Court Opinion

ID: 9677681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:57:22.53885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.597045
License: Public Domain

■ On Rehearing.
HARWOOD, Presiding Judge.
In brief in support of the application for rehearing, counsel for appellant insists that we ignored the doctrine enunciated in Bruce v. Collier, 221 Ala. 22, 127 So. 553. This doctrine, they assert, would necessitate a conclusion that the lower court erred in sustaining the demurrers to the special plea filed in the proceedings below. In our opinion the' doctrine of Bruce v. Collier, supra, is not applicable to the present case.
In the later case of Parker v. Fies & Sons, 243 Ala. 348, 10 So.2d 13, 14, Justice Bouldin, who had also written the opinion in Bruce v. Collier, supra, had this to say concerning the opinion in that case:
“Bruce v. Collier, 221 Ala. 22, 127 So. 553, 554, relied upon by both sides, dealt with our statutes for the survival of actions for injuries to the person, where death followed from the .same wrongful act, bringing into being a right of action under the Homicide Act.
“In that case an action was brought for personal injury. Pending this action the plaintiff died. The administrator obtained an order to revive. Meantime, the administrator brought a separate action under the Homicide Act. This action proceeded to judgment for plaintiff, which was paid.
“The revived suit still pending, the defendant interposed a plea held by us to be in effect a plea of res adjudicata. The trial court sustained this plea against demurrer, resulting in a non-suit and appeal.
“For reasons stated in the opinion, we held:
“The statute providing for survival of actions for ‘injuries to the person’' does not apply to actions for injuries from wrongful act resulting in death, with a consequent right of action under the Homicide Act. The survival statute has a field of operation in actions, where death ensues from other causes. The lawmakers did not contemplate two-actions by the same administrator against the same defendant for the same tort, prosecuted to separate judgments, one to recover for personal injuries for the benefit of the estate, and another for punitive damages for the benefit of next of kin.”
It is clear therefore that in Bruce v. Collier, supra, the court was concerned with our statutes pertaining to survival of actions. In holding that the plaintiff in Bruce v. Collier, supra, could proceed only under the Homicide statute, the court in effect held that both the action and the cause of action was destroyed by the death of Bruce. This being so, no right could be deemed to have been revived or created by any waiver resulting from the action or non-action of the defendant Collier. A primary right cannot be created by waiver. See Patterson v. Woodmen of the World *143Life Insurance Society, 38 Ala.App. 328, 84 So.2d 127.
In the present case we are not concerned with any revival statute, hut rather with Sec. 146, Tit. 7, Code of Alabama 1940, which reads as follows :
“No suitor is entitled to prosecute two actions in the courts of this state at the same time, for the same cause and against the same party, and in such a case the defendant may require the plaintiff to elect which he will prosecute, if commenced simultaneously; and the pendency of the former is a good defense to the latter, if commenced at different times.”
This section is but a codification of the common law rule, and its purpose is to prevent vexatious litigation. Herrington v. City of Eufaula, 36 Ala.App. 348, 55 So. 2d 758; Ex parte Barclay-Hays Lbr. Co., 211 Ala. 500, 101 So. 179. It is to be noted that by the very terms of Sec. 146, supra, a defendant may require a plaintiff to elect, etc.
In the present case the personal representative had a cause of action under Sec. 123, Tit. 7, Code of Alabama 1940, for the death of Boykin, and under Sec. 123(1) of Tit. 7, supra, the personal representative had cause of action for damages to the personal property of Boykin resulting from the same collision that caused Boykin’s death. The two primary rights existed by virtue of the two above mentioned respective statutes.
Under the provisions of Sec. 146, supra, it was within the power of the defendant to require the plaintiff to elect which action she would prosecute. Having this right the defendant may waive the same, for a waiver is but the intentional relinquishment of a known right. It is yet our conclusion that the defendant’s conduct in the present case should be deemed a waiver of any objection he may have had to any splitting of a cause of action by the plaintiff, even if it be assumed that there was a splitting.
Application overruled.