# Ex Parte James

> Supreme Court of Alabama · May 31, 2002 · 836 So. 2d 813

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1885183

## Case

- **Court:** Supreme Court of Alabama
- **Decided:** May 31, 2002
- **Citations:** 836 So. 2d 813; 2002 WL 1150823
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Judges:** Per Curiam
- **Cited by:** 54 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1885183

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding challenge non- justiciable under education clause expressing the policy of Alabama “to foster and promote the education of its citizens in a manner and extent consistent with its available resources,” which clause specifies that the provision should not be construed to…
- finding challenge non-justiciable under education clause expressing the policy of Alabama "to foster and promote the education of its citizens in a manner and extent consistent with its available resources,” which clause specifies that the provision should not be construed to …
- stating that § 43.01 nullifies “any ‘order of a state court, which requires disbursement of state funds, ... until the order has been approved by a simple majority of both houses of the Legislature’”
- noting that "members of this Court have expressed serious concerns regarding the underlying foundations of this case,” and citing Hooper, C.J., dissenting from the James majority, describing the proceedings as a " 'sham' due to a lack of true adversity between the parties”

## Opinion text

836 So.2d 813 (2002)
Ex parte Governor Fob JAMES et al.
(In re Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., an Alabama nonprofit corporation, et al. v. Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as a president of the State Board of Education, et al.)
Ex parte Governor Fob James et al.
(In re Mary Harper, suing as next friend of Deion Harper; and Kerry Phillips, a minor, et al. v. Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al.)
Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al.
v.
Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., et al.
Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al.
v.
Mary Harper et al.
Joyce Pinto et al.
v.
Alabama Coalition for Equity et al.
Joyce Pinto et al.
v.
Alabama Coalition for Equity et al.
1950030, 1950031, 1950240, 1950241, 1950408, and 1950409.
Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 31, 2002.
*814 Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and Margaret L. Fleming and Scott L. Rouse, asst. attys. gen.; Michael R. White, Alabama Department of Education; and Edward A. Hosp, governor's legal advisor, for the State defendants.
Samuel Adams, Montgomery; and Kendrick E. Webb and Bart Harmon of Webb & Eley, P.C., Montgomery, for the Pinto parties.
Roger L. Bates, I. Ripon Britton, Jr., and E. Shane Black of Hand Arendall, L.L.C., Birmingham, for Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc.
Robert D. Segall of Copeland, Franco, Screws & Gill, P.A., Montgomery; Mark Sabel of Sabel & Sabel, Montgomery; and Martha Morgan, Tuscaloosa, for Mary Harper, suing as next friend of Deion Harper, and Kerry Phillips.
Paul J. Dezenberg, Tuscaloosa, for Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.
Richard P. Rouco of Whatley Drake, L.L.C., Birmingham, for amici curiae Child Advocacy Organizations, Civil Rights Organizations, Professional Education Associations, and University Professors throughout the State, in support of the Alabama Coalition for Equity.
William F. Gardner of Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O'Neal, Birmingham, for amici curiae Jacksonville State University, University of Montevallo, University of North Alabama, University of South Alabama, Troy State University System, and University of West Alabama.
Henry E. Simpson and David W. Spurlock of Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville, L.L.P., Birmingham; and C. Glenn Powell and Hattie E. Kaufman, Office of General Counsel, The University of Alabama System, for amicus curiae Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama.
Lee F. Armstrong, Office of General Counsel, Auburn University; and James E. Williams of Melton, Espy, Williams & Hayes, for amicus curiae Auburn University.
Roderic G. Steakley and William R. Lunsford of Sirote & Permutt, Huntsville, for amicus curiae Alabama A&M University.
*815 PER CURIAM.
This Court "shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men." Ala. Const. 1901, § 43 (emphasis added). In Alabama, separation of powers is not merely an implicit "doctrine" but rather an express command; a command stated with a forcefulness rivaled by few, if any, similar provisions in constitutions of other sovereigns. Amendment 582 to the Alabama Constitution of 1901 reflects this State's adherence to this command by effectively nullifying any "order of a state court, which requires disbursement of state funds, ... until the order has been approved by a simple majority of both houses of the Legislature." Compelled by the weight of this command and a concern for judicial restraint, we hold (1) that this Court's review of the merits of the still pending cases commonly and collectively known in this State, and hereinafter referred to, as the "Equity Funding Case," [1] has reached its end, and (2) that, because the duty to fund Alabama's public schools is a duty that—for over 125 years [2] —the people of this State have rested squarely upon the shoulders of the Legislature, it is the Legislature, not the courts, from which any further redress should be sought. Accordingly, we hold that the Equity Funding Case is due to be dismissed.
