Mitchell v. Miller (Ex parte Miller)

• Decision Date: 02 April 2021
• Docket Number: 1190918
• Citation: 335 So.3d 1151
• Parties: EX PARTE Alexandra Grace MILLER (In re: Ralph Mitchell v. Alexandra Grace Miller, a minor, and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company )
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

335 So.3d 1151

EX PARTE Alexandra Grace MILLER(In re: Ralph Mitchell

v.Alexandra Grace Miller, a minor, and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company )

1190918

Supreme Court of Alabama.

April 2, 2021

Gary K. Grace, Jr., and Bree Taylor Wilbourn of Grace Matthews & Debro, LLC, Huntsville, for petitioner.

J. Barton Warren and Hunter S. Garnett of Warren & Simpson, PC, Huntsville, for respondent.

SHAW, Justice.

Alexandra Grace Miller, a defendant in this personal-injury action, petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus directing the Madison Circuit Court to vacate its order purporting to grant the postjudgment motion of the plaintiff, Ralph Mitchell, seeking a new trial. We grant the petition and issue the writ.

Facts and Procedural History

Miller and Mitchell were involved in a motor-vehicle accident in May 2017. Mitchell subsequently sued Miller in the Madison Circuit Court, where the matter proceeded to a jury trial in January 2020.¹ At the conclusion of the trial, the trial court granted Mitchell's motion for a judgment as a matter of law on the issue of liability; the jury subsequently returned a verdict awarding Mitchell damages totaling $22,368 -- the exact amount of medical expenses that Mitchell alleged at trial. The trial court entered a judgment on the jury's verdict on January 31, 2020. On February 10, 2020, Mitchell filed a timely postjudgment motion seeking a new trial on the ground that the jury's verdict allegedly erroneously failed to also include an award for "physical pain and suffering."² The trial court scheduled Mitchell's postjudgment motion for a hearing to be held on March 17, 2020.

On March 13, 2020, this Court, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, issued an "Administrative Order Suspending All In-Person Court Proceedings for the Next Thirty Days," i.e., from March 16, 2020, through April 16, 2020, in "[t]he local and state courts of the State of Alabama." Among other things, the order provided:

"This order expressly does not prohibit court proceedings by telephone, video, teleconferencing, or other means that do not involve in-person contact. This order does not affect courts' consideration of matters that can be resolved without in-person proceedings.

"Any deadlines that are set by or subject to regulation by this Court that are set to expire between March 16, 2020 and April 16, 2020, are hereby extended to April 20, 2020. This Court cannot extend any statutory period of repose or statute of limitations period."

(Emphasis added.) The trial court, on that same date, despite this Court's suspension of in-person court proceedings through April 16, continued the scheduled hearing on Mitchell's postjudgment motion until April 14, 2020.³

On March 15, 2020, this Court issued a follow-up administrative order clarifying that "[t]he March 13, 2020, order is limited to in-person courtroom proceedings." On March 17, 2020, this Court issued "Administrative Order No. 3 Pertaining to the Briefing and Filing Deadlines in the Appellate Courts." In that order, this Court, as indicated, clarified deadlines for filings to our appellate courts and further explained that the March 13, 2020, administrative order "shall not be interpreted as extending any statutory period of repose, any statute of limitations, or jurisdictional limitations provided for by statute or rule." (Emphasis added.) A subsequent administrative order issued by this Court further extended the suspension of in-person court proceedings until April 30, 2020, but again encouraged the use of telephone and videoconferencing technologies.

On April 6, 2020, the trial court entered a new order continuing "all hearings" in the case until May 12, 2020. Pursuant to Rule 59.1, Ala. R. Civ. P., however, Mitchell's postjudgment motion was deemed denied by operation of law on May 11, 2020.⁴ There is nothing in the materials before us suggesting either that the parties expressly consented to an extension of the 90-day deadline established by Rule 59.1 or that Mitchell objected to the rescheduled hearing dates on the ground that the continued hearing was set to occur more than 90 days after he filed his postjudgment motion.

Thereafter, an additional administrative order issued by this Court further extended the deadline suspending in-person court proceedings until May 15, 2020. The scheduled hearing on Mitchell's motion was again continued until June 16, 2020. Miller filed, on June 11, 2020, a response in opposition to Mitchell's postjudgment motion.

