Court Opinion

ID: 9688271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:42:11.408441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:49.269494
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice
(dissenting).
What is 'frequently referred to as “the lazy lawyer's act” is now § 372(1), reenacted by the legislature on June 8, 1943. Acts 1943, p. 105, Code 1940, Title 7, § 372(1). This act if a valid exercise of legislative power relieves the parties in equity cases from making any objection to any testimony or evidence and directs the court what it must do in considering such cases. The title of said act is, “To regulate the practice in equity cases the matter of objections to and consideration of testimony and evidence.” Its prescriptions are:
“In the trial of equity cases in the circuit court, or other court of competent jurisdiction in this state it shall not be required or necessary that objection be *581made to any testimony or evidence which may he offered by either party, and on the consideration of such cases the court shall consider only such testimony and evidence as is relevant, material, competent and legal and shall not consider any testimony or evidence which is irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent or illegal, whether objection shall have been made thereto or not, and whether such testimony be brought out on direct or cross or re-direct examination, or is hearsay. On appeal the supreme court shall consider only such testimony as is relevant, material, competent and legal and neither court shall be required to point out what testimony or evidence should be excluded or not considered. Either party, on submission, shall have the privilege of calling attenton to any testimony or evidence which is deemed objectionable. If specific objection be made to any evidence and a ruling made thereon by the trial court, this statute shall not apply to such evidence.” [Italics supplied.]
The practice of the courts touching the ■question of objections to evidence was long ago settled. In Sanders v. Knox, 57 Ala. 80, 83, this court speaking through Bricked, C. J., observed:
“The objection to the introduction of the mortgage was general and undefined, ‘because the same was illegal, irrelevant and incompetent.’ On proper evidence of execution, the mortgage was certainly legal, relevant, and competent. It was the evidence of the title of the plaintiffs to the cotton, ‘for the conversion of which a recovery was claimed. If the want of proper evidence of execution had been particularized as an objection the plaintiffs apprised of it, would have had the opportunity of removing the objection by supplying the evidence. A general objection of this character cannot be sustained, unless the evidence is manifestly illegal and irrelevant, and apparently incapable of being rendered admissible in connection with other evidence. Such objections may mislead the party against whom they are taken, and the court, and lead to the practice of making objections in this court, which if made in the primary court would have been obviated. We concur with what was said by Collier, C. J., in Wallis v. Rhea & Ross, 10 Ala. [451], 453: ‘Undefined objections should never be made to the admission of evidence; and it may be laid down generally, that if the party making them will not particularize, the court is not bound to cast about for the grounds upon which in the mind of counsel they are rested, but may properly disregard them.’ ”
As a matter of consistent judicial policy this Court applied the same rule to equity cases. The holding was that in chancery objections to the admissibility of evidence ought to be reduced to writing and a reference to them should be incorporated in the note of submission or they should otherwise be called directly to the chancellor’s attention, and if this is not done and the chancellor fails to notice them, the presumption is indulged that they are waived. Seals v. Robinson & Co., 75 Ala. 363.
This policy was reaffirmed in Rice & Wilson v. Tobias, 89 Ala. ,214, 7 So. 765, wherein the Court held: “Objections to evidence in a chancery case, which were not raised in the court below, can not avail in this court, either for the purpose of putting the lower court in error in admitting the evidence, or having it excluded by this court in passing on the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the decree.” This judicial policy prevailed in Alabama until the enactment of the “lazy lawyer” statute, quoted at the head of this opinion.
The statute quoted was first enacted in 1923, Acts 1923, p. 631, § 1, and was embodied in the Code of 1923 as § 6565, but was omitted by the Code Commission from the Code of 1940, no doubt because on its face it is an unwarranted invasion of the powers of the judiciary in contravention of Sections 42 and 43 of the Constitution of 1901. The last mentioned section of the Constitution provides:
“In the government of this state, except in the instances in this Constitution hereinafter expressly directed or permitted, the legislative department shall never exercise *582the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.” Skinner’s Const.,. Art. Ill, § 43, page 242.
