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

In this divorce case, the wife filed a rule 60(b)(4) motion arguing that the judgment was void because, although the trial court judge rendered the order prior to leaving office, the clerk did not actually enter the judgment until after the judge's term ended.  The Court of Civil Appeals concluded that an order is valid where the trial court judge both renders judgment and directs entry of the judgment prior to leaving office.  In this scenario, the entry of judgment is merely a ministerial act and the order is valid.  Here, the trial court judge signed the order and filed it in the clerk's office prior to leaving office, so the order was valid.

The Court of Civil Appeals distinguished this case from the situation where the trial court merely signed the order prior to leaving office but took no steps to direct entry.  Citing Rollins v. Rollins, 903 So. 2d 828 (Ala. Civ. App. 2004), the Court of Civil Appeals noted that until the trial court delivers the judgment to the clerk and directs entry of judgment, the judgment is subject to change and not final.  The trial court must take both steps - rendering and directing entry - for the order to be valid.

The wife also argued that the order was not valid because it was filed with the clerk on a legal holiday.  The Court of Civil Appeals noted that Ala. R. Civ. P. 77(c) sets out when the courts must be open.  It does not, however, say when the courts can't  be open.  Rule 77(a) says that the courts are always open for the purpose of filing a pleading and, therefore, the order was valid even if filed on a legal holiday.

Finally, the wife argued that the trial court (i.e. the judge who took over for the trial judge who made order prior to leaving office) erred by allowing her Rule 59 post-judgment motions to be denied by operation of law without affording her a hearing when a hearing was requested.  The Court of Civil Appeals held that a party is entitled to a hearing on a post-judgment motion when a hearing is requested, but failure to have a hearing is harmless error if the motions have no merit.  Here, the Court of Civil Appeals concluded that the motions had some merit.  Therefore, the Court of Civil Appeals remanded the case to the trial court to hold hearings on the Rule 59 motions. 

1

Plaintiff Barnes appealed from the district court to the circuit court, but did not include an appellate filing fee, or apply to have the fee waived. “According to Barnes, the clerk failed to inform her that she needed to pay a filing fee or to apply for a hardship waiver.” Three months after the district court judgment, Barnes filed for a waiver, and the clerk filed her notice of appeal. The circuit court dismissed the appeal as untimely.

Then, on November 10, 2008, Barnes moved the circuit court under Rule 60(b) to vacate its dismissal. She argued that the trial court should have treated her appeal as timely even without a fee or waiver application. The circuit court denied this motion.

On March 9, 2009, after retaining a lawyer, Barnes filed another Rule 60(b) motion to set aside the dismissal. She advanced the same arguments that she had made in her November 2008 motion. This time, however, the circuit court granted her motion and set aside its dismissal of her appeal.

2

Defendant ACS now filed its own motion. Under Rule 60(b)(4), ACS argued that the circuit court had lost jurisdiction to reinstate the appeal. The circuit court agreed. Reverting to its first disposition, the court vacated its reinstatement, and dismissed the case. Barnes then timely appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court.

3

The state’s high court affirmed the 60(b)(4) decision. First, the appellate court explained that it could not address Barnes’s underlying argument that her appeal should not have been dismissed in the first place; i.e., that the circuit court should have accepted her appeal without a fee or hardship waiver. That issue was not before the appellate court. Appellate review was confined to the last decision under Rule 60(b)(4). The only issue, then, was whether the circuit court had correctly granted the 60(b)(4) motion; that is, whether it had rightly determined that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Barnes’s second Rule 60(b) motion.

On this question the circuit court was correct. The supreme court explained:

[A]fter a trial court has denied a postjudgment motion pursuant to Rule 60(b), that court does not have jurisdiction to entertain a successive postjudgment motion to “reconsider” or otherwise review its order denying the Rule 60(b) motion. In other words, a party who has previously filed an unsuccessful motion seeking relief under Rule 60(b) may not properly file a second motion in the trial court that, in effect, requests the trial court to revisit its denial of the first motion, such as by reasserting the grounds relied upon in the first motion.

     Having originally denied Barnes’s first Rule 60(b) motion . . . , the [circuit] court lost jurisdiction to rule on any successive Rule 60(b) motions based on the same grounds.

(Citations and quotations omitted) (emphasis in original). The circuit court was therefore affirmed.

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.