Concerns regarding judicial restraint and the separation of powers have constituted a repeated refrain in this litigation. See James v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., 713 So.2d 937, 943 (Ala.1997) (discussing the Court's refusal to review the merits of the Liability Order); Id. at 953 (Maddox, J., concurring in the result but dissenting from the rationale, noting that this case involves "a debate about the doctrine of separation of powers among coordinate, independent branches of state government and about whether certain orders were `final' or not"); Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 878 (Ala.1997) (refusing to consider the merits of the Liability Order, but addressing the political-question doctrine and noting "the American judiciary's understandable preference for restraint in *816 this complex area of litigation," 713 So.2d at 881); Id. at 891-94 (Maddox, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, opining that state officials "should be free to exercise their discretion," 713 So.2d at 894, with regard to their school-funding duties); Pinto v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, 662 So.2d 894, 900 (Ala.1995) (refusing to allow intervention to "reopen or relitigate the question of the constitutionality of the educational system"); Id. at 901 (Maddox, J., concurring specially, stating that "the question of the power of the circuit court, in the remedy phase, might, and probably will, present questions involving the division of powers between the Executive Branch and the Legislative and Judicial Branches of government"); Id. at 903 (Houston, J., concurring in the result, discussing Ala. Const.1901, § 43, and noting that the legislative and executive branches have the responsibility of "providing for public education"); Opinion of the Justices No. 338, 624 So.2d 107, 110 (Ala.1993) (discussing the "principle of separation of powers" and noting that "[t]he executive and legislative branches of the State have broad powers and responsibilities in the area of public education").
As the various opinions attached to this and other decisions of this Court stemming from the Equity Funding Case demonstrate, members of this Court have expressed serious concerns regarding the underlying foundations of this case and the trial court's actions and legal conclusions leading up to and included in its March 31, 1993, "Liability Order." See, e.g., Ex parte James, 713 So.2d at 895-923 (Hooper, C.J., dissenting, and among other things, describing the proceedings before the trial court as a violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine and as a "sham" due to a lack of true adversity between the parties); Pinto, 662 So.2d at 901-10 (Houston, J., concurring in the result, criticizing the trial court's "interpretation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, §§ 1, 6, and 22, which [the trial court interpreted] to provide equal protection," 662 So.2d at 904 ). However, the Liability Order having been purportedly made "final" by the trial court pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P., and never appealed, this Court has, rightly or wrongly, so far refused to review the merits of the Liability Order.
Given our ultimate holding in this opinion, we deem it judicially imprudent now—after issuing four decisions in this case over the past nine years—to test the bounds of judicial restraint in such a manner. Our present concerns parallel the rationale that undergirds the principle of stare decisis:
"The rule of stare decisis is founded on principles of conservatism; not intended to prevent progress in the science of the law, and such modifications and adaptations of judicial decisions as may be required by the varying and advancing conditions of society and industries; but most beneficial, when applied in the exercise of a sound and wise discretion. The rule does not rest on a disaffirmance of judicial fallibility. Its invocation implies, that former decisions may be erroneous, adherence to which, though erroneous, will be productive of much less evil than a departure therefrom.... The quieting of litigation; the public peace and repose; respect for the judicial administration of the law, and confidence in its reasonable certainty, stability, and consistency, and all considerations of public policy call for permanently upholding acts done, contracts executed, rights vested, and titles to property acquired on the faith of decisions of the court of last resort."
Bibb v. Bibb, 79 Ala. 437, 443-44 (1885). However, our restraint should not be seen as establishing some new formula for determining *817 when this Court will decline to rule on an issue or to exercise its inherent appellate and supervisory powers; the undisputedly sui generis nature of this case precludes such an interpretation. See Ex parte James, 713 So.2d at 876 (stating that "this case is sui generis in Alabama jurisprudence").
