Ex parte Hanna Steel Corp.11/12/2004
Humana, Inc., 462 So. 2d 922, 925 (Ala. 1985), which applied to Coffee County. The wording of the local act, as amended, pertaining to Barbour County did not permit the interpretation that the Clayton division and the Eufaula division were two separate judicial districts for purposes of venue. Jefferson, Coffee, and Barbour Counties drew jurors not from the county at large, but from the separate divisions of the counties. (St. Clair County also had two courthouses, but it drew jurors from the county at large to serve at both courthouses.) Because Barbour County had been held to be a single entity, there was nothing to justify drawing juries from geographical divisions less than the county as a whole, until Ala. Code 1975, § 6-3-7(d), was enacted in 1999, which provided that "the divisions shall be treated as two separate judicial districts for purposes of venue and for purposes of any change of venue, unless the jury venire is drawn from throughout the entire county."
In my opinion, § 6-3-7(d) has the limited effect of making the Clayton division and the Eufaula division of Barbour County separate judicial districts for purposes of venue to justify the selection of jurors from within those two divisions rather than from the entire county.
LYONS, Justice (concurring in the result).
This case involves venue in the Bessemer Division of the Jefferson Circuit Court, as did Ex parte Walter Industries, Inc., 879 So. 2d 547 (Ala. 2003), a case in which I dissented, and as did Ex parte DaimlerChrysler Corp., [Ms. 1030573, September 17, 2004] ___ So. 2d ___ (Ala. 2004), which I authored. In DaimlerChrysler, we were asked to overrule Walter Industries without sufficient argument, and we declined to do so. In this case, the residents challenge the holding in Walter Industries with the argument that § 6-3-7(d), Ala. Code 1975, should control. I expressed in my dissent in Walter Industries the view that § 6-3-7(d) governed; however, in this proceeding, the residents never ask us to overrule Walter Industries, decided after § 6-3-7(d), or Ex parte Central of Georgia Ry., 243 Ala. 508, 10 So. 2d 746 (1942), the case relied upon in Walter Industries for the conclusion that venue in the Bessemer Division is limited to lawsuits upon causes of action arising within the division.
Without a specific request to overrule prior precedent in a setting where no argument can be made that the precedent has already been overruled sub silentio by previous decisions, a court taking such action sua sponte cuts off an adverse party's right to have the court consider the important subordinate question--assuming the precedent was wrongly decided, whether stare decisis requires adherence to it. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 481 U.S. 681, 703 (1987) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("We have not been asked by respondent to overrule Feres [v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950)], and so need not resolve whether considerations of stare decisis should induce us, despite the plain error of the case, to leave bad enough alone."). Therefore, I must concur in the result.
Johnstone, J., concurs.
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