Harper v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 11 June 2021
• Docket Number: 1180869,1180916,1180868,1180915
• Parties: William C. Harper v. Alice Lynn Harper Taylor Alice Lynn Harper Taylor v. William C. Harper
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

William C. Harper v. Alice Lynn Harper Taylor

Alice Lynn Harper Taylor v. William C. Harper

1180868

1180869

1180915

1180916

SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA

OCTOBER TERM, 2020-2021

June 11, 2021

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0649), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.

Appeal from Monroe Circuit Court

(CV-15-6)

Appeal from Monroe Circuit Court

(CV-18-1)

Appeal from Monroe Circuit Court

(CV-15-1)

MITCHELL, Justice.

These appeals arise from a will-contest dispute between siblings. After their mother died, William C. Harper and Alice Lynn Harper Taylor disagreed about which version of their mother's will governed the disposition of her assets. After a purported transfer of the will contests from probate court to circuit court, the siblings submitted their dispute to a jury, which returned a verdict for Alice Lynn. William appealed and Alice Lynn cross-appealed. Because jurisdiction never properly vested in the circuit court, we dismiss these appeals.¹

Facts and Procedural History

Alice Earle Harper died on March 1, 2013. She left three surviving children -- Alice Lynn, William, and James -- each of whom has been a party to this case. During her lifetime, Alice Earle drafted several wills, including one in 1995 and another in 2007. After her death, the children disagreed about which of her wills governed. William and James said that her 2007 will was valid, while Alice Lynn said that the 1995 will was the proper document to probate.

Alice Lynn filed a petition in the Monroe Probate Court to probate her mother's 1995 will. William moved to dismiss his sister's petition because he was attempting to probate the 2007 will in Escambia County. The Monroe Probate Court granted that motion. But following an appeal to this Court, Alice Lynn's petition to probate the 1995 will was allowed to proceed. See Taylor v. Harper, 164 So. 3d 542 (Ala. 2014).

Each sibling challenged the validity of the will favored by the other. Eventually, in accordance with § 43-8-190, Ala. Code 1975, the contests of the 1995 and 2007 wills were filed in the Monroe Probate Court. Alice Lynn sought to transfer the contests from the probate court to the Monroe Circuit Court under § 43-8-198, Ala. Code 1975. The probate court transferred the documents pertaining to the will contests to the circuit court. But that transfer lacked a certification from the probate court.

The will contests were tried to a jury. William presented evidence in favor of the 2007 will, then Alice Lynn presented evidence in support of the 1995 will. The jury found for Alice Lynn, and the circuit court entered a judgment in her favor.

William appealed the judgment, arguing, among other things, that it is void for lack of jurisdiction. Alice Lynn cross-appealed.

Standard of Review

Subject-matter jurisdiction is an unwaivable issue that this Court must consider ex mero motu. See MPQ, Inc. v. Birmingham Realty Co., 78 So. 3d 391, 393 (Ala. 2011). "Matters of subject-matter jurisdiction are subject to de novo review." DuBose v. Weaver, 68 So. 3d 814, 821 (Ala. 2011). If a circuit court's jurisdiction was not properly invoked, its judgment is void and nonappealable. MPQ, 78 So. 3d at 394.

Analysis

The dispositive issue in this case is whether the circuit court ever obtained jurisdiction over the will contests in light of the probate court's failure to certify the papers and documents pertaining to the contests.² Based on the plain language of the relevant statute, our precedent, andthe record before us, it is clear that the circuit court did not obtain jurisdiction.

We begin with the text of the relevant statute. Section 43-8-198 provides, in relevant part:

"Upon the demand of any party to the contest, ... the probate court, or the judge thereof, must enter an order transferring the contest to the circuit court of the county in which the contest is made, and must certify all papers and documents pertaining to the contest to the clerk of the circuit court, and the case shall be docketed by the clerk of the circuit court and a special session of said court may be called for the trial of said contest or, said contest may be tried by said circuit court at any special or regular session of said court."

