State v. Reynolds
Decision Date | 23 January 2004 |
Citation | 887 So.2d 848 |
Parties | Ex parte State of Alabama. (In re STATE of Alabama v. Charles Donald REYNOLDS et al.) |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
William Tipton Johnson, Jr., deputy atty. gen., Tuscumbia; and William M. Bouldin, special asst. atty. gen., Russellville, for Petitioner.
Judge Harold V. Hughston, Jr., Tuscumbia; Judge Jacqueline M. Hatcher, Tuscumbia; and Vincent McAlister and G. Rick Hall of Almon, McAlister, Baccus, Hall & Kelley, Tuscumbia, for Respondents.
The State of Alabama ("the State") petitions for a writ of mandamus ordering the Circuit Court of Colbert County to vacate its order in six condemnation actions pending before it; the order realigns certain parcels and parties in those condemnation actions.
The facts presented in the petition for mandamus are as follows. The State filed petitions in the Probate Court of Colbert County seeking to condemn five tracts of land located within the Detroit Park subdivision in the City of Muscle Shoals. As originally filed, each of those five cases sought to condemn tracts that had common ownership. The State filed a sixth petition seeking to condemn two tracts with separate owners. The probate court entered an order condemning the land and awarding compensation to the owners. After the probate court entered its judgment, the State appealed each condemnation award to the Circuit Court of Colbert County for a trial de novo. After the appeals were filed, but before the cases were tried, the owners of the tracts ("the defendants") filed motions to have the tracts and the defendants realigned so that, regardless of the ownership of the tracts as designated in the six separate actions by the State in the probate court, each case would contain all of the condemned lots in a separately platted "block" of the subdivision. Neither the State's petition to this Court nor the answer of the respondents sets out or describes with any other detail the motions filed by the defendants. The trial court granted the defendants' motions to realign the tracts and the defendants.
The State filed its "Objection to Consolidation Order Dated January 17," asserting the following:
Subsection 18-1A-73(b), Ala.Code 1975, cited by the State in its objection, reads:
"(b) If there are several distinct tracts of land owned, claimed or held by different persons embraced in the complaint, the owners of each tract or other party interested therein may have a separate hearing as to the right to condemn their lands, and the probate court may, if it finds that the application should be granted as to some and not as to other of the owners or other parties, make and enter its decree accordingly."
The trial court overruled the objection, stating, in pertinent part:
Rule 21(a), Ala. R.App. P., provides that a petition for a writ of mandamus "shall contain," among other things, "a statement of issues presented and of the relief sought." Under the section of its petition captioned "Issues Presented," the State phrases its sole issue as follows:
Under the heading "Reasons Writ Should Issue," the State asserts:
"The State contends (A) it has a clear legal right under AEDC § 18-1A-73(a) for the order sought; (B) there is an imperative duty upon the trial court to perform, accompanied by a refusal to do so; (C) appeal is not an adequate remedy; and (D) this Court's jurisdiction has been invoked properly."
Thus, in its petition, the sole Code section the State references is § 18-1A-73(a). In objecting to the "consolidation" before the trial court, however, the State referenced only subsection (b) of that Code section, along with § 18-1A-197(1), which reads:
As noted, the State in its petition for the writ of mandamus relies on § 18-1A-73(a) "in particular," without referring to subsection (b) in the statement of the issues presented or the statement of the reasons the writ of mandamus should issue. This Court will not reverse an order duly entered by a trial court, or issue a writ of mandamus commanding a trial judge to rescind an order, based upon a ground asserted in the petition for the writ of mandamus that was not asserted to the trial judge, regardless of the merits of a petitioner's position in the underlying controversy. Ex parte Ebbers, 871 So.2d 776, 786 (Ala.2003) (...
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