Court Opinion

ID: 9689913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:49:34.924635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:52.756715
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
Appellants have asked us to clarify our opinion. We agree that it is probably not as plain as it could be made.
This was a bill to quiet title. The trial court quieted and vested title in complainants-appellees.
We held that the trial court erred because the complainants, appellees, did not show that they were in possession, either actual or constructive. Note our one-sentence paragraph in the opinion which reads: “There is undisputed testimony sufficient to show actual possession by the appellants at the time that suit was instituted.”
This court treated that situation thoroughly in Dennison v. Claiborne, Ala., 265 So.2d 853,1 and it need not be here repeated. Under Dennison and the cases cited in the original opinion, the complainants were not entitled to relief, and that calls for a reversal of Item 1 of the adjudication part of the amended decree which vested title in complainants.
The trial court stated that the respondents’ claim to the property (of which they were in possession) based on adverse possession and prescription was dependent upon the testimony of a witness who had “willfully testified falsely under oath and his entire testimony is therefore disregarded by the Court,” and therefore respondents’ claim was not sustained by the proof. That means that the respondents were not entitled to relief under their cross bill.
Appellants request us to explain our statement that “The decree should be corrected without prejudice.” What we meant to hold, and do hold, is that neither appellees nor appellants are precluded from filing an appropriate action in the future to determine who has better claim to the 90 acres. It is obvious that as long as appellants are in the actual possession of this tract, the appellees can never win in a statutory bill to quiet title. But our decision here would not preclude, for example, a suit in ejectment.
The words “without prejudice” in their general adaptation, when used in a decree, mean that there is no decision of the controversy on its merits, and leaves the whole subject in litigation as much open to another suit as if no suit had ever been brought. Vacalis v. Lowery, 279 Ala. 264, 184 So.2d 345, and cases there cited. When the words “without prejudice” appear in an order or decree, it shows that the judicial act done is not intended to be res judicata of the merits of the controversy. Commonwealth ex rel. Eldredge v. Eldredge, 175 Pa.Super. 276, 104 A.2d 185.
Item 3 of the adjudication decree, dealing with the remainder of the lands, excluding the 90 acres, is affirmed.
*504■ The decree of the trial court will be corrected as noted in the opinion and this extension.
Opinion extended and application for rehearing overruled.
HEFLIN, C. J., and MERRILL, HARWOOD, MADDOX and SOMERVILLE, JJ., concur.

. Ante p. 69.