Title: Oliver v. Townsend
Citation: 534 So. 2d 1038
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: September 30, 1988

534 So. 2d 1038 (1988)
Robert OLIVER, administrator of the estate of Ollie Oliver, deceased
v.
Elton TOWNSEND, in his capacity as sheriff of Winston County, and Aetna Casualty and Surety Company.
Robert OLIVER, administrator of the estate of Ollie Oliver, deceased
v.
T. Malcolm BLAKE. Robert OLIVER, administrator of the estate of Ollie Oliver, deceased
v.
WINSTON COUNTY COMMISSION, Cullman County Commission, and Wendell Roden, in his capacity as sheriff of Cullman County.
86-587, 85-1066 and 86-433.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 30, 1988.
*1039 James C. King of Wilson &amp; King, Jasper, and Richard S. Jaffe of Jaffe, Burton &amp; Digiorgio, Birmingham, for appellant.
Walter Joe James, Jr., of James &amp; Lowe, Haleyville, for appellees Elton Townsend and Aetna Cas. &amp; Sur. Co.
Morris W. Savage of Bankhead &amp; Savage, Jasper, for appellee T. Malcolm Blake.
Hobson Manasco, Jr., Haleyville, for appellee Winston County Com'n.
Steve A. Baccus and Larry B. Moore of Almon, McAlister, Ashe, Baccus &amp; Tanner, Tuscumbia, for appellees Cullman County Com'n and Wendell Roden.
PER CURIAM.
These three cases were consolidated on appeal from the Circuit Court of Winston County. Ollie Oliver[1] died of hepatitis. After his death, Robert Oliver, administrator of the estate of Ollie Oliver, sued Dr. T. Malcolm Blake, the county commissions of Cullman and Winston Counties, the sheriffs of Cullman and Winston Counties, and the surety company that had provided the Winston County sheriff's bond.
The facts of this case are not complicated. Ollie was in custody in Cullman County following his conviction on a burglary charge. He was transferred to the Winston County jail to face similar charges in *1040 that county. While he was in the Winston County jail, Ollie complained of an illness. Sheriff's deputies took Ollie to Dr. Blake, who diagnosed a kidney disease and prescribed medication for it. Dr. Blake saw Ollie six times, from September 9, 1980, through October 1, 1980. On his final visit to see Dr. Blake, Ollie apparently exhibited the jaundiced skin and eyes symptomatic of hepatitis. Dr. Blake recommended hospitalization. Ollie was returned to Cullman County authorities that day, and they took him to Kilby State Prison Hospital. Ollie died three days later.
Robert Oliver's suit claimed negligent or wanton treatment by Dr. Blake, negligent or wanton supervision or actions by the various law enforcement authorities involved, and a denial of Ollie's rights by all parties so as to support a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The trial judge eventually granted summary judgment as to all defendants, and Robert Oliver brought these three appeals.
We first turn to the plaintiff's claims against Dr. Blake. In two counts of his complaint the plaintiff alleges causes of action against Dr. Blake. First, he claims that Dr. Blake "negligently and/or wantonly treated or cared for the plaintiff's decedent." Second, he claims that Dr. Blake's actions combined and concurred with the acts of the other defendants to deprive Ollie of his civil rights under color of state law and he seeks damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Our standard of review on an appeal from summary judgment is well settled. Summary judgment is proper only if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56, A.R.Civ.P. If there is a scintilla of evidence supporting the position of the non-moving party, summary judgment can not be granted. Cole v. First National Bank of Tuskaloosa, 485 So. 2d 717, 719 (Ala.1986). A scintilla has been defined as a "mere gleam, glimmer, spark, the least particle, the smallest trace." Howard v. Crowder, 496 So. 2d 31, 32 (Ala.1986).
Dr. Blake moved for summary judgment on May 14, 1984, and filed a supporting affidavit with his motion averring generally that he had exercised the same reasonable care, skill, and diligence that doctors in the same general neighborhood and in the national medical neighborhood would have exercised under the same conditions.
On August 3, 1984, the day the summary judgment motion was set for hearing, the plaintiff filed a motion in opposition to the summary judgment and attached the affidavit of Dr. Morton Meltzer in support of his motion. The supporting affidavit was not signed by Dr. Meltzer. At the hearing, the trial court gave the parties seven days to file briefs. On Friday, August 10, 1984, Oliver's attorney filed a brief that included the following:
The Exhibit A mentioned is a letter to the trial judge dated July 17, 1984, requesting a September setting of the hearing, but not giving any specific reason for the request that it not be scheduled for August 3.
