for accounting. See Dunagin v. First National Bank, 118 Miss. 809, 80 So. 276 (1919); Evans v. Hoye, 101 Miss. 244, 252-53, 57 So. 805, 806 (1912); see also Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 159(f) (1890) (jurisdiction over all cases of which the chancery court had jurisdiction under the laws in force when the Constitution was adopted and put into operation); Miss.Code Ann. § 9-5-81 (1972); Griffith, Mississippi Chancery Practice, § 24 (2d ed. 1950); Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence, § 1420 & 1421 (5th ed. 1941).
One fallacy in Anders' point is that his complaint does not seek an accounting as between himself and the Newspaper. When the question whether an action lay within chancery court subject matter jurisdiction has been raised, our cases have consistently held
It is the substance of the action that should be controlling on this issue, not its form or label.
Thompson v. First Mississippi National Bank, 427 So.2d 973, 976 (Miss.1983). In Dixie National Life Insurance Co. v. Allison, 372 So.2d 1081 (Miss.1979), we rejected a plaintiff's characterization of his action as one for specific performance, noting that
it was nothing more than a suit for breach of contract and should have been brought in the circuit court.
Dixie National, 372 So.2d at 1085. We repeated the point in Thompson and urged that our lower courts
be wary of attempts to camouflage as a complicated accounting what is in essence an action at law for breach of contract.
Thompson, 427 So.2d at 976. More recently, in Blackledge v. Scott, 530 So.2d 1363 (Miss.1988), we rebuffed a plaintiff's effort to bring in chancery court what was clearly a common law tort action.
Love v. Dampeer, 159 Miss. 430, 439, 132 So. 439, 442 (1931) affords Anders no succor, for that case involved liquidation of a bank, a matter within chancery court jurisdiction by statute. Miss.Code Ann. § 3817 (1930). The same may be said of Anders' citation of State of Mississippi ex rel. King v. Harvey, 214 So.2d 817 (Miss.1968), a suit on the bond of a public official. See Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 161 (1890).
Anders next argues that this is a suit to prevent a multiplicity of suits at law, and, indeed, the court below so held. To be sure, this is another of the historical grounds for equity jurisdiction. Griffith, Mississippi Chancery Practice § 24, 439 (2d Ed.1950). How the notion applies here escapes us. True, Anders complains of a series of articles and editorials. Perhaps theoretically each could be made the subject of a separate action, but they have not been and we have no doubt of the propriety of their being joined in a single action at law before the circuit court. Conceivably, the state auditor or some public authority might proceed against Anders, but that would involve, at least in part, different legal theories than today's action. There is a marked difference between a multiplicity of suits and a multitude of suits. See Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Co. v. Barnes, 94 Miss. 484, 512, 48 So. 823, 829 (1909).
Finally, Anders suggests, if we understand him correctly, that his prayer for declaratory judgment makes his suit cognizable in chancery. The short answer is that our law's authorization of the declaratory judgment procedure in Rule 57, Miss. R.Civ.P., is jurisdictionally neutral. Rule 57 empowers the trial court to grant a procedural remedy not thought available in our practice prior to January 1, 1982. That new remedy may be sought only in a court of otherwise competent jurisdiction. Indeed, nothing in the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure may be construed to extend or limit the subject matter jurisdiction of our trial courts. Rule 82(a), Miss.R.Civ.P.
There is good reason why we ought heed the Newspaper's arguments, and do so in-terlocutorily. The Newspaper has demanded its right to trial by jury. If this action is allowed to remain in chancery court, there will be, no trial by jury, this notwithstanding the command of our constitution that "the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate." Miss. Const. Art. 3, § 31 (1890). See Penrod Drilling Co. v. Bounds, 433 So.2d 916, 931-32 (Miss.1983) (Robertson, J., concurring); Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Hasty, 360 So.2d 925 (Miss.1978), McLean v. Green, 352 So.2d 1312 (Miss.1977). And, if the case should proceed to final judgment in chancery and there appear in the record no error other than the point of subject matter jurisdiction, we would be without power to reverse. Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 147 (1890); Talbot and Higgins Lumber Co. v. McLeod Lumber Co., 147 Miss. 186, 113 So. 433 (1927).
We hold that this case lies outside the limited subject matter jurisdiction of the chancery court. If that be so, it must perforce be within the subject matter jurisdiction of the circuit court, a court of general jurisdiction. See Hall v. Corbin, 478 So.2d 253, 255 (Miss.1985). Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 156 (1890) provides:
The circuit court shall have original jurisdiction in all matters, civil and criminal, in this state not vested by this constitution in some other court.
