Court Opinion

ID: 9825300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:32:22.436411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:40.505893
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Counsel for appellant insist that the case of Beck v. Karr, 209 Ala. 199, 95 So. 881, supports their contention that a court of equity cannot assign dower, in the absence of a special equity preventing the exercise of the statutory jurisdiction of the probate court. Section 7437, Code 1923. An examination of that case will show that this question was not presented and was not decided. The bill of complaint there was filed by a widow to have a homestead carved out of the land, and thereafter to have dower allotted and all of the land sold for division. It was held.that equity was without jurisdiction to allot the homestead, and there could be no sale for division, because there was no community of *406interest between the complainant ancl the respondent heirs, and it was further held that the bill did not' show that complainant was entitled to dower. It was suggested, arguendo, that complainant had a complete and adequate remedy at law in the probate court, so far as the mere allotment of dower was concerned; but it was not stated that complainant could not proceed in equity for that purpose under a proper bill.
The proposition insisted upon by appellant would upset the principle established by this court in its earliest decisions, and consistently maintained for nearly a century, viz. that the original jurisdiction of courts of equity is not affected by a statute conferring the same or similar jurisdiction upon courts of law, unless the statute plainly so provides. Such statutes are always held to confer merely a concurrent and cumulative remedy. Gould v. Hayes, 19 Ala. 438, 450; Rooney v. Michael, 84 Ala. 585, 588, 4 So. 421; Nixon v. Clear Creek Lbr. Co., 150 Ala. 602, 605, 43 So. 805, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1255.
The application for rehearing will be overruled.
All the Justices concur.