Like the issues surrounding the Liability Order, the issue of the proper remedy in this case raises concerns for judicial restraint, albeit of a different type. With regard to the remedy, our concern is not that this Court should refrain from potentially harming the public's confidence in the "reasonable certainty, stability, and consistency" of decisions of the judicial branch, but rather that the pronouncement of a specific remedy "from the bench" would necessarily represent an exercise of the power of that branch of government charged by the people of the State of Alabama with the sole duty to administer state funds to public schools: the Alabama Legislature. As Justice Houston noted in Ex parte James:
"Circumstances have denied this Court the opportunity to review the trial court's liability order. Even so, it is the duty of the Judicial Department of Alabama government only to determine what the Constitution of Alabama requires. In my opinion, the Legislative Department and the Executive Department, and not the Judicial Department, have the power and duty to implement a plan that would make this system equitable (and hence, according to the trial court's liability order, constitutional). I trust that the Legislative Department and the Executive Department will proceed to exercise the power and perform the duty they have been called upon to exercise and perform to make Alabama's public educational system constitutional. The `Separation of Powers' provision of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 (Art. III, § 43) prohibits me from doing more, without resorting to unconstitutional judicial activism, which I have heretofore avoided."
713 So.2d at 895 (emphasis added) (Houston, J., concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part).
Our consideration of this issue stems from our June 29, 2001, order vacating the remand in Ex parte James; [3] however, our conclusion merely purifies and extends—in the light of § 43 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901—the analysis previously undertaken in Ex parte James. In Ex parte James, the Court recognized the serious difficulties implicated by judicial involvement in the administrative details of school funding. 713 So.2d at 880-82. In its discussion of whether the judiciary had the authority to provide a specific remedy directing the administration of public-school *818 funds, a plurality [4] of this Court summarized the relevant decisions of other jurisdictions as follows, acknowledging that courts defer to the legislative branch in matters of public education, but apparently finding solace in what those decisions do not say:
"Other courts have deferred to their legislatures, expressing in language similar to that used in Rose [v. Council for Better Education, Inc., 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky.1989)] confidence that their legislatures would promptly act to remedy constitutional infirmities in their public educational systems. See, e.g., Seattle School Dist. No. 1 v. State, 90 Wash.2d 476 , 585 P.2d 71, 104 (1978) (`We have great faith in the Legislature and its ability to define "basic education" and a basic program of education....'); Serrano v. Priest, 18 Cal.3d 728 , 557 P.2d 929 , 135 Cal.Rptr. 345 (1976) (`We are confident that the Legislature, aided by what we have said today ..., will be able to devise a public school financing system which achieves constitutional conformity ....'), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 907 , 97 S.Ct. 2951 , 53 L.Ed.2d 1079 (1977). None of the cases we have found in our research, however, has held that the judiciary lacks the power to order a specific remedy if the legislature ultimately fails adequately to address the constitutional deficiency. " Ex parte James, 713 So.2d at 880 (some emphasis added; some emphasis original).
We find nothing in the plurality's argument, based on silence, that could justifiably support judicial intrusion into legislative matters. Arguments based on what courts do not say, logically speaking, are generally unreliable and should not be favored by the judiciary; this is especially true when the judiciary is faced with, as we are here, a contrary constitutional mandate such as § 43 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901. Cf. United States v. Butler, 207 F.3d 839, 851 (6th Cir.2000) (noting that an argument based on congressional silence on an issue would not overcome textual evidence of congressional intent) (citing Burns v. United States, 501 U.S. 129, 136 , 111 S.Ct. 2182 , 115 L.Ed.2d 123 (1991)). Moreover, such judicial intrusion would represent a jurisprudential divergence with other state courts, who, including those mentioned in Ex parte James, have refused to become involved with school-funding matters, acknowledging, as we do today, such matters to be purely legislative in nature. See, e.g., Seymour v. Region One Bd. of Educ., 28 Conn. L. Rptr. 508 (Conn.Super.Ct.2001) (not published in A.2d) (dismissing a challenge to a state law allocating school funds because the case raised what were purely "questions for lawmakers"); Lewis E. v. Spagnolo, 186 Ill.2d 198, 208 , 710 N.E.2d *819 798, 804, 238 Ill.Dec. 1, 7 (1999) ("`questions relating to the quality of education are solely for the legislative branch to answer'" (quoting Committee for Educ. Rights v. Edgar, 174 Ill.2d 1, 24 , 672 N.E.2d 1178, 1189 , 220 Ill.Dec. 166, 177 (1996))); Marrero v. Commonwealth, 559 Pa. 14, 20 , 739 A.2d 110, 114 (1999) (affirming that such matters are "exclusively within the purview of the General Assembly's powers, and they are not subject to intervention by the judicial branch of our government"); Abbeville County School Dist. v. State, 335 S.C. 58 , 69, 515 S.E.2d 535, 541 (1999) (refusing to "usurp the authority of [the legislative branch] to determine the way in which educational opportunities are delivered to the children of [South Carolina]" or to allow "the courts of this State to become super-legislatures").
