Opinion ID: 1088837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Distinguishing Alfa v. Jackson

Text: Based on the foregoing, I believe Jackson was wrongly decided and that it does not provide a valid basis for the result reached by the main opinion in the present case. Even if Jackson is not to be overruled, however, that case may be distinguished from the present case. Early on in Jackson, after the plaintiff made an oral motion to dismiss the claims against Alfa's agent, Rickey English, Alfa moved to amend its answer to add this defense: `The dismissal with prejudice of all claims against Rickey English acts as an adjudication of all claims against Alfa based upon respondeat superior and such claims are thereby barred.' The trial court denied Alfa leave to add that defense and allowed the claims against Alfa to proceed to trial. At the close of all the evidence, Alfa moved for a [judgment as a matter of law]. 906 So.2d at 148. One of the grounds upon which Alfa based its motion for a judgment as a matter of law was that the dismissal with prejudice of the claims against English required the dismissal of the claims against Alfa. Id. The trial court denied Alfa's motion for a judgment as a matter of law. Like the plaintiff in Jackson, the plaintiff in the present case made it clear early on that he was not pursuing any claims against H&S's agents. As already noted, the trial court's pretrial order describes the only parties remaining before trial as being McDonald and H&S, and the subsequent jury-charge conference clearly reflected that McDonald had pursued no claims against H&S's agents. Importantly, however, unlike the defendant in Jackson, H&S did not argue in its motion for a judgment as a matter of law (or at any other time during the trial) that McDonald could not obtain a judgment against it after McDonald had decided not to pursue his claims against H&S's agents. H&S made that argument for the first time in its postjudgment motion, after the parties had invested considerable time and financial resources in actually trying the case on the theory that H&S was liable for the actions taken by its agents; after the jury was charged on that theory and the case was submitted to the jury as to H&S alone; and after the jury returned a verdict that comported with the law on which it was charged. Given that McDonald had a right to pursue his claims against H&S for the actions of its agents, regardless of whether he also sued the agents individually, and in light of H&S's failure to raise in its motion for a judgment as a matter of law the defense that this Court created in Jackson, the trial court rightly could have concluded that H&S waived, or should be estopped from asserting, that defense.