Title: Schroeder v. McWhite
Citation: 569 So. 2d 316
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: July 13, 1990

569 So. 2d 316 (1990)
Diana McWhite SCHROEDER
v.
James H. McWHITE, Jr., individually and as administrator of the Estate of Alice D. McWhite, deceased.
88-1636.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 13, 1990.
Rehearing Denied September 21, 1990.
*317 Steven A. Benefield of Rives &amp; Peterson, Birmingham, for appellant.
Bryant A. Whitmire, Jr., Birmingham, for appellee.
SHORES, Justice.
Alice D. McWhite, mother of the two parties to this suit, died intestate. James H. McWhite, the appellee, filed a petition for letters of administration, which was granted by the Probate Court of Jefferson County, Alabama. On December 21, 1988, McWhite filed a complaint against his sister, Diana McWhite Goss, now remarried and known as Diana McWhite Schroeder. McWhite alleged fraud and sought to have Schroeder return to the estate money and personal property belonging to their deceased mother. Mrs. Schroeder answered this complaint by sending a handwritten letter to the probate court containing certain account statements and setting forth her grounds for denial. A hearing was held on March 11, 1988, at which oral testimony was taken, and the trial judge ordered as follows:
(C.R. 26-27). No assets were returned to the estate. Mrs. Schroeder, did not appeal from this ruling.
On June 10, 1988, the appellant filed in the probate court a motion for relief from the order, pursuant to Rule 60(b), A.R. Civ.P., in which she prayed that the court would vacate the order of March 11, 1988. The appellee then filed a petition to have the assets of the estate returned. Both petitions were heard by the probate judge of Jefferson County. By order dated August 12, 1988, he denied the appellant's motion for relief from the order and granted the appellee's petition to have the assets returned:
(C.R. 37). The appellant filed her notice of appeal of this order to the circuit court on September 22, 1988.
The appellee then filed in the circuit court a motion to dismiss that appeal. A hearing was held on that motion on August 2, 1989, and the circuit judge dismissed the appeal. Mrs. Schroeder then appealed that dismissal to this Court.
The only issue before this Court is whether the trial court erred in dismissing Mrs. Schroeder's appeal to the circuit court from the order of the probate court.
Under Act No. 1144, Ala.Acts 1971, the probate court in a county having a population of 500,000 or more has general jurisdiction concurrent with that of the circuit court when equitable jurisdiction is invoked. Thus, when equitable jurisdiction is invoked by either the parties or the court in the Jefferson County Probate Court, an appeal lies to the Supreme Court. Act No. 1144 provides in pertinent part as follows:
Here, the appellant, Mrs. Schroeder, filed a motion for relief under A.R.Civ.P. 59 and 60(b), invoking the equity jurisdiction of the Jefferson County Probate Court. Her appeal would not lie to the circuit court, for the obvious reason that the ruling on her motion was by the probate court acting in *319 its exercise of jurisdiction concurrent with that of the circuit court.
The trial judge did not err in dismissing her appeal to the circuit court. The dismissal is due to be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and JONES, HOUSTON and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.