Board of School Com'rs of Mobile County v. Reynolds
Decision Date | 27 March 1975 |
Citation | 310 So.2d 876,294 Ala. 21 |
Parties | BOARD OF SCHOOL COM'RS OF MOBILE COUNTY, a Public Body Corporate v. Markward REYNOLDS, Individually and d/b/a Security Roofing Co., et al., etc. SC 892. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Pillans, Reams, Tappan, Wood, Roberts & Vollmer, and Geary A. Gaston, Mobile, for appellant.
Marr & Friedlander, and Daniel G. Sayers, Mobile, for appellees.
*
This appeal is from a judgment dismissing, with prejudice, the complaint as last amended.
The plaintiff-appellant, Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, filed the original complaint on January 19, 1971. Three of the six counts alleged that on either November 14, 1969, or November 17, 1969, the defendants-appellees, roofing subcontractors engaged in making repairs at several schools operated by the Board, supplied the general contractor with false statements for labor and material furnished in doing the work, and that the Board relied upon the misrepresentations in those statements and paid the general contractor.
The other counts allege that in June, 1969, the Board entered into a contract with the same general contractor for the renovation of kitchens in four schools; and, during August, September, and October, 1969, the general contractor submitted bills which overstated the amounts due under the contract. The defendants are alleged to have subsequently falsified and backdated bids for work performed for the general contractor to enable the general contractor to perpetuate a fraud on the Board.
The demurrer filed to the original complaint was sustained.
There were four amendments to the complaint, three of which were substantially total restatements of the plaintiff's claims. The last amended complaint was filed on January 4, 1974. The A.R.C.P. having become effective, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to A.R.C.P. 12(b)(6).
Following argument by counsel, an order was entered on March 29, 1974, granting the motion to dismiss and allowing the plaintiff until June 1, 1974, to further amend. There being no further amendment, on June 7, 1974, a judgment was entered dismissing the action with prejudice.
Among the grounds of their motion to dismiss, the defendants averred that it affirmatively appeared from the complaint that the plaintiff's claims were barred by the statute of limitations. As we agree, it is unnecessary to consider other grounds of the motion.
An action for fraud is subject to the one-year statute of limitations. Title 7, § 26, Code 1940. The running of the statute does not commence until the discovery of the fact constituting the fraud. Title 7, § 42, Code 1940. In the complaint on this appeal, all averments as to time are of dates more than one year prior to its filing.
In common law pleading, the allegations of time and place were generally immaterial. Use of the videlicet was commonplace and variances as to allegations of time and place were not prejudicial. With the adoption of A.R.C.P. 9(f), averments of time and place have become material.
This requirement is not as restrictive as it might first appear, nor is it contra to the liberality to be accorded the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure. According to Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure (1969): Civil § 1308, at 438, the Advisory Committee to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure considered the requirement for pleading time and place with accuracy would enable an earlier identification and isolation of the transaction or event in issue and supply means for testing and adjudicating certain claims and defenses--the statute of limitations, in particular.
A.R.C.P. 9(f) does not require that time and place be alleged. See: Kuenzell v. United States, 20 F.R.D. 96 (N.D.Cal., 1957). It only requires that when the pleader does allege a certain time or place, it must be done accurately.
In this regard, Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 1308, at 439, states:
See Kincheloe v. Farmer, 214 F.2d 604 (7th Cir., 1954), cert. den. ...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
M. Leo Storch Ltd. Partnership v. Erol's, Inc., 797
... ... , in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County. Storch claimed, inter alia, breach of a ... v. Mobile, supra. [109 Ala. 190, 195, 19 So. 721] * * *." ... ...
-
Willcutt v. Union Oil Co. of California
...for fraud must be commenced within one year of accrual of the cause of action. Code 1975, § 6-2-39(a)(5); Board of School Comm'rs v. Reynolds, 294 Ala. 21, 310 So.2d 876 (1975). A claim for fraud, however, "must not be considered as having accrued until the discovery by the aggrieved party ......
-
Browning v. City of Gadsden
...for failure to state a claim . . . ." The McGruder rationale has been followed by this court in Board of School Com'rs of Mobile County v. Reynolds, 294 Ala. 21, 310 So.2d 876 (1975), and Blackmon v. Chrysler Motors Corporation, Inc., 294 Ala. 426, 318 So.2d 286 (1975). Federal courts have ......
-
Papastefan v. B & L Const. Co., Inc. of Mobile
...necessary that a complaint show the time and circumstances of the discovery of the alleged fraud. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County v. Reynolds, 294 Ala. 21, 310 So.2d 876 (1975); Associates Financial Services Co., Inc. v. First National Bank of Mobile, 292 Ala. 237, 292 So.2d ......