Sue Bell Cobb

This case arose from a dispute between the Water Works Board of the City of Auburn (AWWB) and the Loachapoka Water Authority (LWA) over which entity had the right to provide water and fire-protection services to overlapping areas, including a subdivision called The Greens at Auburn; the developers of that subdivision intervened in the suit. The trial court granted AWWB a partial summary judgment on several claims, dismissed LWA's counterclaim, and certified the order as final under Rule 54(b) of the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, prompting appeals by both LWA and the developers. The Alabama Supreme Court held that the certification was improper because the adjudicated claims were intertwined with still-pending claims, making piecemeal appellate review inappropriate. The Court therefore set aside the Rule 54(b) certification and remanded the case to the trial court without reaching the merits of the underlying water-service dispute.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

In State v. Montgomery, Maurice Montgomery was indicted for third-degree burglary after police used dog tracking to locate him hours after a break-in at a store, read him Miranda rights, and obtained a confession at the jail; the trial court granted his motion to suppress the confession on the ground that the dog-tracking evidence alone did not supply probable cause for arrest. The State appealed, arguing that such evidence could establish probable cause. The appellate court reversed, holding that the tracking results, combined with the suspects having fled the scene on foot without returning to a nearby abandoned getaway car, were sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing Montgomery had committed the burglary. The court analogized trained tracking dogs to drug-detection dogs whose alerts provide probable cause and noted that issues of evidentiary predicate and weight are for trial. It remanded for further proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

Leland Wilson sued the Saraland City Council and its members, alleging that they violated the Alabama Open Meetings Act during a November 2009 special meeting where the council discussed a proposed drainage plan for Wilson's property in executive session and excluded him from the public portion. The Mobile Circuit Court dismissed the case after two preliminary hearings under the Act, finding that Wilson had not met his initial burden to establish a violation. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that Wilson's sole argument at the hearings—that he was improperly excluded from the open meeting—did not demonstrate a violation of the Act's provisions on public access, executive sessions, or record-keeping, and that other potential claims were not properly raised below.

procedure

This case concerned competing claims to administer the estate of Jackie Ingram, who was killed in a car accident in St. Clair County but had lived for decades in Jefferson County with all his property and assets there. Rose Ingram obtained letters of administration ad litem from the Jefferson County probate court, while Edwin Van Dali later obtained general letters of administration from the St. Clair County probate court to handle potential claims arising from the accident. The St. Clair Circuit Court ruled that Van Dali's letters were valid, Rose Ingram's were invalid, and it had jurisdiction over the matter. The Alabama Supreme Court held that probate jurisdiction to issue letters of administration is determined by the decedent's county of residence at death, so the St. Clair probate court lacked authority to appoint Van Dali. Because that court had no jurisdiction, the circuit court acquired none upon removal, rendering its orders void; the court therefore vacated the April 2010 order and dismissed the action and appeal without prejudice.

procedurefamily law

The case involved Luvertte Williams's conviction for first-degree rape of W.M., an 11-year-old girl. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction on evidentiary grounds, but the Alabama Supreme Court reversed that decision and remanded the case. The central issue was the admissibility at trial of evidence that Williams had fathered a child with W.M.'s older sister J.W. when J.W. was 12, along with medical evidence that Williams, J.W., and W.M. all tested positive for chlamydia. The court held that this evidence was relevant under precedents such as Lee v. State to prove the mechanism of disease transmission through sexual contact and to identify Williams as the perpetrator, and that its probative value was not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned Jefferson County's authority to collect taxes under Act No. 2009-811, a local law reenacting and expanding prior occupational tax authority after earlier statutes were struck down. Plaintiffs, a class of professionals and businesses, challenged the Act's constitutionality, and the trial court granted summary judgment in their favor, enjoining further collections. The court held that the Act violated Alabama Constitution Article IV, Section 106 because the published notice failed to accurately describe key provisions, including its retroactive effect and its application of a new occupational tax to previously exempt licensed professionals. The trial court rejected arguments that the notice requirements did not apply or that a general description sufficed, and it made the ruling prospective only. The County appealed the decision to the Alabama Supreme Court.

taxesbusiness & regulatory