In Montgomery v. State, 231 Ala. 1, 163 So. 365, 367, 101 A.L.R. 1394, it was said: “From this provision of our organic law, it is clear and manifest that the powers of government are distributed to three departments, each of which is confined to a separate body of magistracy (the legislative, the executive, and the judicial), and that each of these departments is emphatically forbidden to exercise any of the powers belonging to either of the others, )unless expressly directed or permitted by the constitution.’ ”
In Hackett v. Cash, 196 Ala. 403, 72 So. 52, 53, this court refused to 'follow the prescription of the Act of 1915, p. 824, purporting to regulate appeals from judgments of the circuit court without a jury, prescribing that this court on appeal must consider cases tried by a court without a jury without any presumption in favor of the trial court, and without excepting trials where testimony was given ore tenus, with the following observations :
“ * * * The Legislature evidently intended, by this act of 1915, to provide for trials without a jury in all courts unless it was demanded, and to do away with the necessity of excepting to the finding or conclusion upon the facts in order to review the same in the appellate court, but did not mean to override a long line of decisions of this court as to what weight would or would not 'be accorded the conclusion of the trial court upon the facts. Moreover, if it was otherwise intended, it would be an invasion of the judiciary to require this court to disregard the finding' of the trial court upon facts when said trial court had a better opportunity to pass upon and consider the evidence than the appellate court.”
In Carleton & Slade v. Goodwin’s Executor, 41 Ala. 153, this court repudiated and held the act of February 18, 1867, entitled “An Act to prevent undecided appeals to the supreme court from losing their force, by discontinuance or otherwise, unless the appellant move for á discontinuance after legal cause therefor has occurred,” on the ground that said act was an invasion of the judiciary and violated the constitution of that date.
In Hodge v. Joy, 207 Ala. 198, 92 So. 171, this court followed Hackett v. Cash, supra, holding that the prescription of the statute did not apply to trials before a court without a jury in which the evidence was given ore tenus. The same application is made in Mitchell v. Walker, 235 Ala. 458, 179 So. 633, and in the following cases: Ruf v. Davis, 232 Ala. 477, 168 So. 674; Ezzell v. First Nat’l Bank of Russellville, 232 Ala. 161, 167 So, 546, and a long line of other cases.
• On the strength and under the provisions of said act, now § 372(1), Title 7, Code of 1940, my brother, Mr. Justice LAWSON, proposes to overrule the holding of the court in Warner v. Warner, 248 Ala. 566, 28 So.2d 701, insofar as it holds that said act does not apply to the competency of witnesses; and the decision in Crum v. Crum, Ala. Sup., 43 So. 392,1 written by Mr. Justice Stakely following the Warner Case and the later case written by Mr. Justice Lawson, Adams v. Griffin, Ala.Sup., 45 So.2d 22.2 The basis for this drastic step is that there is no distinction between “incompetent testimony or evidence” and “the competency or incompetency of a witness,” and that the prescription of said act applies to both and, therefore, relieves the parties from making objection to the incompetency of witnesses under § 433, Title 7, Code of 1940. The effect of such holding is to broaden and extend the scope of said act 'beyond the terms expressed therein, — in legal effect amending it by judicial process, which itself offends the Constitution. State ex rel. Day v. Bowles, 217 Ala. 458, 116 So. 662. The expressed tendency of our decisions has been to re*583strict the application of said statute to its terms as was done in Warner v. Warner, supra, and the other cases following that decision.
