Trial Court Has No Jurisdiction to "Reconsider" Denial of Post-Judgment Motion; Must Hold Hearing on Motion for Remittitur
A circuit court loses jurisdiction after denying a post-judgment motion. The court thus cannot “reconsider” its denial. Moreover, a circuit court errs by not holding a hearing on a motion to reduce a punitive award. Southeast Environmental Infrastructure, L.L.C. v. Rivers, Nos. 1060615, 1060643, 1060876 (Ala. Jun. 27, 2008).
The plaintiff was injured while working on a sewer line. The jury awarded him $1,100,000 in compensatory and $400,000 in punitive damages. The defendant filed post-judgment motions for judgment as a matter of law, or for a new trial, or for a remittitur of the punitive award. The defendant also requested a hearing on its motion for remittitur under Hammond v. City of Gadsden, 493 So. 2d 1374 (Ala. 1986), and Green Oil Co. v. Hormsby, 539 So. 2d 218 (Ala. 1989).
The circuit court scheduled a hearing on the defendant’s motions. The day before that hearing, however, the court informed the parties that it would postpone hearing the motion for remittitur. Ten days later, without holding a hearing on remittitur, the court denied all of the defendant’s post-judgment motions. The plaintiff then asked the court to hold a hearing on the remittitur motion. The defendant maintained that the circuit court could not do so, because it had lost jurisdiction of the case once it denied the post-judgment motions. The defendant maintained that its only remedy was by appeal. The trial court responded that the defendant had either waived its request for a hearing, or had invited any error that resulted from the failure to hold that hearing. The defendant appealed.
The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the underlying finding of liability, but held that the trial court had indeed lost jurisdiction after it denied the defendant’s post-judgment motions. The lower court had no power to “reconsider” that denial. The state’s high court recounted at some length the rules in this area:
[T]he Rules of Civil Procedure do not authorize a movant to file a motion reconsider the trial judge’s ruling on his own post-judgment motion. However, in some cases such successive post-judgment motions may be permitted. If, for example, the judge has rendered a new judgment pursuant to a Rule 59(e) motion to alter, amend, or vacate a judgment or pursuant to a Rule 50(b) motion for [a renewed] judgment . . . as a matter of law . . . , the party aggrieved by the new judgment may have had no reason to make such a motion earlier. In the usual case, after a post-judgment motion has been denied, the only review of that denial is by appeal; a judge has no jurisdiction to “reconsider” the denial.
. . . .
Thus, when a post-judgment motion is denied, the review of that denial is by appeal, not by a motion to reconsider.
(Quotations and citations omitted.) The trial court thus lost jurisdiction of the case after it denied the defendant’s post-judgment motions.
The plaintiff, citing Ala. R. Civ. P. 59.1, argued that the parties could have consented to the trial court holding the remittitur hearing after it denied the post-judgment motions. The Supreme Court of Alabama disagreed. It explained that the parties could not reinvest jurisdiction in the trial court by consent, and that Rule 59.1 did not apply where the trial court had already ruled on all post-judgment motions.
Moreover, the state’s high court held that the lower court erred by not holding a hearing on the motion for remittitur. See Ala. R. Civ. P. 59(g) (post-trial motions “shall not be ruled upon until the parties have had an opportunity to be heard thereon”). The appellate court remanded the case for a hearing on that motion.