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

The plaintiff sued her employer for retaliatory discharge. She then amended her complaint to add the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations (ADIR) in order to appeal the agency’s denial of unemployment benefits. ADIR and the employer moved to sever the claims and to assign the benefits appeal a new case number. The trial court granted this motion by severing the claims “in part.” The court did not, however, assign the benefits appeal a new case number.

The trial court eventually granted ADIR summary judgment on the benefits claim, and the plaintiff appealed.

On its own motion, the Court of Civil Appeals held that it lacked appellate jurisdiction. Because the summary judgment had adjudicated only the benefits claim, while leaving the discharge claim pending, the judgment was not “final” and would not support an appeal. Because the lower court had not assigned a new case number to the benefits claim, it was “obvious” that court had “intended only to separate the claims for trial purposes.” The lower court, “under these circumstances,” had effected a “separation” under Rule 42(b) but not a “severance” under Rule 21. The appellate court concluded:

When a court merely orders separate trials, an adjudication of one claim, via a summary-judgment order, does not become a final judgment unless the order is properly certified as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.

The trial court had not certified the judgment as final under Rule 54(b). The Court of Civil Appeals thus dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.

Day is a boundary dispute between neighbors. In addition to the question of where the boundary fell between the neighbors' properties, the case also involved claims of trespass, adverse possession, conversion, as well as attendant requests for damages.

The circuit court “bifurcated” the proceeding “to first address only the issue of the location of the boundary line.” It held a hearing on this question and entered an order determining the boundary. The court expressly “reserve[d] ruling on all other issues.” Despite the incompleteness of this order, the defendants filed a motion challenging it under Rule 59(e) — what would normally be a post-judgment motion to alter, amend, or vacate. The trial court denied this motion and the defendants appealed.

The Court of Civil Appeals ruled that the partial order was not a final judgment that would support an appeal. Although neither party had raised this issue, the finality of an appealed order implicates the reviewing court’s jurisdiction; and “issues of jurisdiction are of such importance that courts may take notice of them” on their own motion.

Here, the Court of Civil Appeals explained, the separate determination of the property line was not a “final” judgment. “[W]hen separate trials are ordered, a ruling on fewer than all the pending issues is not sufficiently final to support an appeal.” In this vein, the court described the difference between merely “separate” trials under Rule 42(b) and a “true severance” under Rule 21. “[A]fter a true severance a judgment on the first action to come to trial is final and appealable.” When issues are merely “separated” or “bifurcated” under Rule 42(b), however, as they were in Day, a judgment on the first trial, on only some of the separated issues, is not “final.” Such decisions can be certified as final in appropriate cases under Rule 54(b) — but the Day court had made no such certification.