Hill v. Hill, 216 Ala. 435, 113 So. 306, 307, involved a controversy between the personal representative of M. A. Hill, deceased, and the heirs at law of W. C. Hill, deceased (appellees.) The estate consisted in a large part of lands. The widow of M. A. Hill, deceased, joined his heirs at law in the conveyance of a parcel of land to one Jennings who executed his several promissory notes for deferred installments of the purchase money payable to M. A. Hill. To arrange this purchase money indebtedness, Jennings secured a loan from the Federal Land Bank and the money was placed with Cather, the agent of the bank, to be delivered to M. A. Hill when the notes should be delivered up and the mortgage deed of trust executed by Jennings to M. A. Hill to be satisfied. Mrs. Hill died after which, everything else being arranged, Cather was confronted by the adversary claims of appellant as administratrix on the one hand and appellees as heirs of W. C. Hill on the other. The court observed: “It is conceded on all hands that the heirs in conveying the land and permitting the notes to be made payable to M. A. Hill were making some sort of provision for their mother. The difference between the parties arises out of their different understanding of the provision for Mrs. Hill — whether the purchase-money notes were made payable to her as a gift, or whether the provision was intended as a trust for her support while she lived, with remainder of any unexpended balance to the donors. * * *
“Whether a gift or a trust was intended is a matter of pure intention, though, apart from the relation between the parties, the presumption in the first instance would be that a gift was intended but this is a mere presumption. The issue thus presented by the stated difference between the parties called for the admission of all parol evidence, otherwise competent, tending to throw light on the question. Montgomery v. McNutt, 214 Ala. 692, 108 So. 752. * * * ”
After quoting the provisions of the “dead man’s statute,” which deals with the competency of witnesses under the common law, the opinion proceeds:
“The witnesses in question, parties to this suit and interested in its result, undertook to testify to a transaction in which it was agreed between them and their mother, whose interest and estate is represented by appellant, her administratrix, substantially as we have stated the facts, sufficient, if competently proved, to establish the trust for which appellees contend. However, Elizabeth Nichols, a granddaughter of appellant’s intestate, testified to facts going to show that she was an heir of W. C. Hill (her mother, his daughter, having died before said Hill) ; that she signed the deed at Ft. Payne in DeKalb county; that she was not present when Jennings executed the mortgage deed of trust which secured to M. A. Hill the notes for unpaid purchase money and knew nothing of it; and that (here stating the relevant substance of her testimony) ‘none of the other heirs ever talked to me about how the money was to be used, but it was generally understood among all the children that Mrs. Hill was to have the use of the money during her lifetime and then it was to come back to us.’ Edith Webster, another heir, sister of Elizabeth Nichols, testified, in substance, to the same effect.
“This relevant substance of their testimony was elicited by appellant on cross-examination. It is stated in narrative form in the record and we have no alternative but to deal with it as having been drawn out by appellant by interrogatories to which the narrative aptly responds. We will not be understood as holding that appellant had not the right to cross-examine these witnesses as to any fact related by reasonable connection with the matter elicited on direct examination or that thereby she made these witnesses her own. The point is that the matter thus drawn out by appellant, notwithstanding it may have been in bad form, was relevant and material and due to be considered by the court. The only difficulty about it arises out of the rule found stated in section 6565 of the Code, which makes it the duty *584of the court, in the consideration of equity-causes, to ‘consider only such testimony as is relevant, material and competent, and shall exclude and not consider any testimony which is irrelevant, immaterial or incompetent, whether objection shall have been made thereto or not,’ and so likewise on appeal. The effect and operation of this section in an analogous case had consideration in Cotton v. Cotton, 213 Ala. 336, 104 So. 650, and in Woody v. Tucker, Willingham & Co., 215 Ala. 278, 110 So. 465.
"This section causes no particular trouble so far as concerns the relevancy and materiality of evidence, but as to the matter of competency we find it more difficult. ‘By competent evidence is meant that which the very nature of the thing to be proved requires as the fit and appropriate proof in the particular case, such as the production of a writing where its contents are the subject of inquiry.’ — 1 Greenl.Ev. § 2; Jones on Ev. (2d Ed.), § 7. But in more than one conceivable circumstance secondary evidence is admissible, and, if the parties without objection try their issues on secondary evidence, no reason is perceived why the court should interpose by gratuitously assuming a fact which would deny the competency of the evidence adduced. To pursue the subject a little further, it is frequently a matter of difficulty to say whether the expression of a witness is the statement of a mere conclusion or whether it is to be admitted as the statement of a collective fact, and, if the parties elicit conclusions where only a statement of its constituent elements would be competent according to the strict rules of evidence, triers of fact generally understand such matters, and no harm to the cause of justice results if the parties are content to follow that method. So, in general agreement with the view thus outlined, we state our opinion that the testimony of these two witnesses as to the general understanding among the children of Mrs. Hill, who were the heirs of W. C. Hill, to the effect that Mrs. Hill was to have the use of the money during her lifetime and then it was to come back to them, should, in the absence of objection at least, be accepted as evidence of their intention in executing the conveyance of their land.” Hill v. Hill, 216 Ala. 434, 436-437, 113 So. 306.