See also Miss.Code Ann. § 9-7-81 (1972). Indeed, our circuit courts have long had subject matter jurisdiction over actions for libel or other forms of defamation. See Francis v. Flinn, 118 U.S. 385, 6 S.Ct. 1148, 30 L.Ed. 165 (1886); Harrison v. Triplex Gold Mines, 33 F.2d 667, 672 (1st Cir.1929); see generally, Evans v. Progressive Casualty Co., 300 So.2d 149, 151 (Miss.1974).
IV.
Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 147 (1890) does not compel a contrary result. Section 147, precluding reversal of a "judgment or decree" of a chancery or circuit court, applies primarily (although not necessarily exclusively) to final judgments or decrees. Today's parties have not yet endured the slings and arrows of litigation and thus Appellee Anders possesses nothing like the equities of one who has, and who has obtained a final judgment in his favor. Moreover, this construction of Section 147 is necessary that full effect may also be given the Newspaper's right to trial by jury, Miss. Const. Art. 3, § 31 (1890), not to mention its right secured by Miss.Code Ann. Art. 6, § 162 (1890) that this case "shall be transferred to the circuit court."
Laws are condemned to the form of words and phrases authored by persons inherently unable to escape their relative ignorance of fact nor to correct their relative indeterminacy of aim. The law giver's quiver is found filled with arrows bent by attitude and indeterminacy. His words and phrases are but imperfect expressions of dynamic thoughts. Realizing this, we long ago shed our innocence and accepted that people's rights and the laws that create them often conflict. Where this is so courts proceed in a way that give maximum effect to each. Mississippi Insurance Guaranty Association v. Vaughn, 529 So.2d 540, 542 (Miss.1988); Dye v. State ex rel. Hale, 507 So.2d 332, 342 (Miss.1987); Surles v. State ex rel. McNeel, 357 So.2d 319, 320-21 (Miss.1978); State ex rel. Collins v. Jackson, 119 Miss. 727, 739, 741-42, 81 So. 1, 5-6 (1919). The view that Section 147 precludes reversal would effectively eviscerate Sections 31 and 162 of our Constitution, yet our oaths require fidelity to the latter two sections as great as to the former. Reading Section 147 to apply only to final judgments, or cases where, by litigation, a party has gained some other substantial advantage, gives maximum life to Sections 31 and 162 in cases of conflict.
Because the point has been questioned, not by Anders but by several Justices of this Court in dissent, discussion is in order. Section 147 declares:
No judgment or decree in any chancery or circuit court rendered in a civil cause shall be reversed or annulled on the ground of want of jurisdiction to render said judgment or decree, from any error or mistake as to whether the cause in which it was rendered was in equity or common-law jurisdiction; .
The political history of Section- 147 supports the view we take.
We begin with Cazeneuve v. Curell, 70 Miss. 521, 13 So. 32 (1893), which concerned an interlocutory appeal from a chancery court order overruling a defendant's demurrer to the court's jurisdiction. Cazen-euve was an action in trespass erroneously brought in chancery court. The defendants demurred, claiming lack of equitable jurisdiction. The demurrer was overruled. On appeal, the only error assigned was the chancery court's assumption of subject matter jurisdiction. This Court affirmed under the authority of Section 147, stating that the section represented "practical authority for the virtual obliteration of the lines of demarcation between courts of law and equity, if the judges and chancellors of the inferior courts choose to disregard, or fail to observe, those distinguishing lines." 70 Miss, at 524, 13 So. at 32-33. The Court also found the restriction of Section 147 to extend to interlocutory orders, relying primarily upon the anomalous situation which would result from the fact that only courts of chancery allowed an appeal from such an order.
That the inhibition laid on this court in this section of the constitution, is not confined to action on final decrees or judgments, is manifest from a consideration of the startling incongruity of the civil administration which would result from adopting the construction contended for by those who would restrict the inhibition to final decrees or judgments. We shall, in that case, have the intolerable anomaly of appeals maintainable from decrees or demurrers in courts of equity, in cases where the lower court was without jurisdiction, and, in like cases, no appeals allowed from judgments of circuit courts. Surely no one can be found to insist that this absurd inconsistency of civil administration was any part of the constitutional scheme for mitigating what must have been supposed to be the evils of too rigidly observing the bounds of jurisdiction between the courts of law and equity-
70 Miss, at 525-26, 13 So. at 33.
We have come a long way since Cazen-euve. Indeed, Cazeneuve's ink was hardly dry on the pages before this Court recognized that not all interlocutory orders were within Section 147's bar. In Whitney v. Hanover National Bank, 71 Miss. 1009, 15 So. 33 (1894), the Court held that the appointment of a receiver for an insolvent bank by a chancery court could be collaterally attacked on jurisdictional grounds, as Section 147 "does not apply, but relates to a civil cause, as properly understood, and not to all that a chancellor or judge may do." 71 Miss, at 1022, 15 So. at 37 [Emphasis Supplied].