Also on August 10, Dr. Blake filed a motion to strike Dr. Meltzer's unsigned affidavit. The record includes a response by Oliver's attorney to this motion that is marked as having been dictated on August *1041 11, transcribed on August 13, and filed on August 14. The response reads:
A signed and notarized copy of Dr. Meltzer's affidavit follows in the record, and it is the same affidavit that was filed unsigned at the hearing.
The court made no ruling on this controversy at the time. Instead, the next entry in the record is an order signed by the trial court on August 31, 1984, stating: "By agreement of the parties the above referenced case is continued generally from the trial setting of September 10, 1984."
The next significant entry in the record is a motion for protective order served on April 30, 1986, and filed on May 2, by the Winston County Commission. The motion stated that the deposition of Dr. Meltzer had been scheduled for May 10, 1986, in Cameron, North Carolina, and requested a continuance of that deposition on the ground that the Commission's pending motion for summary judgment "is a meritorious motion and, if granted by this court, would be dispositive of this case as to the Defendant, Winston County Commission."
On April 30, 1986, the court ordered that the deposition of Dr. Meltzer "shall not be taken on Saturday, May 10, 1986, but rather shall be continued to a later date." On May 1, the trial court entered a summary judgment for the Winston County Commission, stating simply "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the Defendant, Winston County Commission, is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law."
On May 5, 1986, the court entered the following judgment in favor of Dr. Blake:
(Emphasis added.) Clearly, the trial court did not consider the affidavit of Dr. Meltzer in granting summary judgment for Dr. Blake.
Rule 56(f), A.R.Civ.P., states:
Although Robert Oliver's attorney did not file an affidavit stating the facts he recited in his August 10 brief and in his response to Dr. Blake's August 10 motion and brief, those filings satisfied the requirements of Rule 56(f) because the attorney is an officer of the court and because of the following provisions of Rule 11, A.R. Civ.P.:
We do not mean to imply that substantive facts can be established simply by an attorney's signature on a brief. The matters represented here relate only to procedural matters not otherwise reflected in the recordi.e., the July 17 letter was simply mailed to the judge, not filed, and the August 3 hearing was not transcribed. Even aside from these after-the-fact attempts to reconstruct that plaintiff had established before or at least during the hearing that he could not then, but soon would be able to, "present by affidavit facts essential to justify his opposition," we hold that his brief filed on August 10 and his response and Dr. Meltzer's affidavit filed on August 14 constituted timely compliance with Rule 56(f), at least because the representations regarding attempts to procure the affidavit were undisputed, because the trial court did not immediately exclude the sworn affidavit or rule on the summary judgment motions, and because the summary judgment motions remained pending for another 20 months.
Because of our holding that Robert Oliver effectively complied with Rule 56(f), and because of the long delay between the submission of Dr. Meltzer's signed affidavit and the granting of summary judgment, Osborn v. Johns, 468 So. 2d 103 (Ala.1985), and Guess v. Snyder, 378 So. 2d 691, 693 (Ala. 1979), are distinguishable from this case.
For the foregoing reasons, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for Dr. Blake solely on the ground that Robert Oliver presented only an unexecuted affidavit at the August 3, 1984, hearing.
Dr. Meltzer's affidavit recited his credentials, which at least prima facie indicated his qualification as an expert in this matter, and his review of and findings from the documents and records, including a finding that Dr. Blake did no blood studies *1043 on Oliver. In its conclusion, the affidavit reads:
This affidavit presents a genuine issue as to material facts, and Dr. Blake was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(e), A.R.Civ.P. See, e.g., Timmerman v. Fitts, 514 So. 2d 907 (Ala.1987). Therefore the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for Dr. Blake on the first claim against him, which is, in effect, a claim under the Medical Liability Act.
We next turn to the claim against Dr. Blake under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. That section states:
The plaintiff cites Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S. Ct. 285, 50 L. Ed. 2d 251 (1976), as authority for his position that a § 1983 action can be maintained for the denial of adequate medical care to a prisoner. We agree. In West v. Atkins, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 2250, 101 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1988), the Supreme Court of the United States stated: "We now make explicit what was implicit in our holding in Estelle: Respondent, as a physician employed by North Carolina to provide medical services to state prison inmates, acted under color of state law for purposes of section 1983 when undertaking his duties in treating petitioner's injury." The Court held that "[s]uch conduct is fairly attributable to the State." Therefore, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on this claim, also.
