Title: Hutchins v. Shepard
Citation: 370 So. 2d 275
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: April 27, 1979

370 So. 2d 275 (1979)
Regina HUTCHINS, et al.,
v.
Rosetta SHEPARD.
78-6.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
April 27, 1979.
*276 Joseph W. Adams, Birmingham, for appellants.
Charles A. J. Beavers, Jr., Birmingham, for appellee.
SHORES, Justice.
This is an appeal from the trial court's decree in which it refused to vacate a 1973 decree of the Probate Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, which set apart real property owned by James Hutchins, deceased, as exempt to his widow, Mattie L. Hutchins. We affirm.
James Hutchins died in 1951 in Jefferson County. He was survived by his widow, Mattie, and an adult son, Henderson Hutchins. At the time of his death, James was the owner of a house and lot in Jefferson County which served as his residence.
In 1973, Mattie Hutchins petitioned the probate court for an exemption without administration. She stated in the petition that the whereabouts of Henderson Hutchins were unknown to her and that he was last known to be in Erie County, New York. Notice was given by publication in accordance with Title 7, § 204, Code 1940 (Recompiled 1958). The court appointed commissioners, who reported that the homestead property was all the real property owned by James Hutchins in Alabama; and that its value at the time of his death did not exceed $2000. The court confirmed the commissioners' report and set aside the homestead to Mattie L. Hutchins. Mattie Hutchins died in 1976 leaving two children, not children of James Hutchins.
In 1977, the widow and children of Henderson Hutchins, then deceased, brought this action to vacate the probate court's decree setting apart the homestead to Mattie. Mattie's two children were made defendants. The plaintiffs alleged Mattie had perpetrated a fraud on the court in the 1973 proceeding in that she falsely swore that she had no knowledge of Henderson's whereabouts. They also sought to vacate the probate court's decree on their claim that the property had a value in excess of $2000 at the time of James' death and that James owned other property in Alabama at his death. The matter proceeded to trial by the court ore tenus which found:
The plaintiffs appealed.
On oral argument in this court, the plaintiffs-appellants challenge, for the first time, the constitutionality of Title 7, § 204, supra, which allows notice by publication where the ". . . address of the defendant is unknown and cannot be ascertained after reasonable efforts . . ." This issue, however, was not raised in the *277 trial court and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. Brown v. Robinson, 354 So. 2d 272 (Ala.1977); McWhorter v. Clark, 342 So. 2d 903 (Ala.1977); McDuffie v. Hooper, 294 Ala. 293, 315 So. 2d 573 (1975).
The plaintiffs-appellants next urge that the trial court committed clear error in finding Mattie Hutchins did not know the whereabouts of Henderson at the time of her petition in 1973. It is a wellknown rule of review that where the trial court makes a factual determination based upon conflicting evidence taken ore tenus, its finding will not be disturbed on appeal unless plainly erroneous or manifestly unjust. White v. White, 350 So. 2d 326 (Ala. 1977); Downs v. Downs, 260 Ala. 88, 69 So. 2d 250 (1953); Stephens v. Stephens, 233 Ala. 178, 170 So. 767 (1936).
In Whitfield v. Sanders, 366 So. 2d 258 (Ala.1978), we held that where uncontradicted evidence established that no effort was made to locate the defendant and that his address was easily accessible to the plaintiff, an affidavit claiming no knowledge of his whereabouts was a fraud on the court requiring reversal. Such is not the case here. The testimony here shows that the last contact between Mattie and Henderson was in 1951, when Henderson visited Mattie's residence in Birmingham, Alabama, for the purpose of picking up a floor polisher. He did not attend his father's funeral and Mattie had no contact with him, nor he with her or his father, since the Mid-1940's. There was other evidence that attorney Charles Beavers, Sr. had contacted Henderson by mail in 1964 but that the letter went unanswered. His son, who succeeded him in the law practice, testified that he had searched his father's records and found nothing to indicate that either Mattie or his father knew Henderson's address. There is no evidence to support the contention that Mattie swore falsely in the 1973 affidavit.
We affirm the trial court's decree upholding the action of the probate court in setting aside the property to Mattie.
There was no evidence that James owned any other property in Alabama at the time of his death. There was evidence that this property did not exceed $2000 in value at that time. This evidence justified the probate court's action in setting the homestead aside to Mattie under the law as it existed at James' death. See: Mordecai v. Scott, 294 Ala. 626, 320 So. 2d 642 (1975); Nix v. McCoy, 280 Ala. 516, 195 So. 2d 893 (1967).
At the time of James Hutchins' death in 1951, the operative statute in effect was Title 7, § 663, Code of Alabama 1940, which stated:
Under this section, title to the homestead property can be vested only to the widow and minor child or children. This statute was later amended to allow adult children of a decedent to share in the homestead property. Title 7, § 663, Code 1940 (Recompiled 1958). This change, however, came too late to aid Henderson, who was an adult at the time of his father's death and, therefore, not afforded a share of the homestead property under § 663. Finerson v. Hubbard, 255 Ala. 551, 52 So. 2d 506 (1951); Keenum v. Dodson, 212 Ala. 146, 102 So. 230 (1924).
*278 As an adult child at the time of his father's death, Henderson is considered, for the purposes of § 663, to be one of the "other heirs of the decedent." Regarding the statutory rights of such persons, the law has been correctly stated in Davis v. Bates, 239 Ala. 214, 216, 194 So. 647, 648 (1940):
Each of these grounds were considered by the probate court and resolved in Mattie's favor in 1973, and were reconsidered by the circuit court in this case and again resolved in favor of the widow. The evidence supports the decree. It is, therefore, affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C. J., and MADDOX, JONES and BEATTY, JJ., concur.