Hall v. CorbinHall v. Corbin
This case presents issues involving the scope of jurisdiction and available remedies in circuit court ancillary to a replevin action now that we are under the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure. In the end we hold that in such an action, a claim by another party asserting a non-possessory interest in the property may be asserted within the ancillary jurisdiction of the circuit court, so long as there is a common nucleus of operative fact between such claim and the originаl complaint in replevin. Such party may intervene in the circuit court replevin action, even though his claim is of equitable origins.
Linnie B. Hall, while in the hospital and seriously ill, wrote a check for $6,000, drawn on her personal account, and transferred that amount to a joint account with her husband, W.C. Hall, appellant hеrein. The following day, May 6, 1982, Mr. Hall withdrew $5,000 from the joint account and used it, together with a loan to purchase an automobile for a total cost of $11,016.51. He had the automobile titled in his name alone.
Three days after purchasing the automobile, Hall permitted the appellee, Gay Jetton, his wife‘s sister, to drive the automobile to the hospital to visit his wife Linnie Hall. Jetton never returned the automobile and eventually on September 15, 1982, Hall filed a “complaint in replevin” seeking to recover from Jetton and appellee David Corbin, at whose residence the automobile was alleged to be located.
Hall cоmplied with the statutory requirements for an action in replevin and Corbin and Jetton filed an answer generally denying that Hall was entitled to possession. On the same day, appellee, Marion Costello filed a motion to intervene “individually and as agent and attorney in fact for Linnie B. Hall“. In their complaint in intervention, Costello and Linnie Hall alleged that Linnie had a possessory interest in the automobile and she had permitted Costello to use and possess it during her illness. Further, they allege that W.C. Hall had fraudulently used Linnie‘s funds to obtain the automobile in his name only without Linnie‘s permission. They sought both possession and a lien in favor of Linnie Hall.
The circuit сourt permitted intervention, finding that intervenors “claim and defense and the main action of replevin have a question of law and fact in common.” Subsequently, Linnie Hall died and Costello then moved to intervene as executor of her estate, adopting the prior complaint in intervention. The court granted this motion.
The cause proceeded to trial on the merits. During the trial Costello conceded that the estate did not claim a possessory interest in the automobile. At the conclusion of the trial, the court entered final judgment awarding possession of the automobile to W.C. Hall, but impressed upon it a lien in favor of Linniе Hall‘s estate in the amount of $2,050. That amount was arrived at by giving consideration to a number of factors, including W.C. Hall‘s payment of monthly installments on the loan and his non-use of the automobile for several months from May to October. From this judgment W.C. Hall appeals assigning as the sole error that the trial court exceeded its jurisdiсtion to allow Costello to intervene as executor, where he did not claim possession and awarding an equitable lien to the estate.
The questions presented by this assignment of error are as follows: (1) is this intervention permitted under our replevin statutes, and if not, is it permitted under the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure (MRCP); and, (2) if the intervention is permitted, is the relief granted within the jurisdiction of the circuit court? We answer these questions in the affirmative. Prior to the adoption of the MRCP, replevin was a purely statutory procedure. The case of Myers v. Daughdrill, 163 Miss. 298, 141 So. 583 (1932), held the circuit court could not “administer equity or apply principles cognizable only in equity.” Alsо, General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Fairley, 359 So.2d 1386, 1388 (Miss. 1978), stated, “no provision is made under ... (our replevin statutes) for a judgment of money, except
The statute provides that the third person who “claims to be the owner or entitled to the possession of goods or chattels involved in a replevin action ... may intervene in said action and present his claim under oath.”
When viewed against this background, it is clear that, even if we disregard Rule 24, MRCP, the circuit court‘s initial decision to allow Linnie Hall to intervene was proper. Linnie Hall was a third person claiming both that she was the owner of an interest in the automobile and that she wаs entitled to possession and she was therefore directed by statute to intervene.
Appellant suggests, however, that problems arise when the intervenor seeks equitable relief and when during the course of proceedings the intervenor renounсes any claim to possession. Appellant argues that his motion to strike intervenor‘s claim for equitable relief should have been granted and once intervenor relinquished his claim to possession, he should have been dismissed from the action, citing Ferris v. Hawkins, 418 So.2d 811 (Miss. 1982). This leads to consideration of the nature of ancillary jurisdiction, nоw wholly unmasked by the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure on this matter.
We (and every other court in the land) have long held that once a court acquired actual subject matter jurisdiction of an action, other claims (whether asserted by the one or more of the original parties or by new or intervening parties), ancillаry or pendent to the original claim could also be litigated in that action even though the ancillary or pendent claim standing alone may have been beyond the court‘s jurisdiction. To fall within pendent or ancillary jurisdiction, the intruding claim must arise out of the same transaction or occurrence as the principal claim or, as others put it, out of a common nucleus of operative fact. The principal context in which we have recognized these notions is that where “legal claims” have been asserted in chancery court, pendent to the principal equity claim. Tideway Oil Programs, Inc. v. Serio, 431 So.2d 454, 464 (Miss. 1983); Burnett v. Bass, 152 Miss. 517, 521, 120 So. 456 (1929). There is no reason or prinсiple why the converse should not also be true: where a circuit court has jurisdiction of an action at law, it may hear and adjudicate in that action all claims, including those with an equitable smell, arising out of the same transaction and occurrence as the principal claim. Compare Shaw v. Owen Gin Co., 229 Miss. 126, 133, 90 So.2d 179, 181 (1956); see also, Tideway Oil Programs v. Serio, supra, at 463-64 fn. 3 and accompanying text. Indeed, the converse would appear even more appropriate in that our circuit courts are courts of general jurisdiction,
In this view we hold that the claim of intervenor Costello as originаlly filed and as revived was within the jurisdiction of the circuit court ancillary to the original action in replevin. This holding does not depend upon any enlargement of jurisdiction effected by the MRCP, for those rules
The circuit court was apparently proceeding under Rule 24 of MRCP when it allowed intervention because it did not refer to a statute and made the explicit finding required under Rule 24(b)(2) for permissive intervention. This is appropriate if the MRCP applies. To answer that question, we shall set aside for the moment, the genеral policy reasons for the applicability vel non of the MRCP and examine the impact of Rule 64, which refers specifically to replevin, as follows:
SEIZURE OF PERSON OR PROPERTY
At the commencement of and during the course of an action, all remedies providing for seizure of person or property for the purpose оf securing satisfaction of the judgment ultimately to be entered in the action are available under the circumstances and in the manner provided by law. These remedies include attachment, garnishment, replevin, claim and delivery, sequestration and other corresponding or equivalent remedies, however designated and regardless of whether the remedy is ancillary to an action or must be obtained by an independent action.