We next turn to the plaintiff's claims of negligence and wantonness *1044 against the Cullman and Winston County Commissions and against the sheriffs of Cullman and Winston Counties. These claims were properly decided by summary judgment. A sheriff is not an employee of a county for purposes of imposing liability on the county under a theory of respondeat superior. A sheriff is an executive officer of the State of Alabama, and is immune from suit under Article I, § 14, Alabama Constitution of 1901, in the execution of the duties of his office, with certain exceptions. Parker v. Amerson, 519 So. 2d 442 (Ala.1987). None of the claims here stated fall within any of the exceptions. The negligent performance of a statutory duty does not operate to remove the § 14 shield of immunity. Gill v. Sewell, 356 So. 2d 1196, 1198 (Ala.1978). We also note that this Court in Parker specifically held that civil liability may not be imposed on a sheriff for the acts of a jailer appointed by the sheriff. Parker, at 443.
We next turn to the plaintiff's claims against defendants Cullman County Commission and the sheriff[2] of Cullman County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiff claims that the sheriff failed to properly execute his duties and that this failure led to Ollie's death; that the sheriff and the Cullman County Commission negligently and/or wantonly transferred Ollie from Cullman County to Winston County without legal authority or not in accordance with ordinary procedures and that this action proximately caused his death; and, that these defendants' actions in transferring Ollie violated his civil rights under color of state law and subject them to liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
On motion for summary judgment, the facts will be construed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Ryan v. Charles Townsend Ford, Inc., 409 So. 2d 784 (Ala.1981). The plaintiff asserts that the following facts, construed in the light most favorable to him, create a scintilla of evidence in support of his position.
First, the plaintiff alleges that Ollie's transfer by these defendants was only an attempt to move a "sick" prisoner so that they would not have to pay his health care costs. We have examined the record and we do not find a scintilla of evidence to support this contention. The mere fact that Ollie had been transferred to Lawrence County and then later transferred to Winston County is not a scintilla of evidence that these Cullman County defendants were trying to get rid of him for monetary reasons. The evidence is uncontradicted that there were outstanding warrants for Ollie in both Lawrence and Winston Counties and that his transfer took place under usual procedures.
Second, the plaintiff claims that Ollie contracted hepatitis from a tattoo he was given in the Cullman County jail. We do not find a scintilla of evidence that he received a tattoo while in the Cullman County jail or while he was in the custody of the Cullman County sheriff. The only direct testimony on this point is that Ollie did not have a tattoo when he left Cullman County to go to Winston County and that no one in the Cullman County jail had ever seen or heard of anyone giving or receiving tattoos there. The only evidence offered to show that Ollie got the tattoo in Cullman County was the testimony of Sheriff Townsend of Winston County that he had never seen, nor heard of, prisoners in Winston County giving or receiving tattoos. In addition, no evidence was presented to show that the tattoo caused the hepatitis. We hold that there was not a scintilla of evidence in support of the plaintiff's position.
Third, the plaintiff contends that Ollie was improperly transferred to Winston County, citing the testimony of Ed Townsend, a Winston County sheriff's deputy. But in his deposition, Townsend testified only that to his knowledge there was no solicitation for Ollie's transfer. The undisputed evidence is that there was an outstanding warrant for Ollie's arrest in Winston County and that when Cullman County *1045 officers discovered this fact they contacted Winston County authorities and delivered Ollie to them. One Cullman County deputy testified that Ollie was transferred in accordance with usual procedures. We hold that the statement of one Winston county deputy that he did not know a particular prisoner was being transferred is not sufficient to create a genuine issue as to any material fact in this case.
Fourth, the plaintiff contends that these defendants caused unnecessary delays in transporting Ollie to the hospital and that these delays proximately caused his death. The uncontradicted testimony was that Ollie was brought to Cullman County from Winston County after Dr. Blake recommended that he be put in the hospital. The testimony was that Ollie was not even taken into the Cullman County jail, but was transferred directly from a Winston County car to a Cullman County car and driven to Kilby State Prison Hospital. The uncontradicted medical testimony before the trial judge was that a delay of three to four hours in hospitalizing Ollie was inconsequential. We find no evidence in the record that Cullman County denied Ollie's civil rights by delaying his hospitalization.
