Opinion ID: 1722350
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Legislature's Prospective Reopening of Final Judgments

Text: Although retroactive application of § 26-17A-1 to reopen final judgments would violate the separation-of-powers principle by encroaching on the core judicial power, to the extent that § 26-17A-1 is applied only prospectively to judgments that have become final since that section was enacted there is no violation of the separation-of-powers principle. The Supreme Court has stated, Congress could undoubtedly enact prospective legislation permitting, or indeed requiring, this Court to make equitable exceptions to an otherwise applicable rule of finality, just as district courts do pursuant to Rule 60(b). Plaut, 514 U.S. at 237, 115 S.Ct. 1447 (emphasis original). Accord Sanders, 43 Ala. at 180 (discussing the separation-of-powers principle and stating, `[T]o declare what the law is, or has been, is a judicial power; to declare what the law shall be, is legislative.' ) (quoting Thomas M. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 91-95 (1868)). Similarly, the Alabama Legislature may amend Rule 60(b), Ala. R. Civ. P., but it may not do so in a manner that impinges on the judicial power by retroactively changing the laws that were incorporated into the judgment when it became final. In Board of Education of Choctaw County v. Kennedy, 256 Ala. 478, 482, 55 So.2d 511, 514 (1951), this Court stated: `It is the duty of the court to construe a statute so as to make it harmonize with the constitution if this can be done without doing violence to the terms of the statute and the ordinary canons of construction.' (Quoting Almon v. Morgan County, 245 Ala. 241, 246, 16 So.2d 511, 516 (1944)). This Court has long recognized: `It may be laid down as a fundamental rule for the construction of statutes that they will be considered to have prospective operation only, unless a legislative intent to the contrary is expressed or is necessarily to be implied from the language used or the particular circumstances; especially where to construe the act as retrospective in its operation would render it obnoxious to some constitutional provision, though the fact that the retrospective operation would not be unconstitutional, does not require the act to be construed as restrospective [sic].' Greenwood v. Trigg, Dobbs & Co., 143 Ala. 617, 619, 39 So. 361, 361 (1905) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). Accord In re Moneys Deposited in and Now Under the Control of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, 243 F.2d 443, 448 (3d Cir.1957) ([A] prospective construction is the more appropriate where as here it will eliminate a serious question of constitutional validity which would arise if the statute were to be given retroactive effect.); Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction, § 41.04 (5th ed. 1991) (The principal explanation offered by the courts is that the statute must be construed to sustain its constitutionality and thus prospective operation will be presumed where a retroactive operation would produce invalidity.). Thus, if § 26-17A-1 can reasonably be construed to operate prospectively, a holding of constitutional infirmity can be avoided. The statutes struck down in Plaut and in Sanders expressly required retroactive operation. [14] In contrast, the act codified at § 26-17A-1 does not expressly require retroactive operation, but instead provides: This act shall become effective immediately upon its passage and approval by the Governor, or upon its otherwise becoming a law. Ala. Acts 1994, Act No. 94-633, § 4. Accordingly, we construe § 26-17A-1 to eliminate the reasonable time limitations period of Rule 60(b)(6) only for those judgments of paternity that become final on or after April 26, 1994, when that section became law.