Alabama Appellate Watch : Blog Published by Lightfoot Franklin & White : Alabama Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Appellate, Alabama Supreme Court (Supreme Court of Alabama)

The trial court granted the defendant summary judgment in this account-stated action. The defendant had sought attorney fees but the trial court’s judgment did not address that issue. Neither party filed a post-judgment motion, nor did the plaintiff appeal.

Then, “well after the 30-day deadline period for filing a motion to alter, amend or vacate the judgment [under Rule 59(e)] had passed,” the defendant filed a new motion for expenses under the Alabama Litigation Accountability Act (ALAA). The trial court granted this motion on December 6, 2007, and awarded the defendant attorney fees.

The plaintiff moved to vacate this order. It argued, among other things, that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to enter the order. The lower court denied this motion and the plaintiff appealed.

On review, the Court of Civil Appeals agreed with the plaintiff. The trial court lacked jurisdiction to rule upon the defendant’s late ALAA motion. Referring to that motion as a request for sanctions under the ALAA, the appellate court explained:

Decisions of both this court and the Alabama Supreme Court have interpreted ... the ALAA as requiring either that an award of sanctions under the ALAA be included in the trial court’s final judgment or that jurisdiction to decide the matter of ALAA sanctions be expressly reserved by the trial court in the judgment or a proper postjudgment amendment thereto.

Here, the trial court had done neither. It did not address the fee request in its initial summary judgment, and it did not reserve jurisdiction on the question. Consequently, once the post-judgment deadline had passed on its initial judgment, it lost jurisdiction to entertain a request for attorney fees. Its December 6 order was therefore void. On the plaintiff’s motion, the trial court should have vacated that award under Rule 60(b)(4). That rule allows a trial court to relieve a party from a “void” judgment or order. The denial of a Rule 60(b) motion is appealable, but

an appeal from such a denial presents for review only the propriety of that denial; thus, when motion for relief, such as that filed [by the plaintiff] in this case, attacks an order as being void, the controlling inquiry may be stated as follows: “If the judgment is void, it is to be set aside; if it is valid, it must stand.”

Because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to award attorney fees in this case, its December 6 order was void, and should have been vacated upon the plaintiff’s motion. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the denial of that motion and directed the trial court to vacate its void order.

This will contest was brought by the deceased's alleged niece. The probate court ruled that the niece lacked standing to challenge the will, and dismissed her suit. Her subsequent appeals (to the circuit and then the appellate courts) were dismissed as late. The niece then filed a Rule 60(b) motion in the circuit court for relief from the judgment. The circuit court denied this motion, but “retained jurisdiction over remaining ‘matters which are properly pending.’” The niece again appealed.

The Court of Civil Appeals held that the judgment was not final because it left issues unresolved. (Neither party had raised this question, but being jurisdictional, the Court of Civil Appeals raised it itself.) Before the probate court’s initial decision dismissing the suit, the defendant executor had filed a “Motion for Affirmative Relief.” In that motion, the executor: (1) sought attorney fees under the Alabama Litigation Accountability Act (ALAA); and (2) made a detinue claim for “the return of property removed from” and “damage done to” the decedent’s home. Neither claim had been adjudicated.

The appellate court noted that while “the ALAA claim . . . , alone, might not prevent the judgment from being final,” the pending detinue claim did. The judgment thus did not “resolve all issues or determine the rights and liabilities of all the parties.” Nor did it contain a certification of finality under Rule 54(b). The niece’s appeal was therefore from a non-final judgment, and was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.