Fifth, the plaintiff contends that evidence before the trial judge shows that Ollie was suffering from hepatitis before he left the Cullman County jail. The plaintiff apparently bases this contention on deposition testimony of Cullman County Deputy Sheriff Brian Bulger:
"Tell me how you made that determination....
"A. No.
"* * * *
The plaintiff has shown only that the officer could not prove Ollie did not have hepatitis. But this is not sufficient. No scintilla of evidence is offered to rebut the deputy's statement that Ollie did not have symptoms of hepatitis. Additionally, the plaintiff does not answer the testimony of employees of the Winston County sheriff's department that when Ollie arrived there from Cullman he did not appear to be sick. Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, we do not find a scintilla of evidence that Ollie's civil rights were denied in Cullman County. *1046 Summary judgment was therefore proper as to the plaintiff's § 1983 claims against the Cullman County defendants.
In summary, we do not find a scintilla of evidence in the record that either the Cullman County sheriff or the Cullman County Commission acted negligently or wantonly in transferring Ollie to Winston County; we do not find a scintilla of evidence that these defendants were negligent in their supervision of Ollie while he was in Cullman County; and we do not find a scintilla of evidence that Ollie's civil rights to proper medical care was denied by these defendants so as to subject them to liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The judgment of the trial court as to these two defendants is due to be affirmed.
We turn now to the plaintiff's claims against the Winston County Commission under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The parties spent much effort in their briefs arguing whether the trial judge entered a proper final judgment as to the Winston County Commission under the provisions of Rule 54(b), A.R.Civ.P. Although no proper Rule 54(b) order was entered in this case as to the Winston County Commission, after the summary judgment in its favor all other claims as to all other parties were eventually disposed of. Claims adjudicated in a previous non-final order become final, and therefore subject to appeal, at the time the last party or claim is disposed of. Morton v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 353 So. 2d 505 (Ala.1977). The appeal as to the Winston County Commission is properly before this Court.
In his complaint, the plaintiff stated the following:
We hold that the plaintiff presented no scintilla of evidence that the Winston County Commission violated the civil rights of Ollie Oliver so as to expose it to liability. The plaintiff strenuously argues that he has presented such a scintilla.
We hold that the summary judgment in favor of the Winston County Commission was proper, because no evidence was presented to show that any direct actions of the commission proximately resulted in harm to Oliver. The commission submitted the affidavit of Hollis Cagle, chairman of the commission, in support of its motion for *1047 summary judgment. That affidavit reads, in pertinent part:
No evidence was offered by the plaintiff to rebut this assertion. Once the movant has carried his burden of making a prima facie showing that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that he is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, the burden shifts to the non-moving party to show, by admissible evidence, the existence of a genuine issue of material fact. Horner v. First National Bank of Mobile, 473 So. 2d 1025, 1028 (Ala.1985). The plaintiff here showed only that the Winston County Commission funded the sheriff's department. No allegation is made, and no scintilla of evidence was presented to indicate, that the commission had any control over the operation of the department. As we have already stated elsewhere in this opinion, no cause of action against a county commission can be based on a respondeat superior theory that is based on actions of the county sheriff. See Part III; Parker v. Amerson, supra. The summary judgment in favor of the Winston County Commission on this claim is therefore due to be affirmed.
Last, we turn to the plaintiff's claims against Sheriff Elton Townsend under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and his claim against Aetna Casualty and Surety Company.[3] We note that there is some procedural confusion as to a party involved in this appeal. The original complaint named Aetna Life Insurance Company, as the issuer of a bond on Elton Townsend. When the plaintiff discovered that Aetna Life Insurance Company had not issued a bond on Townsend, the plaintiff amended the complaint to name as a defendant Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, which had issued such a bond. Aetna Life Insurance Company was dismissed. However, in the trial judge's order granting summary judgment for Townsend and Aetna he referred to Aetna Life Insurance Company. He corrected his error pursuant to Rule 60(a), A.R.Civ.P. The plaintiff makes strenuous arguments about the propriety of this change. We hold that the error was exactly the sort of clerical mistake that Rule 60(a) was intended to provide a remedy for. We do not find any merit in the plaintiff's argument that the correction was improper.
