Opinion ID: 1671088
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Proffered Second Amendment

Text: Mississippi Valley contends that it had an automatic right to amend its complaint a second time, and it asks this Court either to reverse Judge Crowson's order denying the second amendment or, through a writ of mandamus, to compel Judge Crowson to allow the second amendment. Mississippi Valley relies primarily upon Ala.R.Civ.P. 15 and 78 and United Handicapped Industries of America v. National Bank of Commerce, 386 So.2d 437 (Ala.Civ.App.1980). We note that this present case is somewhat different from the cases relied upon by Mississippi Valley. Mississippi Valley did have the right to amend its complaint after a dismissal. Judge Crowson's original order specifically instructed Mississippi Valley to amend its complaint to show a viable cause of action under an agency theory and to allege dates, in order for the Court to be able to ascertain whether Plaintiff's action is time-barred or not. So, the actual issue confronting this Court can be expressed in two questions: First, does the law give a plaintiff successive automatic rights to amend a complaint, without limitation? Second, if so, is Mississippi Valley's automatic right to amend affected by the instructions expressed in Judge Crowson's original order of dismissal? Dismissal of an action is a drastic remedy. Societe Internationale Pour Participations Industrielles et Commerciales, S.A. v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 78 S.Ct. 1087, 2 L.Ed.2d 1255 (1958). Nevertheless, trial courts must strive to bring finality to judgments. This Court has stated: Our society benefits from a judicial system that recognizes and respects the finality and definiteness of a trial court's `final judgment' deciding what was previously disputed and uncertain. If the rights of litigants were allowed to remain unsettled indefinitely, chaos would surely result. Helms v. Helms' Kennels, Inc., 646 So.2d 1343, 1347 (Ala.1994). The Court in Helms went on to quote from a federal case: Very high among the interests in our jurisprudential system is that of finality of judgments. It has become almost a judicial commonplace to say that litigation must end somewhere, and we reiterate our firm belief that courts should not encourage the reopening of final judgments or casually permit the relitigation of litigated issues out of a friendliness to claims of unfortunate failures to put in one's best case. Id., quoting United States v. Cirami, 563 F.2d 26, 33 (2d Cir.1977). Given those principles stated in Helms, this Court does not interpret the Rules of Civil Procedure to grant litigants an infinite succession of automatic rights to amend pleadings after successive dismissals. A proper analysis of this case requires a scrutiny of the exercise of Judge Crowson's discretion. United Handicapped Industries, supra . In reviewing the exercise of his discretion, this Court must contemplate the policy interests favoring the finality of judgments. Johnston v. Bridges, 288 Ala. 156, 258 So.2d 866 (1972). The difference between this case and the cases cited by Mississippi Valley is significant. After all, Mississippi Valley acknowledges in its brief that the right to amend expressed both in Ala.R.Civ.P. 15 and in Ala.R.Civ.P. 78 is conditioned by the language [u]nless a court has ordered otherwise. Mississippi Valley urges a construction of that language that would give the trial court only two choices: either, by silence, to allow an amendment, or, by express direction, specifically to deny an amendment. This Court cannot accept that construction. Trial courts have the inherent power to dismiss cases under certain circumstances. Link v. Wabash R.R., 370 U.S. 626, 82 S.Ct. 1386, 8 L.Ed.2d 734 (1962). Ala.R.Civ.P. 41(b), for example, authorizes a court to dismiss an action with prejudice whenever a plaintiff fails to comply with an order of the court. Furthermore, deeply rooted in the common law is the court's power to manage its affairs in order to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases. Iverson v. Xpert Tune, Inc., 553 So.2d 82, 87 (Ala.1989). Because the Rules of Civil Procedure clearly give a trial court the power to prohibit an amendment after a dismissal if it orders otherwise (see Rule 78) and because the trial court has inherent powers to make orders to facilitate the orderly functioning of the judicial system, a trial court clearly has the authority to fashion some remedy that falls between the extremes of granting an automatic right to amend, by its silence, or prohibiting an amendment outright. The trial court can make the right to amend after dismissal subject to certain narrow conditions. This Court regards communication between the trial court and counsel to be of great value in the litigation process, and clearly within the inherent power of the trial court. Trial courts not only should be permitted, but should be encouraged, to point out the legal deficiencies in pleadings, in order to promote the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of [the] action. Ala. R.Civ.P. 1(c). This is precisely what Judge Crowson did. Rather than prohibit an amendment to the complaint, in his original order of dismissal Judge Crowson granted the plaintiff the right to amend if the plaintiff met certain conditions. That is, the plaintiff was granted the right to amend in order to show a viable cause of action under an agency theory. So, the question becomes whether the plaintiff abided by the court's order by showing, in its amendment to the complaint, a viable cause of action under an agency theory. The resolution of this question is the key to determining whether Judge Crowson abused his discretion in refusing the second amendment to the