Our conclusion that the time has come to return the Equity Funding Case in toto to its proper forum seems a proper and inevitable end, foreshadowed not only by the obvious impracticalities of judicial oversight, [5] but also by the Court's own actions in Ex parte James. While the plurality in Ex parte James opined that, in the abstract, the judiciary had the authority to implement a remedy, it did not attempt this task (which may have proven illustrative, because its concrete, rather than abstract, form would have proven its legislative nature) and instead admitted that "the legislature ... bears the `primary responsibility' for devising a constitutionally valid public school system." Id. at 882 (quoting McDuffy v. Secretary of the Exec. Office of Educ., 415 Mass. 545 , 619 n. 92, 615 N.E.2d 516 , 554 n. 92 (1993) (quoting Edgewood Indep. School Dist. v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391, 399 (Tex.1989))). Accordingly, the opinion vacated the trial court's remedy plan and directed the Legislature to formulate a constitutional education system within one year. Id. at 882. Almost a year later, on rehearing, a majority of the Court modified that opinion to allow the Legislature an undefined and open-ended "reasonable time" within which to formulate such an education system, and the case was remanded to the trial court, which would retain jurisdiction. Id. at 935.
Continuing the descent from the abstract to the concrete, we now recognize that any specific remedy that the judiciary could impose would, in order to be effective, necessarily involve a usurpation of that power entrusted exclusively to the Legislature. [6] Accordingly, compelled by the authorities discussed above—primarily by our duty under § 43 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901—we complete our judicially prudent retreat from this province of the legislative branch in order that we may remain obedient to the command of the people of the State of Alabama that we " never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men." Ala. Const.1901, § 43 (emphasis added).
CASES DISMISSED.
*820 SEE, BROWN, HARWOOD, and STUART, JJ., concur.
HOUSTON, J., concurs specially.
WOODALL, J., concurs in the result.
MOORE, C.J., concurs in the result in part and dissents in part.
JOHNSTONE, J., dissents.
LYONS, J., recuses himself.
HOUSTON, Justice (concurring specially).
I concur.
If the State of Alabama had requested that this Court set aside the Liability Order in this litigation, I would have voted to do so for the following reasons.
Alabama Code 1975, § 12-2-13, provides:
"The Supreme Court, in deciding each case when there is a conflict between its existing opinion and any former ruling in the case, must be governed by what, in its opinion, at that time is law, without any regard to such former ruling on the law by it. ..."
(Emphasis added.)
In Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 878 (Ala.1997), Justice Cook summarized what is established law:
" `[T]he lack of subject matter jurisdiction is not waivable and may be raised at any time by the suggestion of a party or by a court ex mero motu.' Judgments entered without subject-matter jurisdiction can `be set aside at any time as void, either on direct or on collateral attack.' "
(Citations omitted; emphasis added.)
My opinion now, as it was in 1995 [7] and in 1997, [8] is that the Liability Order was wrongly decided, and that § 256 of Amendment No. 111 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 (hereinafter "Amendment 111") was a duly ratified constitutional amendment that does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. My opinion now differs from my opinion in 1995 and 1997, because now I believe that the trial court was without subject-matter jurisdiction to decide the liability issue. See Part I of this special writing.
I raise this issue in this special writing, because I think I have an obligation to do so. A trial judge elected by the majority of the voters in a single Alabama judicial circuit has declared a portion of the Alabama Constitution unconstitutional. [9] My research has failed to reveal that this has ever been done before. I, and all Alabama judges and Justices, have taken an oath to "support ... the Constitution of the State of Alabama...." Ala. Const.1901, Art. XVI, § 279. " Support, uphold, back, advocate, champion. These verbs mean to give aid or encouragement to a person or a cause. Support is the most general." The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1739 (4th ed.2000) (emphasis in original).