We nonetheless reverse the summary judgment as to Aetna and Sheriff Townsend. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, we find a scintilla of evidence from which a trier of fact could infer that Ollie was deprived of his civil rights and that the plaintiff could recover damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The record reveals that Virginia Dennis was an employee of the Winston County sheriff's department when Ollie was held there and that she was responsible for distributing medication to prisoners. In deposition, Dennis examined certain documents from the sheriff's office and testified that, according to those records, on several occasions Ollie had not been given the medication prescribed by Dr. Blake. Viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, it would appear that Ollie was to receive his medicine four times a day but was given it only once a day, if at all.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that denial of medical care will support a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983:
Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05, 97 S. Ct. 285, 291, 50 L. Ed. 2d 251 (1976). See also Ala.Code 1975, § 36-5-18; Dixon v. American Liberty Ins. Co., 332 So. 2d 719 (Ala. 1976).
We hold that the plaintiff has produced a scintilla of evidence that Ollie was not given his medication. The summary judgment granted in favor of Townsend and Aetna was, therefore, improper, and we reverse.
In summary, we hold that the trial judge properly granted summary judgment as to the claims against the Cullman County Commission, the Winston County Commission, and Cullman County Sheriff Wendell Roden. Summary judgment was also proper as to Sheriff Elton Townsend on the negligence and wantonness claims. However, we hold that the trial judge erred in granting summary judgment for Dr. Blake and for Sheriff Townsend and Aetna Casualty and Surety Company on the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim. The judgment is therefore affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C.J., and JONES, ALMON, SHORES, ADAMS, HOUSTON and STEAGALL, JJ., concur.
MADDOX, J., concurs in part, and dissents in part.
MADDOX, Justice (concurring in part; dissenting in part).
I concur in the opinion in all respects, except I cannot agree to reverse the summary judgment granted in favor of Dr. Blake, Case #85-1066.
The majority holds that the trial judge abused his discretion by refusing to allow the plaintiff to file a tardy affidavit in a medical malpractice case. Because the law states that a trial judge may consider a tardy affidavit when a proper Rule 56(f), Ala.R.Civ.P., request has been made, but that he is not required to do so, I must dissent. My reasons follow.
Dr. Blake moved for summary judgment on May 14, 1984, and filed a supporting affidavit with his motion, averring that he had exercised the same reasonable care, skill, and diligence that doctors in the same general neighborhood and in the national medical neighborhood would have exercised under the same conditions.
On August 3, 1984, the day the summary judgment motion was set for hearing, the plaintiff filed a motion in opposition to the summary judgment and attached the affidavit of Dr. Morton Meltzer in support of his motion. The supporting affidavit was not signed by Dr. Meltzer. On August 10, 1984, Dr. Blake filed a motion to strike the unsigned affidavit filed by plaintiff, and filed a brief in support of the motion. Plaintiff subsequently filed a properly executed affidavit on August 14, 1984, but the record fails to reflect that plaintiff, at any time before the hearing, asked the trial judge for a continuance in order to allow him to get a properly executed affidavit. In other words, plaintiff took no steps, as authorized by Rule 56(f), to preserve his legal rights. There is nothing in the record to show what, if anything, the plaintiff did between the date the motion for summary judgment was filedMay 14, 1984and the date of the hearingAugust 3, 1984. Because the action was in the nature of one for medical malpractice, the trial judge had a right to assume that plaintiff could produce an opposing affidavit at the time of the hearing, especially since medical testimony *1049 is necessary to prove medical malpractice.
While the trial judge could have considered the tardy affidavit if the plaintiff had submitted a proper Rule 56(f) request, the question is whether he erred by failing to consider the affidavit. I do not believe he erred. A properly executed affidavit was not filed until August 14, 1984, and the defendant doctor consistently insisted on his right to have his motion considered based upon the unsigned affidavit.
