Court Opinion

ID: 9937987
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 19:02:19.046499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:37.755472
License: Public Domain

I concur in the holding that a denial of permissive intervention is an appealable final order.
I was shown as dissenting in Universal Underwriters Ins. Co.v. East Central Alabama Ford-Mercury, Inc., 574 So.2d 716,727-28 (Ala. 1990) (Universal I), but I was not shown as having joined Justice Jones's dissent. I joined Justice Jones's dissent in Universal I, and that is the reason for my dissent here.
Universal, the insurer, asked to intervene for the limited purpose of invoking Rule 49, A.R.Civ.P., which authorizes the submission of special interrogatories for a jury to designate under which, if any, of the claims it found for the plaintiff. It is not without reservations that I hold that a trial court abused its discretion by not doing what a majority of this Court said that it did not have to do; however, just as Homer on occasion nodded, so did the majority of this Court inUniversal I. I write to reverse, based upon Justice Jones's reasoning in Universal I, and the effect of my vote here is that I think the trial court abused its discretion by following the opinion of an improperly functioning appellate court.