Patterson v. Downs, 5 Div. 508

• Decision Date: 11 January 1951
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 508
• Parties: PATTERSON et al. v. DOWNS et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 408

50 So.2d 408

255 Ala. 197

PATTERSON et al. v. DOWNS et al.

5 Div. 508.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Jan. 11, 1951.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 22, 1951.

J. B. Atkinson, of Clanton, and Rives & Godbold, of Montgomery, for appellants.

Omar L. Reynolds, A. B. Foshee and Reynolds & Reynolds, all of Clanton, for appellees.

STAKELY, Justice.

This is an ejectment suit filed by Tommie Patterson and others, appellants, against Roy Downs and Pearlie Downs, appellees. The only question presented on this appeal is the correctness vel non of the ruling of the lower court in admitting in evidence certain proceedings in the Probate Court of Chilton County for revocation of an insanity finding and letters of guardianship. By reason of the ruling the plaintiffs in the lower court, appellants here, took a nonsuit. Hence this appeal.

On March 4, 1941 Ulysses Patterson filed a petition in the Probate Court of Chilton County to have Emma Patterson Murphy, his mother, declared of unsound mind. As a result of these proceedings a decree was rendered that Emma Patterson Murphy was a person of unsound mind and C. O. Jones was appointed as her guardian.

On October 9, 1942 Emma Patterson Murphy filed in the same court a petition for revocation of the insanity proceedings against her and for revocation of the letters of guardianship. The record of this proceeding, which was filed under § 16, Title 21, Code of 1940, does not disclose any citation or notice served on Ulysses Patterson nor does it show citation upon the guardian C. O. Jones, although it does show an acceptance of notice by the guardian.

On October 9, 1942 pursuant to these latter proceedings the Probate Court of Chilton County decreed that Emma Patterson Murphy had been restored to sanity. On January 18, 1943 Emma Patterson Murphy executed a deed to the appellee and his wife purporting to convey the land in question involved in this case. It is stipulated and agreed that there was no change in the mental condition of Emma Patterson Murphy between the date of the decree finding her restored to sanity, October 9, 1942, and the date on which she executed the deed to the appellee and his wife, January 18, 1943.

Subsequent to the execution of the deed Emma Patterson Murphy died intestate and the appellants as some of her heirs at law have succeeded to such rights as the decedent may have had. Subsequent to the deed from Emma Patterson Murphy, Pearlie Downs, the wife of appellee, conveyed to appellee her interest in the land.

When the case came on for trial a jury was waived by the parties for this trial only. Appellee offered in evidence the official court file in the proceedings of October 9, 1942, containing all the documents read into that proceeding, including the decree of the probate court which declared Emma Patterson Murphy restored to sanity. The appellants objected on the grounds that the proceedings were void in that the record disclosed no citation served on Ulysses Patterson and further that it disclosed no citation served on C. O. Jones, the guardian, and further that the decree in the proceeding was void in that the record failed to show affirmatively that citations had been served either on said Ulysses Patterson or C. O. Jones. At the time both Ulysses Patterson and C. O. Jones were alive and resided in Chilton County, Alabama. The objections were overruled and the official court file was admitted in evidence as conclusive and res adjudicata of the mental condition of Emma Patterson Murphy as of October 9, 1942. The appellants excepted to this ruling, calling attention of the court to the fact that it was stipulated and agreed between the parties that the mental condition of Emma Patterson Murphy did not change between the date of the decree of October 9, 1942 and the date of the execution of the deed to appellees. By reason of the rulings a voluntary nonsuit was taken as aforesaid and from this ruling this appeal has been prosecuted.

It must be conceded that the attack here on the proceedings to revoke the insanity finding and the letters of guardianship is a collateral attack. Williams v. Overcast et al., 229 Ala. 119, 115 So. 543. So it becomes important to determine whether the court in these proceedings was acting as a court of general jurisdiction or a court of limited and statutory jurisdiction. This is true because where a court of general jurisdiction has exercised its powers, it will be presumed, unless the contrary appears of record, that all the facts necessary to give the court jurisdiction were duly found and every step taken. Silence of the records of the court is not sufficient to create a presumption of lack of jurisdiction. It is only where the face of the record shows a want of jurisdiction that its proceedings will be declared void on collateral attack. Blount County Bank v. Barnes, 218 Ala. 230, 118 So. 460; White v. Simpson et al., 124 Ala. 238, 27 So. 297. But if the court is of limited jurisdiction, its jurisdiction being statutory, the requirements of the statute must be strictly complied with, which must affirmatively appear from the record. Fowler v. Fowler, 219 Ala. 453, 122 So. 440; Wiley v. State, 117 Ala. 158, 23 So. 690; Chamblee v. Cole, 128 Ala. 649, 30 So. 630.

It is argued with great earnestness that the proceedings under § 16 et seq., Title 21, Code of 1940, to revoke the finding of insanity and the letters of guardianship were in a court of general jurisdiction. The argument is based on the idea that in § 278, Title 13, Code of 1940, courts of probate are given original and general jurisdiction as to 'the appointment and removal of guardians for minors and persons of unsound mind.' But this position is contrary in principle to the decision of this court in Fowler v. Fowler, supra, where inquisition proceedings were had under § 9 et seq., Title 21, Code of 1940. There has been legislative adoption of the interpretation placed on these statutes because after this interpretation the statutes were carried into the code without change. Ex parte Thompson, 249 Ala. 12, 29 So.2d 287. In Fowler v. Fowler, supra, this court said: 'Construing the foregoing statute in pari materia with section 9579, it is too clear for argument that it was not the purpose of the last-cited section to convert the probate court into a court of general jurisdiction in hearing an inquisition of lunacy. In this proceeding, it is a court of statutory and limited jurisdiction, and, in order to sustain the decree adjudging the complainant a person of unsound mind, it must affirmatively appear on the face of the record that all of the necessary jurisdictional steps were taken to complete the court's...