This opinion was written by the same justice who wrote the opinion in Moore v. Moore, 212 Ala. 685, 103 So. 892, cited in the opinion of Mr. Justice LAWSON. This opinion is consistent in letter and spirit with the rule announced in Warner v. Warner, supra.
In Cotton v. Cotton, 213 Ala. 336, 104 So. 650 (referred to in the opinion just quoted), the question to be determined was whether appellee was the lawful widow of deceased, J. R. Cotton. This question was raised for the first time by exception to the register’s report in setting aside the homestead of the widow. The opinion states:
“In 1914 appellee intermarried with one Taylor. Appellee testified in the trial court that Taylor, on his bill, had procured a decree of divorce from her prior to 1917, no objection to her testimony being interposed on any ground, and that afterwards she was allowed to marry again by a decree of the court dated from Enterprise. Now, renewing an objection made for the first time in the exceptions to the register’s report, appellant, referring to the act of September 28, 1923 (Acts, p. 631), now section 6565 of the Code, raises objection to this testimony as to the divorce on the ground that there was better evidence in the records of the court rendering the decree which should have been produced, and in the absence of which appellee’s testimony should not have been considered. The statute referred to does provide that in the trial of any case in equity ‘it shall not be required or necessary that objection be made to any testimony which may be offered by either party,’ and that, on consideration of any cause in the trial court or in this court on appeal, ‘the court shall consider only such testimony as is relevant, material and competent, and shall exclude and not consider any testimony which is irrelevant, immaterial or incompetent, whether objection shall have been made thereto or not, * * * and it shall not be required or necessary for *585either the trial court or the Supreme Court to point out or indicate what testimony, if any, should be excluded or not considered/ thus imposing on the courts the burden of casting about for questions of admissibility which parties may not have suspected or have been willing to waive. But the court, while observing the statute, is under no duty to spread the trap for unwary litigants beyond the language employed in its enactment. The testimony here in question was neither irrelevant nor immaterial. It was incompetent sub modo.— [Italics supplied.]
“The ‘best evidence’ rule affects the competency of evidence; but competency within the meaning of that rule, like the competency of witnesses, often depends on proof o'f facts not apparent on its face, and the burden of showing incompetency in such cases rests upon the party objecting to the admission of the evidence. In the case presented by the record, it will be conceded of course that presumptively there was a record of the divorce proceeding and that prima facie the evidence offered by appellee was incompetent; but appellee produced a certificate purporting to emanate from the branch of the circuit court at Enterprise under the sign manual of a deputy register at that point — a de facto deputy at least — -and, if a genuine document, authenticating a decree of the circuit court of Coffee of date August 5, 1918, by the terms of which appellee was allowed to contract marriage again. I'f this certificate was a genuine document, then the decree of which it purports to evidence a modification was rendered in the court at Enterprise, because that was the only place at which to apply for a modification of a previous decree rendered in that branch of the court. And, further, the deputy register testified that the certified copy of the decree permitting appellee to marry again was a correct copy of the original in the court at Enterprise, that ‘no decree was ever granted of this nature in that court without a petition and a certified copy of the divorce decree attached thereto/ and that since that time all the chancery files and records at Enterprise had been destroyed by fire. It is to be presumed that the court would not have entered a decree of modification without a competent knowledge of the decree so modified.
“Thus it appears that the whole case turns ultimately upon the question of the honesty of the certificate put in evidence by appellee; that certificate, if genuine, being the best available evidence of the decree on which appellee relied to sustain her contention that she was the lawful widow of J. R. Cotton, deceased, her formal marriage with him not being the subject of reasonable doubt. * * *. ”
The opinion in the Cotton Case was concurred in by Anderson, Chief Justice, Gardner and Miller, JJ., and the important utterance which I desire to stress is “But the court, while observing the statute, is under no duty to spread the trap for unwary litigants beyond the language employed in its enactment.”