On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the Meltzer affidavit created a genuine issue of material fact as to his claims against Dr. Blake. Of course, the issue is whether the affidavit was properly before the trial judge at the time the motion was submitted. The law explicitly states that a trial court can consider only material that is before it at the time of the submission of the motion. In Osborn v. Johns, 468 So. 2d 103 (Ala.1985), Mr. Justice Beatty, writing for the Court, in a factual setting similar to the one presented here, opined:
Justice Bloodworth, writing for the Court in Guess v. Snyder, 378 So. 2d 691, 693 (Ala. 1979), which is cited in Osborn, considered a case with facts which are strikingly similar, in that a sworn affidavit was not filed until after the motion for summary judgment had been heard and submitted. There, the Court, with Torbert, C.J., Faulkner, Almon, and Embry, JJ., concurring, stated:
378 So. 2d  at 692-93.
In his order in this case, the trial judge stated that, although he reviewed the unsigned affidavit of Dr. Meltzer, he did not consider it in making his ruling:
Professor Moore points out the appropriate procedures in cases when affidavits are unavailable.
6 Moore's Federal Practice, part 2, para. 56.24, at 1430-33.
I cannot find that the trial judge abused his discretion by refusing to consider the unexecuted affidavit. This is a medical malpractice action, and plaintiff should have known from the time the action was filed that he would have to present a medical expert's testimony that the defendant doctor was negligent. The record affirmatively shows that plaintiff's counsel had almost three months after Dr. Blake's motion for summary judgment was filed to obtain some evidence that what Dr. Blake did was negligent. He did not produce any evidence to this effect at the time the motion was submitted (the date the trial judge held the hearing). This record does not show why plaintiff waited until after the hearing on the motion to get a signed affidavit.
I do not believe that the trial judge's two year delay in ruling changes the rule in this case. Plaintiff filed multiple claims, involving multiple parties in this case, and a prompt ruling on the defendant's motion for summary judgment would not have been final (and therefore appealable), unless of course, the trial judge gave a Rule 54(b) certification of finality. If the trial judge had considered the tardy affidavit and denied the defendant doctor's motion for summary judgment, that ruling would not have been appealable either. In that event, the defendant doctor, in order to obtain a review by this Court, would have had to request permission to appeal under Rule 5(a), Ala.R.App.P.
The law regarding summary judgment and the requirements of supporting and opposing affidavits is clear. Rule 56(e), A.R.Civ.P. provides, as follows:
In Welch v. Houston County Hospital Board, 502 So. 2d 340 (Ala.1987), this Court discussed the sufficiency of evidence under Rule 56(e):
502 So. 2d  at 342. (Emphasis in Welch.)
Dr. Blake's affidavit in this case made a prima facie showing that he was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. The burden then shifted to the plaintiff, and he, by presenting only an unexecuted affidavit, failed to rebut Dr. Blake's prima facie showing. Rule 56(e), Ala.R.Civ.P. Expert medical testimony is required to establish what is and what is not proper medical treatment and procedure. Gilbert v. Campbell, 440 So. 2d 1048, 1049 (Ala.1983). No expert medical testimony existed in support of the plaintiff's position at the time the motion was submitted. The trial judge specifically held that this case did not fall under any of the exceptions to this rule, and I agree. See Holt v. Godsil, 447 So. 2d 191, 192 (Ala.1984).
If a proper Rule 56(f) request had been made, the trial judge, in the exercise of his *1052 sound discretion, could have chosen to refuse the application for judgment or could have ordered a continuance, but the law, until today, did not require him to do so. Rule 56(f) Ala.R.Civ.P. provides the appropriate method for a party in this situation.
The plaintiff in this case did not present any affidavits that stated reasons for not presenting Dr. Meltzer's signed affidavit. The majority holds that the plaintiff "effectively complied" with Rule 56(f); I do not agree.
In Crowder v. Correctional Medical Systems, 497 So. 2d 486, 489 (Ala.1986), this Court stated:
In this case, there is nothing in the record to show that a proper request was made of the trial judge pursuant to the provisions of Rule 56(f), therefore, I would uphold the trial judge's grant of summary judgment and refusal to accept the tardy affidavit.
[1]  We note that various spellings for this person's first name are used throughout the record in this case. "Ollie" is the spelling he used on a handwritten note to an employee of the Winston County jail, and it is therefore the one we adopt for this opinion.
[2]  The complaint originally named sheriff Buell R. Graves of Cullman County, but sheriff G. Wendell Roden was substituted by amendment on October 14, 1982.
[3]  Regarding the claim against Aetna, see Ala. Code 1975, § 36-5-18, and Dixon v. American Liberty Ins. Co., 332 So. 2d 719 (Ala.1976).