Court Opinion

ID: 9670950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:28:43.172731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.392203
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
We have examined each of the cases cited by appellant and others pertinent to the motion for a new trial. We are unable to find any conflict between the holdings in the cases examined and our pronouncements in the case at bar as to the validity of the motion. A survey here of all the holdings in the cases we have examined would prolong this opinion beyond, reasonable proportions without serving any useful purpose.
However, we point to the case of Childers v. Samoset Cotton Mills, 213 Ala. 292, 104 So. 641, wherein we held that a motion for a new trial, duly continued according' to the mandate of § 6670, 1923 Code (now § 119, Title 13, Code 1940) and submitted on June 10, 1923, the date to which it was regularly continued, ceased to function because it was not adjudged until August 14, 1923,, without a continuance to this latter date. The court held that the motion was discontinued because no judgment thereon was entered during the term fixed by § 6667, Code 1923.
This same rule was applied in the case of Shelley v. Clark, 267 Ala. 621, 103 So.2d 743(9), wherein it appears that the motion was heard (not submitted according to the record) within the period of thirty days fixed by § 119, Title 13, Code 1940; nor was-it continued to the date it was submitted and adjudicated. There was a hiatus created from the failure to continue the motion, which resulted in a discontinuance. The motion died and could not be resuscitated by reference in the judgment to the time it was heard.
The legislature in 1936 (Extra Session, Act No. 56, p. 32) amended § 6667, Code 1923, by providing that the circuit courts of the several counties of the state shall be open for transaction of any and all business, or judicial proceedings of every kind, at all times. See § 114, Title 13, Code 1940. Terms of the circuit court provided by § 6667, supra, were impliedly abolished.
When a motion for a new trial is now continued to a future date beyond the time limit fixed by § 119, supra, there is no further limitation or impediment arising from a term of court. The motion, when submitted on the date to which it is continued as authorized in § 119, supra, is in the breast of the court and no further continuance is necessary to suspend the finality of the original judgment. Childers v. *318Samoset Cotton Mills, supra. But the record must contain some showing or statement of submission. Greer et al. v. Heyer, 216 Ala. 229, 113 So. 14.
In the Greer case, supra, the trial court in its judgment on the motion stated that the motion had been “argued by counsel on a previous day of this term (fixed by § 6667, Code 1923) and submitted to the court.” The bill of exceptions, after reciting the orders of continuance to March 20, 1926, further stated, “That on said 20th day of March, 1926, the said motion was duly argued by counsel for plaintiff and by counsel for defendant, and on said day was taken under submission by said judge.”
The late and eminent Justice Bouldin, author of the opinion in the Greer case, supra, rendered in 1927, before § 6667, Code 1923, was amended, observed for the court:
“The necessary effect of the decision [referring to Childers v. Samoset, supra] is that the submission and taking the motion under advisement operated to keep the motion alive until the end of the term. [The term referred to is now abolished.] For the purposes in hand, the hearing is regarded as pending, the trial of the motion is constructively in progress until the judgment is rendered, not beyond the limits of the term of court. We approve and follow that rule as most promotive of justice. The movant should not be called upon to disturb the trial judge by calling for a decision on the date of submission, or for continuances from time to time, pending his consideration of the motion.”
See also Sadler v. Sessions, 261 Ala. 323, 74 So.2d 425.
Opinion extended and application for rehearing overruled.
The foregoing was prepared by Bowen W. Simmons, Supernumerary Circuit Judge, and was adopted by the court.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON, GOODWYN and COLEMAN, JJ„ concur.