If the rule contended for in the opinion of Mr. Justice LAWSON is established, no skilled lawyer or solicitor in the trial of equity cases would ever interpose objections to testimony of any kind or to the competency of witnesses but would let his adversary if not so learned fall- into the trap and after he gets to the court or a judge who is to hear and determine the case, he would proceed to shoot his adversary’s evidence full of holes by objection that the other party had never thought of. This is the trap envisioned by Mr. Justice Sayre in his opinion in the Cotton Case, supra. Moreover, if the trial court and appellate court followed the prescription of the statute, the unwary litigant would lose his case and would never know on what ground it had been decided. This is not consistent with the practice and procedure of trial courts nor appellant courts as established by our decisions in this state. In Amberson v. Patterson, 227 Ala. 397, 398, 150 So. 353, 354, the court in applying the statute speaking by Mr. Justice Thomas observed :
“ * * * If a party to the suit brings out on cross-examination incompetent evidence, which is relevant and material, and not objected to, the court will accept and *586consider that evidence. Hill v. Hill, 216 Ala. 435, 113 So. 306; Louisiana State Life Ins. Co. v. Phillips, 223 Ala. 5, 135 So. 841; Cotton v. Cotton, 213 Ala. 336, 104 So. 650. Recent applications and observations of this statute are contained in Burkett v. Newell, 212 Ala. 183, 101 So. 836; Alabama Bank & Trust Company v. Jones, 213 Ala. 398, 104 So. 785; Moore v. Moore, 212 Ala. 685, 103 So. 892; Mink v. Whitfield, 218 Ala. 334, 118 So. 559; White v. White, 225 Ala. 155, 142 So. 524; Wilder v. Reed, 216 Ala. 29, 112 So. 312.”
In the case last above cited Wilder v. Reed, 216 Ala. 29, 112 So. 312, 313, written by Mr. Justice Gardner and concurred in by Chief Justice Anderson, Sayre and Bouldin, JJ., it was observed:
“The larger portion of the evidence for complainant consists of statements to others made by the defendant members of this firm, but these statements are inadmissible as against defendant Reed, who was not present at the time. By virtue of the provisions of section 6565, Code of 1923, in equity cases it is unnecessary that incompetent testimony be objected to, as the court, on appeal, is to consider only competent, relevant, and material testimony. Burkett v. Newell, 212 Ala. 183, 101 So. 836; Alabama Bank & Trust Co. v. Jones, 213 Ala. 398, 104 So. 785. * * *” [Italics supplied.]
It will be noted and emphasized that the utterance in that case is, “In equity cases it is unnecessary that incompetent testimony be objected to, as the court, on appeal, is to consider only competent, relevant, and material testimony.” There is not a word in the statute or in these decisions that deals with the competency of witnesses; that is left to the “dead man’s statute.” The utterance in Mink v. Whitfield, 218 Ala. 334, 118 So. 559, 560, is as follows:
“In equity cases, the court will only consider legal evidence, regardless of whether objections were interposed, and need not discuss and recite evidence which the court holds sufficient or insufficient to support a decree from which an appeal is pending. * * >}; >>
Stated in different language, the court under said statute may dispose of the case without ever giving the least suggestion as to the weakness of the loser’s case and leave him in ignorance of why it was so decided. That may be due judicial administration of justice but to this course of procedure I respectfully decline to agree.
Let it be noted that the courts generally ignore that prescription of the act and usually give full expression to their conclusions of law and fact. Most of the utterances in respect to the act clearly limit its operation to testimony offered. I quote from White v. White, 225 Ala. 155, 158, 142 So. 524, 526, as follows:
“Many assignments of error relate to the introduction of evidence and motion to exclude same. Under section 6565 of the Code, in equity cases, it is not required or necessary that objection be made to any testimony, which may be offered by either party, and on appeal this court shall only consider the testimony which is relevant, material and competent, and this court is not required to point out or indicate what testimony, if any, should be excluded or not considered. * * *.” This utterance restricts the application of the statute to "testimony and evidence” according to its language. The same restriction in the application of the act was observed in Wilder v. Reed, 216 Ala. 29, 30, 112 So. 312: “ * * * By virtue of the provisions of section 6565, Code of 1923, in equity cases it is unnecessary that incompetent testimony be objected to, as the court, on appeal, is to consider only competent, relevant, and material testimony * *
In the light of the statement in the opinion of Mr. Justice LAWSON, 49 So.2d 121,3 “In the instant case, counsel for Lenora Redwine Jackson objected to this line of testimony by the complainant at the time the evidence was elicited on the ground that he was an incompetent witness in that respect. Written objections were filed, which were included in the note of testimony or note of submission. However, the *587trial court did not specifically rule on those objections, but the decree of the trial court contains language indicating that it considered only legal evidence.”