Subsequent to the scheduled hearing, which allegedly occurred on the trial court's first docket after in-person court proceedings resumed, the trial court, on June 18, 2020, entered an order purporting to grant Mitchell's postjudgment motion seeking a new trial. Thereafter, Miller filed a "Motion to Vacate" in which she argued that Mitchell's postjudgment motion had actually previously been denied by operation of law and that the trial court's order purporting to grant that motion was entered well after the 90-day deadline to rule on such a motion, which, she argued, had not been extended by the administrative orders issued by this Court.⁵ Accordingly, Miller argued that the trial court's order purporting to grant Mitchell's postjudgment motion was void because, she said, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter it. The trial court did not rule on Miller's motion to vacate but set it for a hearing on August 11, 2020, which was more than 42 days after the entry of the June 18, 2020, order purporting to grant Mitchell's postjudgment motion. See Rule 21(a)(3) and Rule 4(a)(1), Ala. R. App. P. Miller then filed this mandamus petition;⁶ we subsequently ordered answers and briefs.

Standard of Review

"Mandamus is a drastic and extraordinary writ, to be issued only where there is (1) a clear legal right in the petitioner to the order sought; (2) an imperative duty upon the respondent to perform, accompanied by a refusal to do so; (3) the lack of another adequate remedy; (4) properly invoked jurisdiction of the court."

Ex parte Integon Corp., 672 So. 2d 497, 499 (Ala. 1995).

"A petition for a writ of mandamus is the proper method for obtaining review of a trial court's authority to rule on a posttrial motion beyond the time period set forth in Rule 59.1, Ala. R. Civ. P. See Ex parte Chamblee, 899 So. 2d 244, 244-45 (Ala. 2004) (granting petitions for the writ of mandamus that ‘implicate[d] the authority of the trial judge under Rule 59.1....’). See also Ex parte Davidson, 782 So. 2d 237 (Ala. 2000), in which this Court issued the writ of mandamus setting aside the trial court's order, entered after posttrial motions had been denied by operation of law pursuant to Rule 59.1, as void."

Ex parte Jackson Hosp. & Clinic, Inc., 49 So. 3d 1210, 1211 (Ala. 2010).

Discussion

It is undisputed that more than 90 days had elapsed between the time Mitchell filed his postjudgment motion and the date the trial court entered its order purporting to grant that motion. Further, as noted above, there is nothing indicating that the 90-day period provided for in Rule 59.1 was extended by express consent of all the parties before its expiration. In her mandamus petition, Miller renews her argument that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to grant Mitchell's postjudgment motion because, she says, it had already been denied by operation of law.

At all times relevant to this case, Rule 59.1 provided:

"No postjudgment motion filed pursuant to Rules 50, 52, 55, or 59 [,Ala. R. Civ. P.,] shall remain pending in the trial court for more than ninety (90) days, unless with the express consent of all the parties, which consent shall appear of record, or unless extended by the appellate court to which an appeal of the judgment would lie, and such time may be further extended for good cause shown. A failure by the trial court to render an order disposing of any pending postjudgment motion within the time permitted hereunder, or any extension thereof, shall constitute a denial of such motion as of the date of the expiration of the period."⁷

At the expiration of the 90-day period provided by the rule, the trial court loses jurisdiction to rule on the postjudgment motion. See Ex parte Jackson Hosp. & Clinic, Inc., 49 So. 3d at 1212 (explaining that the trial court's order purporting to rule on a postjudgment motion "was void because [the trial court] lost jurisdiction after the running of the 90-day period prescribed by Rule 59.1"), Ex parte Davidson, 782 So. 2d 237, 241 (Ala. 2000) ("If a trial judge allows a postjudgment motion to remain pending and not ruled upon for 90 days, then the motion is denied by operation of law at the end of the 90th day and the trial judge then loses jurisdiction to rule on the motion."), Ex parte Caterpillar, Inc., 708 So. 2d 142, 143 (Ala. 1997) ("If a trial court does not rule on a post-judgment motion within 90 days, it loses jurisdiction to rule on the motion."), and Ex parte Hornsby, 663 So. 2d 966, 967 (Ala. 1995). Mitchell responds to Miller's mandamus petition by arguing that this Court's March 13, 2020, administrative order, in addition to suspending in-person court proceedings, also "suspended" any and all applicable deadlines -- "including postjudgment deadlines" -- and thus permitted the trial court to retain jurisdiction beyond the 90-day period provided for in Rule 59.1. We disagree.

This Court's March 13, 2020, order, by its terms, clearly applied to suspend only in-person court proceedings. It further encouraged the resolution of matters, when possible, by alternate means and extended deadlines subject to this Court's regulation. However, the March 13, 2020, order operated to extend only deadlines "set to expire between March 16, 2020 and April 16, 2020" -- an extension that had no effect on any deadline applicable to Mitchell's postjudgment motion.

Our subsequent order, dated March 15,...