The idea that the bar of Section 147 should be limited to final judgments or decrees soon emerged. In Hawkins v. Scottish Union & National Insurance Co., 110 Miss. 23, 69 So. 710 (1915), the Court noted
[W]e think one of the designs of the statute, with which section 147 of the Constitution is in keeping, is to protect parties who have mistaken the forum in which their causes should be tried, who simply entered the temple of justice by the door on the left, when they should have entered by the door on the right_ [I]t would be a narrow construction of that statute to say that because, if plaintiff had, by mistake, attempted to assert his right in a court having no jurisdiction, he is not entitled to the benefit of it.
110 Miss, at 29, 69 So. at 712.
This same sentiment was echoed by Justice Ethridge in his dissent in Talbot & Higgins Lumber Co. v. McLeod Lumber Co., 147 Miss. 186, 113 So. 433 (1927):
The principle sought to be accomplished by section 147 of the Constitution was to prevent the necessity of determining the jurisdiction at the end of a trial, where a case had been properly tried and the proper result reached, saving alone that it was reached in the wrong court, and, if it was in the wrong court, to upset a just result.
147 Miss, at 193-94, 113 So. at 435. [Emphasis supplied]
There exists an inherent tension between Section 147 and those sections of the Constitution addressing the transfer of causes from chancery to circuit court, and vice versa. Miss. Const. Art. 6, § 157, 162 (1890). The applicable transfer sections are:
Section 157. All causes that may be brought in the circuit court whereof the chancery court has exclusive jurisdiction shall be transferred to the chancery court,
and
Section 162. All causes that may be brought in the chancery court whereof the circuit court has exclusive jurisdiction shall be transferred to the circuit court.
Both of these sections of the Constitution have been construed by this Court to be commands of the positive law. In Murphy v. City of Meridian, 103 Miss. 110, 60 So. 48 (1912), the plaintiff incorrectly brought suit in the chancery court, which dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. On appeal, the Court held Section 162 to require transfer to circuit court. The Court also held that the appeal, the Court's reversal of the chancery court and its order to transfer the cause to the circuit court were all outside the operation of Section 147, because the case had not proceeded to final judgment.
If the chancery court had assumed jurisdiction of this cause, and decreed or denied relief, then that section of the Constitution would come into play and would be controlling with this court.
103 Miss, at 116, 60 So. at 49. [Emphasis supplied]
In Robertson v. F. Goodman Dry Goods Co., 115 Miss. 210, 76 So. 149 (1917), the Court addressed the issue whether the order of a chancery court transferring an action to circuit court was appealable. Robertson, a revenue agent, had filed a bill in chancery to collect past due taxes, an action properly within the jurisdiction of the circuit court. The chancery court declined jurisdiction, transferring the action to the circuit court. Robertson appealed the order. The defendant/appellee attempted to prevent review of the order, invoking Section 147 and citing Cazeneuve. The Court noted that the threshold question regarding Robertson's right to appeal the transfer order presented the "more troubling question".
While we conceive it to be the duty of the circuit court to proceed without question with a cause transferred to it by proper decree of the chancery court, it yet remains that the chancellor might in some instances be in error in transferring a cause that manifestly presents grounds for equitable relief, and that could not be tried in a common-law court, according to right and justice_ A case . might be presented where the complainant would be compelled to have á reformation of a written instrument, a discovery, an accounting, or some other remedy in chancery before his rights could be ascertained and justice executed. In such cases the very right of the complainant would depend upon his remedy, and among other rights of litigants they sometimes have the right to equitable remedies, without which their very rights could not be enforced or wrongs done them redressed.... If we should decline jurisdiction in the present case, we would be setting a precedent whereby jurisdiction would be declined in all cases of this character.
115 Miss, at 223-24, 76 So. at 151.
The rationale employed in Robertson was again used by the Court in Reed v. Charping, 201 Miss. 477, 29 So.2d 271 (1947). To the same effect is Fortenberry v. Wilkerson, 222 Miss. 70, 75 So.2d 274 (1954), where, in reversing a chancery court's transfer order, the Court noted that the case had "never been tried in the court to which it was transferred. The effect of said Section 147 has usually arisen where the case has been tried by such a court. That would present a different question from that confronting us in this case." 222 Miss, at 74, 75 So.2d at 276.
Robertson v. Evans, 400 So.2d 1214 (Miss.1981) is our latest ease in this line. Robertson was a tort action arising from an intersectional collision between a motorcycle and an automobile. The injured minor sued in chancery court demanding monetary damages. The chancery court denied defendant's transfer motion and an interlocutory appeal was sought. This Court found "a clear abuse of discretion" and ordered the case transferred "to the proper circuit court."
