Opinion ID: 1852391
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Brackin's Claims Against the Trimmier Law Firm

Text: Brackin contends that the trial court erred by striking, on its own motion, her second amended complaint. On September 14, 2001, Brackin amended her complaint to name the Trimmier Law Firm as a party and to assert a single cause of action against the Trimmier Law Firm  a claim brought pursuant to § 6-5-570 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, the Legal Services Liability Act. In October 2001, the Trimmier Law Firm filed its answer to the amended complaint. On February 22, 2002, the trial court conducted a pretrial conference; Brackin's counsel was instructed to finalize a pretrial order and to submit it within 15 days. The pretrial order was finalized and filed with the trial court on March 14, 2002. In this order, the trial court scheduled this matter for trial on May 6; in the order, the trial court instructed the parties that no further pleadings, amendments or motions will be filed without leave of the Court. On March 1, 2002, the Trimmier Law Firm filed a motion for leave to amend its answer, asserting the affirmative defenses of qualified and absolute privilege and qualified and absolute immunity. Over the next several days, Fields, Rutledge, the ACUL, and FSCU sought leave to file amended answers to the complaint, attempting to assert the affirmative defense of absolute privilege. All the defendants then filed motions for a summary judgment and supporting briefs. On March 12, Brackin opposed the defendants' motions to amend their answers to the complaint, arguing that the defendants had not asserted the affirmative defenses they were seeking to assert within the time allowed by the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedures or within the time allowed by the pretrial order. [33] On the same date that Brackin's counsel filed the completed pretrial order, Brackin also filed her second amended complaint. [34] She did not obtain leave of the trial court for that amendment. In her second amended complaint, Brackin alleged negligence and defamation against the Trimmier Law Firm. Brackin asserted that, although not specifically pleaded in her first amended complaint, those claims were implicitly pleaded in that complaint because she had included language in the first amended complaint that adopted and realleged each and every allegation stated in the original complaint. However, in her second amended complaint, Brackin asserted that she was now explicitly stating those causes of action in order to avoid any confusion regarding the claims she was asserting against the Trimmier Law Firm. Later that same day, the trial court issued an order, denying [t]he defendants' respective motions for leave to amend their answers. The trial court noted in its order that said motions were filed after Judge Brown pre-tried this case, and the Defendants did not obtain additional time to file amended answers. The Court is of the opinion that to allow such amendments would be unduly prejudicial to the Plaintiff. Additionally, in that order, and on its own motion, the trial court disallowed Brackin's second amended complaint. [35] The trial court again noted that during the pretrial conference the Plaintiff made no request to reserve time for further amending her complaint. Brackin asserts that the trial court erred in ruling that she had not alleged a claim of defamation or negligence against the Trimmier Law Firm in her first amended complaint. Brackin also alleges that the trial court erred in striking her second amended complaint to more particularly plead her claims of defamation and negligence against the Trimmier Law Firm. We affirm the judgment of the trial court on these issues. First, we need do nothing more than read the amended complaint to conclude that Brackin did not allege defamation and negligence against the Trimmier Law Firm in her first amended complaint. That complaint contains one count  count five  that specifically identifies the claim asserted therein as being brought pursuant to the Legal Services Liability Act. Brackin, as the plaintiff in this action, is in charge of and is responsible for the claims she asserts. In her first amended complaint, she specifically elected to assert a cause of action against the Trimmier Law Firm brought pursuant to the Legal Services Liability Act. She also elected not to assert any other causes of action at that time. We find no error in the trial court's construction of Brackin's first amended complaint. Second, Rule 15(a), Ala. R. Civ. P., which provides when a pleading may be amended, states, in relevant part: (a) Amendments. Unless a court has ordered otherwise, a party may amend a pleading without leave of court, but subject to disallowance on the court's own motion or a motion to strike of an adverse party, at any time more than forty-two (42) days before the first setting of the case for trial, and such an amendment shall be freely allowed when justice so requires. Thereafter, a party may amend a pleading only by leave of court, and leave shall be given only upon a showing of good cause. Under Alabama law, whether to allow an amendment to a pleading is a matter within the discretion of the trial court. Rampey v. Novartis Consumer Health, Inc., 867 So.2d 1079 (Ala.2003). Thus, we review the trial court's disallowance of Brackin's second amended complaint only to determine if the trial court exceeded its discretion in disallowing it. In Government Street Lumber Co. v. AmSouth Bank, N.A., 553 So.2d 68 (Ala.1989), the plaintiffs sought to amend their complaint after the defendant filed its motion for a summary judgment. The trial court disallowed the amended complaint. On appeal, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling, stating: `Under Rule 15, the trial judges must be given discretion to allow or refuse amendments. This Court has held that amendments are to be freely allowed and that their refusal must be based on a valid ground. Liberality of amendment does not include a situation where the trial on the issues will be unduly delayed or the opposing party unduly prejudiced.' Government Street Lumber Co., 553 So.2d at 70 (quoting Alabama Farm Bureau Mut. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Guthrie, 338 So.2d 1276, 1279 (Ala.1976)). In this case, Brackin sought to amend her complaint for the second time (1) some two years after she originally filed her lawsuit; (2) after the trial court's deadline for the filing of pleadings had passed and after Brackin had successfully blocked the defendants from amending their answers on that basis; (3) six weeks before the case was to be tried; [36] and (4) after the defendants had already submitted their motions seeking a summary judgment and briefs in support of those motions. We cannot find that in disallowing this second amended complaint the trial court exceeded its discretion. Brackin next argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion to continue the hearing on the summary-judgment motions because discovery as to the Trimmier Law Firm was incomplete and ongoing. We find that in so ruling the trial court did not err or exceed its discretion. In Reeves v. Porter, 521 So.2d 963, 965 (Ala.1988), this Court wrote: The mere pendency of discovery does not bar summary judgment. If the trial court from the evidence before it, or the appellate court from the record, can ascertain that the matter subject to production was crucial to the non-moving party's case or that the answers to the interrogatories were crucial to the non-moving party's case, then it is error for the trial court to grant summary judgment before the items have been produced or the answers given. However, the burden of showing that these items are crucial is upon the non-moving party. He can do so by complying with Rule 56(f), Ala. R. Civ. P.... However, when no such crucial evidence would be supplied by the production or by the answers to the interrogatories, it is not error for the trial court to grant summary judgment with discovery pending. (Citations omitted.) The only claim allowed by the trial court against the Trimmier Law Firm was the alleged violation of the Legal Services Liability Act. An attorney-client relationship is an essential element of a claim under the Legal Services Liability Act, and in support of its motion for a summary judgment, the Trimmier Law Firm submitted undisputed evidence that it had never entered into an attorney-client relationship with Brackin. See Sessions v. Espy, 854 So.2d 515 (Ala.2002) (recognizing that claims against a lawyer that are alleged to have arisen out of the attorney-client relationship are all subsumed under the Alabama Legal Services Liability Act); Peterson v. Anderson, 719 So.2d 216 (Ala.Civ.App.1997) (because the plaintiffs were not clients of the testator's attorney, the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue an action against the attorney under the Alabama Legal Services Liability Act). Therefore, the trial court had before it ample evidence to properly dispose of Brackin's claim on the Trimmier Law Firm's motion for a summary judgment; no amount of discovery would have supported a different result. The trial court did not err in refusing to continue the hearing on the summary-judgment motions in order to allow Brackin to complete discovery related to her pending claim against the Trimmier Law Firm.