Opinion ID: 1093839
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: reformation of pleadings

Text: When a case is transferred from circuit court to chancery court, Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-39 (1972) requires the complaining party to thereafter file amended pleadings within 30 days with the defendant being required to plead within 30 days thereafter unless the time for such shall be restricted or extended by the court. Appellant argues that this Court should follow Warren v. Smith-Vaniz, 382 So.2d 1088 (Miss. 1980), where this Court stated that in the event a matter is transferred from circuit to chancery court, the statutory requirements are mandatory and if the pleadings are not reformed within thirty (30) days, the suit should be dismissed with prejudice. Appellant admits that the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure had been effective for one month at the time the matter was originally filed, but maintains that Smith-Vaniz is still controlling so that the appellee's failure to reform his pleadings requires dismissal with prejudice. Appellee contends that Smith-Vaniz is no longer good law after Commercial National Bank v. Fleetwood Homes, 398 So.2d 659 (Miss. 1981), in which the Court declined to follow what it termed dictum in Warren that the case should be dismissed with prejudice, but instead ordered that the case should be dismissed without prejudice. In Central Grain and Supply Co. v. Jesco, 410 So.2d 879 (Miss. 1982), this Court, per Justice Walker, held that while the trial court should have dismissed the case for non-compliance with § 11-1-39, reversal was not required because the appellant suffered no prejudice in the course of the trial and no good purpose would be served by requiring the parties to undergo another extensive trial. Id. at 881. We find the appellant's first assignment of error to be without merit, in view of the fact that subsequent cases have rejected the dictum in Warren v. Smith-Vaniz . We rule that, although dismissal without prejudice may have been warranted under Fleetwood Homes, reversal is not required in this case since, as in Central Grain & Supply, no prejudice was shown to have been suffered by appellant. Therefore, this assignment of error is rejected.