complaint. Not only did Mississippi Valley's First Amendment to the Complaint fail to set forth such a viable cause of action; even its proffered Second Amendment to Complaint failed to do so. That second amendment would have incorporated by reference all of the factual allegations of the original complaint and the first amendment to the complaint, with the exception of a paragraph that was reworded to aver that Mississippi Valley first learned in 1990 of Hooper's alleged omissions. The first amendment to the complaint expressly omitted any cause of action for `any legal service.' Mississippi Valley's attorney, in his memorandum supporting the motion for reconsideration, conceded that neither the first amendment to [the] complaint nor the second amendment to [the] complaint attempts to state any claim [based on] fraud [or based on Hooper's providing] legal services. In its brief filed in this Court, Mississippi Valley acknowledges that it chose to drop the fraud claims. It further acknowledges that its claims alleging legal malpractice would be controlled by the [ALSLA] statute of limitations. Thus, the only conceivable cause of action left in the pleadings, according to Mississippi Valley, would have been based on Hooper's non-attorney role as the agent of Mississippi Valley. Mississippi Valley is not correct, however, when it asserts that its complaint was dismissed solely because of the statute of limitations. Instead, the trial court clearly indicated in its original dismissal order that, as to the non-lawyer claims, plaintiff must show the duty owed in each count and the breach of such duty, bearing in mind that such causes cannot be complained of which require legal expertise. In other words, the trial court found that the plaintiff had failed to allege any duty, other than Hooper's duty as a licensed, practicing attorney, to support any other cause of action. Thus, in order to reverse the order of the trial court, this Court would have to identify some duty of an independent, nonlawyer title insurance agent that Hooper was alleged to have breached. The only act or omission alleged involved Hooper's alleged reliance on a faulty title opinion. It is well settled that a nonlawyer's rendering a title opinion regarding real property amounts to the unauthorized practice of law. Upton v. Mississippi Valley Title Insurance Co., 469 So.2d 548, 556 (Ala.1985). As Justice Jones noted in his concurring opinion in Land Title Co. of Alabama v. State ex rel. Porter, 292 Ala. 691, 703, 299 So.2d 289, 299 (1974), an expression of opinion as to title, if not based upon an independent opinion of an attorney duly authorized to practice law in this state... [constitutes the] unauthorized practice of law. Justice Jones went on to say that the rule allowing only duly authorized practicing lawyers to give opinions as to title relates to the public interest and is based on the fact that issuing such opinions requires legal expertise ... [that] could hardly be relegated to the perfunctory or the routine. 292 Ala. at 703, 299 So.2d at 300. If a nonlawyer title insurance agent attempts to give advice concerning the effect or manner of taking title to real estate, he or she engages in an activity prohibited by the statute governing the practice of law. Coffee County Abstract & Title Co. v. State ex rel. Norwood, 445 So.2d 852 (Ala.1983). Yet, the plaintiff in this case alleges only that Hooper breached some duty as an agent because, the plaintiff says, he relied upon a faulty title opinion when he issued title insurance. The plaintiff admits that, for it to have a cause of action, Hooper's duties as the title insurance agent must be divorced from Hooper's duty as an attorney. The allegations stated by the plaintiff, however, seek to impress upon title insurance agents the duty to look behind the title opinion rendered by the attorney, to ensure that the attorney's opinion is correct. This Court, however, has studiously avoided placing on title companies a duty that would require them to engage in the unauthorized practice of law. Lawyers Title Ins. Corp. v. Vella, 570 So.2d 578 (Ala. 1990). [6] If the title insurance agent were required to undertake to render an opinion regarding title to the property separate and apart from the opinion rendered by the lawyer, the title company would be guilty of engaging in the unauthorized practice of law and the public interest safeguarded by the regulations imposed upon the legal profession would be circumvented. To impose such a duty would place an undue burden on title insurance companies.... Upton at 557. Because it would clearly violate both the law and public policy to require the nonlawyer agent to issue a title opinion, the parties could not create such a duty by contract, in spite of Mississippi Valley's assertions to the contrary. Existing Alabama law does not recognize such a duty, nor will this Court create one in this case. The plaintiff, in spite of the trial court's order, did not allege any other duty that it says Hooper breached. In the original complaint and in the amendment, the plaintiff alleged no duty separate and apart from Hooper's duty as a legal service provider. Because Judge Crowson's original order of dismissal set out conditions regarding the amendment to the complaint and the plaintiff did not comply with those conditions, Judge Crowson did not abuse his discretion in denying a second amendment that also failed to state a cause of action. Had Judge Crowson allowed the second amendment, it would have been subject to yet another order of dismissal. So, even if, as the plaintiff asserts, Judge Crowson erred by denying the second amendment, the error would, at most, be error without injury (see Ala.R.App.P. 45) or harmless error (see Ala.R.Civ.P. 61).