Willis v. Parker

• Decision Date: 07 September 2001
• Parties: Donald WILLIS v. Charles Jeff PARKER. Charles Jeff Parker v. Donald Willis.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

814 So.2d 857

Donald WILLIS v. Charles Jeff PARKER.

Charles Jeff Parker v. Donald Willis.

1916.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

September 7, 2001.

Michael B. Beers and Constance T. Buckalew of Beers, Anderson, Jackson, Nelson, Hughes & Patty, P.C., Montgomery, for appellant/cross appellee Donald Willis.

Steven F. Schmitt of Harper & Smith, P.C., Tallassee; and John Percy Oliver of Oliver & Sims, Dadeville, for appellee/cross appellant Charles Jeff Parker.

JOHNSTONE, Justice.

The defendant Donald Willis appeals the judgment of the trial court entered on the jury verdict and award of $16,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages in favor of the plaintiff Charles Jeff Parker on his claims of abuse of process and conspiracy. Parker cross-appeals the judgment as a matter of law entered by the trial court in favor of the defendant Willis on Parker's claim of malicious prosecution. The gravamen of Parker's complaint is that Willis, conspiring with others, wrongfully filed and pursued an eviction action against Parker. We reverse and render the judgment in favor of Parker on his claims of abuse of process and conspiracy, and we affirm the judgment in favor of Willis on Parker's claim of malicious prosecution.

In 1986, Willis, as landlord, leased a building at 504 North Broadnax, Dadeville, Alabama, to 3 B Foods, Inc., acting through its owner Archie Black, for use as a grocery store. Before the lease expired, Black decided to discontinue his grocery store business; and Parker negotiated to buyout 3 B Foods, Inc. Parker also negotiated with Black and Willis for them to assign the lease to him as the tenant. On November 15, 1993, Parker, Black, and Willis agreed to an assignment of the lease. The assignment, drafted by Parker, read:

"The Heretofore mentioned parties agree to, in accordance with conditions in paragraph 241, extend the lease to December 29, 1996.

"Lessor /s/Donald B. Willis Sr. "Lessee /s/Archie Black

"Contingent upon

"3-B Foods Receiving payment in Full by noon 11-18-93 (initialed by Archie Black and Jeff Parker) The Lessor and Lessee agree to pass all responsibility of fulfilling the lease of this building to Super Sav, Inc. Super Sav, Inc., agrees to be responsible for all conditions of the before lease as of 11/15/1993."

"Lessor Donald B. Willis, Sr."

On the date the assignment was executed, "Super Sav, Inc." did not exist. "Super Sav, Inc." was not incorporated until two days later, November 17, 1993.

The extended and assigned lease expired on December 29, 1996. At the beginning of the following year, 1997, Parker negotiated with Willis an oral lease of the property, from month-to-month for an indefinite period of time. At that time, Parker did not represent to Willis that Parker was leasing the property for any entity or person other than himself. During the time Parker was occupying the property, Willis told Parker Willis wanted to obtain a long-term lease on the property and repeatedly asked Parker to sign a long-term lease. Parker refused to sign any long-term lease because he was preparing to open a different grocery store at a different location in Dadeville.

On February 19, 1998, over a year into the oral lease, Willis sent Parker a letter informing him that he either could sign a long-term lease or could vacate the property before April 1, 1998. On March 4, 1998, Willis sent Parker a second letter requesting that Parker vacate the property by March 31, 1998, because he had not signed a long-term lease and Willis had negotiated and had executed a long-term lease for greater monthly rental with a new tenant who needed possession of the property by April 1, 1998.

On April 2, 1998, when Parker had not vacated the property, Willis filed an eviction action against Parker in district court. Parker's defense to the eviction action was that Willis had sued the wrong defendant to evict. Parker maintained that one of his corporations was the proper defendant to be sued for eviction because the assigned lease named the corporation as the assignee-lessee. However, at the time Willis filed the eviction action, neither he nor Parker could remember the identity of the assignee. Parker swore by affidavit, on two occasions, that the tenant of the property was "C.J. & T., L.L.C. d/b/a Dadeville Super Sav." On the other hand, Willis maintained that Parker was the tenant under the assignment as well as the subsequent oral lease. Sometime later, after the district court had entered a judgment for Willis in the eviction suit against Parker and Parker had appealed the eviction to the circuit court, Parker asserted that the tenant and proper defendant for eviction was "Super Sav, Inc." When Parker showed Willis the 1993 instrument assigning the lease to "Super Sav, Inc.," and thereby convinced Willis, during his deposition, that "Super Sav, Inc.," rather than Parker, was the proper defendant to be sued for eviction, Willis promptly dismissed his suit against Parker and filed a second eviction suit, this one against "Super Sav, Inc." The district court then entered a judgment for Willis in his eviction suit against "Super Sav, Inc.," which appealed this eviction to the circuit court. During the pendency of the circuit court appeal of the second eviction action, the parties settled it.