These objections made according to the established rule of practice prior to the adoption of the act under consideration fully meet the holding in the Warner Case, supra, and the cases subsequently decided following the Warner Case and I can perceive no sound reason for nor can I see the wisdom in overruling these well considered cases. The testimony given by Mrs. Warner, the defendant, in identifying her diary, written when no one was present except the diary and God, stated facts in respect to the dealings between her and her son material and relevant to support the complainant’s case. After identifying the diary she offered it in evidence as an exhibit to her testimony without objection. Making the diary was not a transaction or conversation with the deceased person, but was purely the act of the defendant, and was admissible against her as an admission against interest. It was so held in the Warner Case and not affected by the rule of the “dead man’s statute.” The statements in the answer of the defendant in Rogers v. Austin, 213 Ala. 163, 104 So. 321, were nothing more or less than an admission against interest and that case clearly supports the admission of the evidence in the Warner Case. See also, Amberson v. Patterson, 227 Ala. 397, 398, 150 So. 353.
As pointed out above, this Court in applying that statute has restricted it to evidence and testimony offered by the parties, and the effect of the opinion of Mr. Justice LAWSON is to extend the statute not only to testimony and evidence offered, but also to the competency of witnesses although no objection was made thereto. To this I cannot agree.
The vice of the act is that by such insiduous encroachment by legislative fiat the integrity and freedom of the courts to administer justice according to their own course of procedure, is impaired, and unless resisted, judgments of courts of justice will inevitably become a matter of legislative fiat and due process of law will lose its substance and become a mere shadow.
I repeat, if the opinion of my brother, Mr. Justice LAWSON becomes the law, no skilled trial solicitor in chancery will ever make objection to any evidence lest he enlighten his adversary, who for lack of skill may step into a trap. The skilled trial solicitor will wait until the case is submitted to the court and may then blast his adversary’s case by a barage of objection not perceived or thought of by either of the parties. Such practice is inconsistent with sound judicial administration and due process o'f law.
Since stare decisis is a doctrine of judicial policy designed to preserve a just balance of correctness of decision and stability of law, the fact that a doctrine deemed erroneous is supported by a single decision may be a cogent but not a conclusive reason for reexamination of the question. A single decision may become a rule of property in the jurisdiction and in such cases it is undoubted that the doctrine of stare decisis forbids a departure therefrom; and closely related to this doctrine is the holding of a number of courts that where a particular transaction has been judicially passed on in proceedings between other parties, the doctrine of stare decisis requires adherence to the decisions so made. 7 R.G.L. page 1007, § 34. See also 7 R.C.L. page 1003, § 30; 14 Am.Jur. p. 287, § 66; 14 Am.Jur. p. 288, § 68; Kingsburry v. Buckner, 134 U.S. 650, 10 S.Ct. 638, 33 L.Ed. 1047; Cottrell v. American, Fla., 35 So.2d 383, 385.
Warner v. Warner, 24-8 Ala. 556, 28 So. 2d 701, was decided April 11, 1946, and it appears on the face of the opinion that it was a well-considered case. This decision was followed in Crum v. Crum, Ala.Sup., 43 So.2d 392,4 in an opinion written by Mr. Justice Stakely and concurred in by Brown, Foster, and Lawson, JJ.; and. again in the case of Adams v. Griffin, Ala.Sup., 45 So.2d 22,5 in an opinion written by Mr. Justice Lawson concurred in by Foster, Livington, Simpson and Stakely, JJ., the two *588concurrences embracing all the active Justices now on the Court.
In the light of these rulings and the unsettled construction of said act prior to the Warner Case, I am of the opinion that these subsequent decisions and the Warner Case should not be overruled.
SIMPSON, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion.

. 253 Ala. 371. .

. Ante, p. -570.

. 253 Ala. 163.

. 253 Ala. 371.