Randolph v. Hubbert

• Decision Date: 17 December 1914
• Docket Number: 859
• Citation: 190 Ala. 610,67 So. 416
• Parties: RANDOLPH v. HUBBERT.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

67 So. 416

190 Ala. 610

RANDOLPH v. HUBBERT.

No. 859

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 17, 1914

Appeal from Circuit Court, Fayette County; Bernard Harwood, Judge.

Action by R.F. Hubbert, as administrator, against T.U. Randolph. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Bankhead & Bankhead, of Jasper, and Beasley & Wright, of Fayette, for appellant.

R.F Peters, of Fayette, and Ray & Cooner, of Jasper, for appellee.

DE GRAFFENRIED, J.

The action of ejectment cannot be jointly maintained by the heirs and the personal representatives of the deceased owner of the land. "True, each may maintain (separately) an action of ejectment, to recover the possession of the lands; but their several rights over the lands when recovered are fundamentally unlike." Tarver v. Smith, 38 Ala 135; Wilson et al. v. Kirkland, 172 Ala. 72, 55 So 174.

2. This suit was originally brought by the heirs of a deceased person, who, it is claimed, owned the land. One of the heirs of said deceased was the administrator of the estate of said deceased, and against the objection of the defendant the complaint was amended by striking from--

"the original complaint the names of all the plaintiffs except the name of R.F. Hubbert (the heir who was the administrator), and to proceed in the name of R.F. Hubbert above, as the administrator of the estate of said S.A. Reeves, deceased, and to amend the caption of said original complaint, so that the same may read as follows: 'R.F. Hubbert, Who Sues as the Administrator on the Estate of S.A. Reeves, Deceased, Plaintiff.' "

The result of the above amendment was to strike from the complaint all of the original plaintiffs except one. As this one was left in the complaint, there was not an entire change of parties plaintiff, and the fact that the complaint was so amended as to change the capacity in which the one original plaintiff who was left in the complaint sued did not work an entire change of the parties plaintiff within the meaning of the law. Lucas v. Pittman, 94 Ala. 616, 10 So. 603.

3. The question which we consider below must be treated by us as if this suit had been brought originally by the plaintiff, R.F Hubbert, as the administrator of the estate of S.A. Reeves, deceased. This proposition needs no citation of authority to sustain it. While, under our statutory system, an administrator may, under many circumstances, maintain an action of ejectment to recover the possession of the lands of his...