In sum, this Court's treatment of transfer orders under Sections 157 and 162 of the Constitution is consonant with the reading of Section 147 which restricts the authority of this Court to reverse only in cases where a full hearing on the merits had already been held, albeit in the incorrect forum, or where by litigation a party has gained some other substantial advantage. The rationale employed to extend the inhibitory nature of the section to interlocutory appeals (the existence of that mechanism only in chancery) has since been obviated by the adoption of various procedural rules which allow interlocutory appeals from both circuit and chancery. The common sense policy reason for there being a Section 147 at all is to protect a person who has tried his case and won it from having his time and expense and trouble and result go down the drain because of a jurisdictional error. The same notion undergirds the Double Jeopardy Clause.
Persons in this posture are deserving of protection from relitigation; hence, Section 147. The opposite result is compelled where, as here, the jurisdictional point is raised at an early pre-trial stage — a mere fourteen days after Anders filed suit — and appealed interlocutorily.
V.
We hold that the Chancery Court substantially abused its discretion when it failed to grant the Newspaper's motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer to Circuit Court. Rather than here ordering the case dismissed, we reverse and remand the case to the active docket of the Circuit Court of Adams County, Mississippi.
INTERLOCUTORY APPEAL GRANTED; ORDER OF CHANCERY COURT DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS OR TO TRANSFER TO CIRCUIT COURT REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO CIRCUIT COURT OF ADAMS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI.
ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., and PRATHER, ANDERSON and BLASS, JJ., concur.
HAWKINS, P.J., dissents by separate written opinion, joined by DAN M. LEE, P.J., and SULLIVAN and PITTMAN, JJ. •
. The Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure place no new categories or types of civil actions within the subject matter jurisdiction of our several trial courts. The Rules do, however, make clear that more may be done than was allowable before January 1, 1982, with actions already within a given court's jurisdiction.
. Section 31 is of no effect in chancery. Of course, in a case such as this, the chancery court has discretionary authority to impanel a jury. If one is impaneled, however, our law is clear that "its findings are totally supervisory." Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Hasty, 360 So.2d 925, 927 (Miss. 1978); McLean v. Green, 352 So.2d 1312, 1314 (Miss. 1977); Griffin v. Jones, 170 Miss. 230, 233-34, 154 So. 551, 552 (1934); Griffith, Mississippi Chancery Practice § 597 (2d ed. 1950). Indeed, anomaly attends the suggestion that the chancery court here impanel a jury as the raison d'etre of Anders' suing in chancery is his view that his action's complexity places it well beyond a jury's ken.
. The brief filed on behalf of Appellant Anders makes no mention of Section 147.
. This inconsistency, of course, has been eviscerated by the advent of interlocutory appeals from circuit court. See Rule 5(a), Miss.Sup.Ct. Rules, and Comment thereto; Kilgore v. Barnes, 490 So.2d 895, 896 (Miss.1986).
. In an unrelated point, the Court in Robertson inadvertently mis-spoke itself. The opinion reads that the Court is "denying the petition for interlocutory appeal" and then remanding the case to the Circuit Court. Obviously, the Court would have had no authority to do anything other than leave the judgment of the lower court intact if the petition for interlocutory appeal had been denied. The correct reading of Robertson should be that the Court granted the petition for interlocutory appeal and then remanded the case to the Circuit Court.
. Consider hypothetically a case where a plaintiff has battled for many months and secured a partial summary judgment on liability, i.e., "some other substantial advantage," only to have the defendant seek an interlocutory appeal belatedly challenging subject matter jurisdiction. f'nch a jurisdictional challenge may work a great unfairness, well within the policy that justifies today's majority and consistent in principle with our holding. A part of our context is that points of subject matter jurisdiction may not be waived and may be asserted at any time. Matter of Adoption of R.M.P.C., 512 So.2d 702, 706 (Miss. 1987); Home Insurance Company v. Watts, 229 Miss. 735, 753, 93 So.2d 848, 850 (1957). Nothing in today's case requires that we seek the great divide between orders not precluded from reversal by Section 147 and those which are, nor whether that divide is but a twilight zone, neither is it appropriate this day that we hold the bar of Section 147 limited exclusively to final judgments or decrees. Authoritative exposition of such points we leave for the proper case or cases.
. See note 3, supra.
. We find apt the Court's expression in Magee v. Griffin, 345 So.2d 1027, 1032 (Miss.1977):
There is a tendency, perhaps, to forget that one who undergoes the rigors of an action, with all of its traumatic impact, loss of time, delay, substantial expense and disruption of his affairs, with consequent appeals and possible retrials and still other appeals, should be spared having to do this more often than is strictly necessary. Even the successful party after bearing the expense of one trial and of one appeal is, in many instances, hardly a winner.
. If we dismiss the action, in all probability any new filing would be barred by the statute of limitations. See Miss.Code Ann. § 15-1-35 (Supp.1988).