Goodwater Warehouse Co. v. Street

• Decision Date: 16 June 1903
• Citation: 34 So. 903,137 Ala. 621
• Parties: GOODWATER WAREHOUSE CO. ET AL. v. STREET. [a1]
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

34 So. 903

137 Ala. 621

GOODWATER WAREHOUSE CO. ET AL. v. STREET. ^[a1]

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 16, 1903

Appeal from Circuit Court, Coosa County; A. H. Alston, Judge.

Action by J. C. Street against the Goodwater Warehouse Company and another. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed.

This was a suit to recover damages from the defendants for the destruction, loss, damage, and conversion of nine bales of cotton stored by the plaintiffs with the defendants as warehousemen. Service was had upon both of the defendants and they both appeared generally and by counsel, and, after demurring to plaintiff's complaint, filed pleas to each count thereof, which set up, among other things, that at the time the plaintiff's cotton was lost or injured neither of the defendants had charge of or had any interest in the warehouse, but that the same had been rented out to other parties; and setting up other matters which naturally rested largely within the knowledge of the defendants alone. Thereupon the plaintiff filed interrogatories to the defendants under section 1850 of the Code of Alabama of 1896 which were duly and properly served upon them, and to these interrogatories the defendants filed what purported to be answers, but the same were not verified as required by section 1852, nor were they full answers to the interrogatories propounded, and were in many instances evasive. Thereupon the plaintiff under section 1856 of the Code of 1896, moved for a judgment by default against the defendants. The court, in response to this motion, rendered a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. This judgment was in words and figures as follows: "Plaintiff, by permission of the court, filed a motion praying the court to enter judgment by default against both of the defendants because of their failure to answer properly interrogatories propounded to the adversary under the statute as fully appears from said motion on file. And the court, after argument of counsel sustains said motion, and ordered, decreed, and adjudged that judgment by default be given in favor of the plaintiff against the defendants for the amount of plaintiff's claims. Thereupon the plaintiff asked for a writ enquiry to ascertain his damages," etc. There then follows the recital in the judgment of the impaneling of the jury, for whom the evidence was introduced, the return of the verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and a judgment in favor of the plaintiff upon said verdict. From this judgment the defendants appeal, and assign the rendition thereof as error.

Whitson & Graham, Sorrell & Sorrell, and D. H. Riddle, for appellants.

Knox Dixon & Burr, for appellee.

TYSON J.

This appeal is prosecuted from a judgment by default rendered against the defendants under section 1856 of the Code of 1896. That section is a part of the statutory system making provision for either party to a civil suit at law to have a discovery, as in courts of equity, upon interrogatories propounded to the adverse party, etc. Code 1896, § 1850 et seq. It reads as follows: "If answers to the interrogatories are not filed within sixty days after the service of a copy of the interrogatories, or when the answers are not full, or are evasive, the court may either attach the party and cause him to answer fully in open court, or continue the cause until full answers are made, or direct a non-suit or judgment by default to be entered." The right provided by these statutes and the remedy for the enforcement of their disobedience, as provided in the section quoted above, were unknown to the common law, and in derogation thereof, and would have no existence except for the statutes. And notwithstanding the circuit court is a court of general jurisdiction, yet when it undertakes the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred by these statutes it becomes quoad hoc a court of inferior or limited jurisdiction. Gunn v. Howell, 27 Ala. 663, 62 Am. Dec. 785; State v. M. & G. R. Co., 108 Ala. 29, 18 So. 801. There is a clear distinction between the nature of the general jurisdiction and that of a special, limited jurisdiction conferred by statute upon the same court in respect of what the record must show in order to uphold the exercise of jurisdiction. When the matter for determination is of such nature as invokes the exercise of the general jurisdiction of the court, the existence of the jurisdictional facts is inferred from the mere exercise of jurisdiction, unless the record discloses the contrary; on the other hand, where it is of such nature as the court exercises special, limited jurisdiction, the existence of jurisdictional facts is not inferred from the exercise of jurisdiction, but they must affirmatively appear from the record. Commissioners v. Thompson, 18 Ala. 694; ...