The comments on Rule 64 explain that it is “impractical at this time to draft a comprehensive procedural rule governing this area,” and that “the provisional remedies available under Mississippi law for the seizure of persons or property as security for satisfying a judgment that ultimately may be entered in a civil action continue to be available under the MRCP. Those remedies are to be resorted to in accordance with the statutory law; see, e.g.,
This Court has had occasion to address Rule 64 in First Miss. Natl. Bank v. KLH Industries, Inc., 457 So.2d 1333 (Miss. 1984), we examine the rule as it applied to garnishmеnt proceedings. We concluded that Rule 64 has no application to postjudgment garnishment proceedings and that such proceedings are governed by Rule 69(a) which provides specifically that “process to enforce a judgment for the payment of money shall be by such procedures as arе provided by statute.” We went on to hold that “the procedural rule by which a party seeks to enforce or resist enforcement of, the remedy of garnishment is that provided in our garnishment statutes, supplemented only by so much of the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure as may be found not inconsistent with those statutes.” KLH Industries, Inc., supra, at 1338.
We again, treated Rule 64 in Universal Computer Services, Inc. v. Lyall, 464 So.2d 69 (Miss. 1985) and held that аs to pre-judgment attachment proceedings, the statute governs relying on the reasoning expressed in First Miss. Natl. Bank v. KLH Industries, Inc., supra. We now hold that replevin proceedings are governed by our statutes,
The question now is: To what extent are the actions of the triаl court sanctioned by rules which are supplementary to and not inconsistent with our statutory scheme? Rule 2 provides that there shall be but one form of action known as “civil actions.” In Dungan v. Dick Moore, Inc., 463 So.2d 1094 (Miss. 1985), we held that a replevin action was a civil action under the rule. We noted that writs had been abolished and held that damages werе to be assessed on a motion for same, rather than by writs of inquiry. Rule 2 is not inconsistent with our replevin statutes.
Rule 24 is also supplementary to our statutes rather than inconsistent with them. Section 11-37-49 mandates intervention by those claiming a possessory interest in the subject property, it does not by its terms preclude the adjudication of other issues between the parties, especially as those issues relate to the subject property.
Once intеrvention is permitted under the rules, it follows that intervenors may join as many claims as they have against the opposing party.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment below is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
PATTERSON, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE, P.J., and DAN M. LEE, PRATHER, ROBERTSON and SULLIVAN, JJ., concur.
WALKER, P.J., and HAWKINS, J., dissent.
WALKER, Presiding Justice, dissenting:
This case should be styled “A Prelude to the Creation of a Unified Court System.”
I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that the circuit court, in a replevin action, may entertain a claim for and establish an equitable lien on an automobile action in favor of an intervenor, under the guise of what the opinion refers to as “pendent or ancillary jurisdiction.”
The establishment of an equitable lien on property whether it be real or personal is by its very nature and name cognizable only in a court of equity under all previous Mississippi authority, statements to the contrary within the majority opinion notwithstanding. The court which administers equity in this State is the chancery court.
All of the cases relied on by the majority opinion were chancery court cases.
This writer readily agrees that we have held that when a chancery court takes jurisdiction of a claim that is principally equitable and that “legal claims” have been asserted therein arising out of or closely related to the equitable claim, that the chancery court, as a court of equity, has the power to do “complete justice to all of the parties involved.” But, the majority opinion goes further and makes the broad and bold statement that “There is no reason or principle why the converse should not also be true: where a circuit court has jurisdiction of an action at law, it may hear and adjudicate in that action all claims, including those with an equitable smell, arising out of the same transaction and occurrence as the principle claim.” Citing Shaw v. Owen Gin Co., 229 Miss. 126, 90 So.2d 179 (1956); and Tideway Oil Programs v. Serio, 431 So.2d 454 (Miss. 1983). Those cases do not support that statement.
The circuit court is a creature of statute and only has such authority as is conferred upon it by statute. The majority opinion hаs not cited any Mississippi case which has upheld the circuit court‘s authority to administer equitable relief.
The majority recognizes that
Rule 2 makes it abundantly clear that a litigant shall present his claim in an orderly manner to a “court empowered to give him whatever relief is appropriate and just.” The establishment of equitable liens has historically been the province of the chancery court, and the circuit court has no such jurisdiction — whether it be original, ancillary or pendent!!
What I perceive from this opinion, Tideway Oil Programs v. Serio and First Miss. Natl. Bank v. KLH Industries, Inc., is a well-charted1 course leading to the abolishment of any distinction between the circuit and chancery courts. If this is to be, it should be done by the duly elected representatives of the people through legislative action, NOT BY THIS COURT.
For the above reasons, I dissent.
HAWKINS, J., joins this dissent.