Shortly after Willis filed his second eviction action, Parker sued Willis for malicious prosecution and abuse of process in filing and pursuing the first eviction action, the one against Parker personally. Thereafter, Parker amended the complaint to add a claim that Willis had conspired with others to perpetrate the alleged malicious prosecution and abuse of process. The trial court entered a judgment as a matter of law in favor of Willis on Parker's claim of malicious prosecution but denied judgment as a matter of law on Parker's claims of conspiracy and abuse of process and submitted them to the jury, which returned a verdict in favor of Parker and against Willis and awarded Parker $16,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. The trial court entered a judgment on the jury verdict; and, after unsuccessful postjudgment motions, Willis appeals the judgment for damages against him, and Parker cross-appeals the judgment as a matter of law against him on his own malicious prosecution claim.

In reviewing the ruling of a trial court on a motion for judgment as a matter of law, "[t]he appellate court will accept the tendencies of the evidence most favorable to the nonmoving party and will resolve all reasonable doubts in favor of the nonmoving party." Ex parte Breitsprecher, 772 So.2d 1125, 1129 (Ala.2000) (citing System Dynamics Int'l, Inc. v. Boykin, 683 So.2d 419 (Ala.1996)). Parker was the nonmoving party to all of Willis's motions for judgment as a matter of law—the successful one directed to Parker's malicious prosecution claim and the unsuccessful ones directed to Parker's conspiracy and abuse of process claims. Thus, we are accepting the tendencies of the evidence most favorable to Parker and resolving all reasonable doubts on issues of fact in Parker's favor.

Parker contended at trial, as he does on appeal, that Willis's first eviction action was tortious in two respects. First, it was filed with the motive of driving Parker out of business by evicting the tenant in Willis's building. Second, it was filed against the wrong defendant, Parker personally, instead of one of his corporations. We will assume, for the purpose of analysis only, that Parker has proved that Willis's motive was to drive Parker out of business by evicting Willis's tenant. The critical inquiries are whether this motive, or Willis's choice of defendant for his first eviction action, or both this motive and this choice, in the context of the other facts, complete either the tort of malicious prosecution or the tort of abuse of process.

Alabama statutory law grants a landlord an absolute right to terminate a month-to-month tenancy and to evict the tenant upon 10 days' notice. Section 35-9-5, Ala. Code 1975, provides:

"In all cases of tenancy by the month or for any other term less than one year, where the tenant holds over without special agreement, the landlord shall have the right to terminate the tenancy by giving the tenant 10 days' notice in writing of such termination, and the landlord upon giving said notice for said time shall be authorized without further notice to the tenant to recover possession of the rented premises in an action of unlawful detainer."

(Emphasis added.) Then, § 35-9-80 provides:

"In all cases where a tenant shall hold possession of lands or tenements ... after his right of possession has terminated or been forfeited, and the owner of the lands or tenements shall desire possession of the same, such owner may by himself, his agent or attorney-in-fact or attorney-at-law demand the possession of the property so rented, leased, held or occupied; and if the tenant refuses or omits to deliver possession when so demanded, the owner, his agent or attorney-at-law or attorney-in-fact may go before the district court in the county in which the land lies, and make oath of the facts."

(Emphasis added.) Neither statutory law nor common law restricts a landlord in his motives for evicting his tenant. Special restrictions against eviction, such as antidiscrimination laws, do not apply to the facts of the case now before us. In fact, Parker does not contend that Willis did not have a legal right to evict a month-to-month tenant who refused to sign a long-term lease or to vacate the property after repeated requests by Willis for the tenant to do either.

Malicious Prosecution Claim

To establish a claim of malicious prosecution, Parker must prove "that the defendant [Willis] instigated without probable cause and with malice, a prior judicial proceeding against [Parker], that the prior proceeding ended in favor of [Parker], and that [Parker] suffered damages." Lumpkin v. Cofield, 536 So.2d 62, 64 (A...