Court Opinion

ID: 9666871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:29:13.098713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:33.281076
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
Counsel for appellant are very urgent that we failed to give consideration to his contention as to paragraph 12 of the bill of complaint. That paragraph is as follows:
“Complainants have been informed, and they so allege that under the law of the Republic of Panama, that if they are the owners of an undivided one-*16half interest in and to said real estate, they would not only take title to the same subject to said purchase money mortgage of $40,000.00, but, on the contrary, that they would be personally obligated for the payment of one-half of said balance of purchase money, viz: $20,000.00.”
It is insisted that as a plea of the law of a foreign nation it is subject to the objection that it states a conclusion of the pleader and not the substance of the law itself as a fact. The form of the allegations may not be strictly up to the requirements of good pleading as interpreted in Equitable Life Assur. Soc. of United States v. Brandt, 240 Ala. 260, 198 So. 595, 134 A.L.R. 555, in not alleging what the law on the subject is in the Republic of Panama, but only what the effect of it is upon complainants as applied to the transaction involved. Counsel insist that as a feature of the charge of fraud its insufficiency renders the bill subject to demurrer as to that aspect of it charging fraud in procuring the contract. Properly considered the bill has but one aspect, to annul and vacate a transaction for fraud in its procurement. Other features of the bill are supplementary to that. We agree that if the allegations of paragraph 12 of the bill are essential to the charge of fraud, they ought to be well pleaded and that a failure in that respect would subject the bill to appropriate demurrer. We did not discuss that question because we thought, and still think, that the charge of fraud and its effect upon the transaction was complete without paragraph 12 as set out. All the elements of fraudulently procuring the contract from complainants are set out in the bill by the facts on which the charge is based, and they are sufficient and well pleaded without paragraph 12. “Sometimes it is necessary at law to prove all the allegations of a count to sustain the cause of action as laid. Mazer v. Brown, 259 Ala. 449(14), 66 So.2d 561. * * * But that is not to be confused with the principle well settled that in equity it is not necessary to accurately prove every detail of averment as alleged provided that proof is made of such averments as are essential to the relief sought”. Bobo v. City of Florence, 260 Ala. 239, 69 So.2d 463, 465, citing Mutual Service Funeral Homes v. Fehler, 257 Ala. 354, 58 So.2d 770; Ellis v. Womack, 247 Ala. 254, 23 So.2d 859. The older cases are cited in the above authorities. Since it is not necessary to prove the law of the Republic of Panama in the respect here material, it is not necessary for it to be alleged in the bill according to the requirements for pleading such a law. The bill is not subject to the demurrer interposed in that respect.
On the original submission we treated the chief controversy as we understood it and as fully as we thought necessary and feel like it was correctly disposed of.
The application for rehearing should be overruled.
The foregoing opinion was prepared by FOSTER, Supernumerary Justice of this Court, while serving on it at the request of the Chief Justice under authority of Title 13, § 32, Code, and was adopted by the Court as its opinion.
Application for rehearing overruled.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON* STAKELY and MERRILL, JJ., concur.