(Emphasis added.) Over the past several decades, our Court has held that strict compliance with the requirements of § 43-8-198 is necessary for jurisdiction to attach. Jones v. Brewster, 282 So. 3d 854, 858 (Ala. 2019) ("In a long line of cases, this Court has held that strict compliance with the statutory language pertaining to a will contest is required to invoke the jurisdiction of the appropriate court."). In other words, "[a] court cannot depart from the procedures delineated in the statute and still retain jurisdiction." See Kaller ex rel. Conway v. Rigdon, 480 So.2d 536, 539 (Ala. 1985). There are numerous cases from our Court affirming thisprinciple. See, e.g., Jones, 282 So. 3d at 860 (holding that the circuit court never obtained subject-matter jurisdiction over a will contest under § 43-8-198 because the record was devoid of a transfer order from the probate court); Burns v. Ashley, 274 So. 3d 970, 974 (Ala. 2018) ("[A] circuit court cannot assume jurisdiction over a will contest pending in probate court absent strict compliance with the procedural requirements of § 43-8-198." (emphasis added)); Marshall v. Vreeland, 571 So. 2d 1037, 1038 (Ala. 1990) ("The requirements of § 43-8-198 must be complied with exactly, because will contest jurisdiction is statutorily conferred upon the circuit court." (emphasis added)); Bullen v. Brown, 535 So. 2d 76, 78 (Ala. 1988) ("It is clear that will contest jurisdiction, being statutorily conferred, must comply with the statutory language strictly in order to quicken jurisdiction of the appropriate court." (emphasis added)); Kaller, 480 So. 2d at 538 ("Because will contest jurisdiction is statutorily conferred, the procedural requirements of the applicable statute must be complied with exactly." (emphasis added)). By pairing the plain language of the statute with our precedent, the clear rule is that "a circuit court cannot assume jurisdiction over a will contest pending in probate court absent strictcompliance with the procedural requirements of § 43-8-198." Burns, 274 So. 3d at 974.

Two years ago, this Court listed the seven requirements that must be met to establish compliance with § 43-8-198:

"(1) the will must not be admitted to probate, although it must be offered for probate before it can be contested; (2) the party seeking the transfer must file a written demand for the transfer in the probate court; (3) the transfer demand must be filed at the time of the filing of the will-contest complaint or other initial pleading; (4) the probate court must enter a written order transferring the will contest to the circuit court; (5) the probate court must certify the probate-court record pertaining to the will contest to the circuit-court clerk; (6) the circuit-court clerk shall docket the case in the circuit court; and (7) the circuit court must set the will contest for a trial at a regular or a special session of court."

Jones, 282 So. 3d at 857-58 (emphasis added; internal citation omitted). Therefore, in line with this statement and our otherwise consistent application of strict compliance with the statute, a probate court must certify the probate record pertaining to the will contest to the circuit-court clerk in order for the circuit court to obtain jurisdiction.

Although certification may seem like a mere technicality, there is an important reason for requiring it. "The policy behind [certification] is toallow a will and other original documents, previously admitted to the probate court, to become part of the record in the circuit court without further authentication." Jones, 282 So. 3d at 865-66 (Sellers, J., dissenting). This requirement is no more taxing or technical than the other requirements in § 43-8-198 we consistently enforce. See, e.g., Jones, 282 So. 3d at 860 (voiding the judgment entered on a jury verdict following a three-day trial because the absence of a transfer order in the circuit-court record defeated the circuit court's jurisdiction); Burns, 274 So. 3d at 974 (dismissing the appeal of a judgment that was void for lack of jurisdiction in the circuit court because the probate court never entered a transfer order despite having an imperative duty to do so); Kaller, 480 So. 2d 538 (reversing a circuit-court judgment entered on a jury verdict and remanding based on the circuit court's lack of jurisdiction under § 43-8-198 "because the proponent did not file a pleading at the same time he filed the motion to transfer").

Alice Lynn cites Cook v. Cook, 396 So. 2d 1037 (Ala. 1981), to support her argument that mere transfer of the files to the circuit court -- without certification -- is sufficient to establish compliance with § 43-8-198. As noted by William, this argument is misguided. In Cook, the Court refused to hold that a probate court's failure to certify the papers and documents in a will contest defeated jurisdiction under the predecessor statute to § 43-8-198. 396 So. 2d at 1040. It did so because, it said, the Court "can tell when jurisdiction attache[s]." Id. On the facts before it, the Court deemed the circuit court's acknowledged receipt of the papers on the record and the notation of transfer on the docket sheet to be sufficient. Id.

But in the 40 years since this Court issued its opinion in Cook, that case has never been cited in another opinion for the proposition that certification can be disregarded or relaxed.³ And since 1981, this Court'sinterpretation of § 43-8-198 has become difficult to square with Cook's...