I am a great admirer of Judge Learned Hand. I try to be guided by Judge Hand's speech given at the "I Am an American Day" in Central Park in New York City, *821 on May 21, 1944. In that speech he said: "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. ..." Gerald Gunther, Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge 549 (Alfred A. Knopf 1994). Therefore, I go beyond Amendment 111, where I think that I am right, to a point where I am sure that I am right.
My opinion now is that even if Amendment 111 violated the Fourteenth Amendment, and that this violation revitalized the original § 256 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 (hereinafter the "original § 256") (which I do not believe that it did—see Part II below), there is no way the second sentence of the original § 256 violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This sentence provided: "The public school fund shall be apportioned to the several counties in proportion to the number of school children of school age [between 7 and 21] therein ...." (Emphasis added.) The trial court does not explain how this sentence—which requires equal payment for the education of each Alabama child regardless of race, color, creed, gender, citizenship, or national origin—violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; it merely declares that it does: "The second... sentence[] [is] declared to be without force or effect under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." How can a constitutional provision that requires that school funds be spent equally for each school child in Alabama be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause? See Part III of this special writing.
However, because the majority of this Court is now doing what I said had to be done in my special writing concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part in Ex parte James, supra , I am merely raising my concerns about the lack of subject-matter jurisdiction of the trial court as to all or part of the Liability Order, and I am concurring with the majority of this Court in dismissing these cases.
In Ex parte James, 713 So.2d at 895, I wrote:
"I concur to remand for the trial court to vacate its judgment insofar as it concerns the Remedy Plan.... A trial court has declared the Alabama educational system unconstitutional. Circumstances have denied this Court the opportunity review the trial court's liability order. Even so, it is the duty of the Judicial Department of Alabama government only to determine what the Constitution of Alabama requires. In my opinion, the Legislative Department and the Executive Department, and not the Judicial Department, have the power and duty to implement a plan that would make this system equitable (and hence, according to the trial court's liability order, constitutional). I trust that the Legislative Department and the Executive Department will proceed to exercise the power and perform the duty they have been called upon to exercise and perform to make Alabama's public educational system constitutional. The `Separation of Powers' provision of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 (Art. III, § 43) prohibits me from doing more, without resorting to unconstitutional judicial activism, which I have heretofore avoided. "
(Houston, J., concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part.) (Second emphasis added.)
It is not that I do not personally agree with what has been attempted—I do. In my heart and mind, I believe all Alabama children deserve an adequate education. Judge Hand concluded his "Spirit of Liberty" speech with the following: "[T]he spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a *822 kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest." Gunther at 549. It is just that I cannot judicially agree with what has been done, and I am writing as Justice J. Gorman Houston, Jr., not as citizen J. Gorman Houston, Jr. The Constitution is the command of "We the people of Alabama," [10] and it inhibits Justices and judges. If, as in the New Jersey Constitution, the Alabama Constitution assured its citizens of "a thorough and efficient system of free public schools," and if there were no separation-of-powers provision in the Alabama Constitution, then perhaps I could reach judicially the results reached in some of the decisions that led to Abbott v. Burke, 153 N.J. 480 , 710 A.2d 450 (1998), which the New York Times declared "may be the most significant education case since the Supreme Court's desegregation ruling nearly 50 years ago." A Truce in New Jersey's School War, N.Y. Times, Feb. 9, 2002, at A18. However, judicially I cannot take the language that pertains to education in the Alabama Constitution, originally or as amended, and hold that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. That fact combined with the strong separation-of-powers provision in the Alabama Constitution [11] prohibits me from attempting to exercise legislative and/or executive powers to fix education in Alabama.
I.
Simply put, I believe (1) that the trial court was and is without subject-matter jurisdiction to rule on the parties' challenge to Amendment 111; (2) that the trial court's lack of subject-matter jurisdiction leaves the Equity Funding Case with no foundation; and (3) that Amendment 111 remains part of the Constitution of Alabama and empowers the Alabama Legislature to enact all, part, or none of the plaintiffs' proposed educational reform.
Both complaints in the Equity Funding Case list as their "First Claim" what in fact serves as the foundation and essential first step of these cases: a requested declaration that Amendment 111 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, so that educational reform can be accomplished by judicial fiat and not by legislative will. Education is not listed as a right in the Declaration of Rights in the Alabama Constitution of 1901 (Art. I, §§ 1-36). Additionally, there is no federal fundamental right to education, as the United States Supreme Court, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 , 93 S.Ct. 1278 , 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973) (a case involving a challenge to Texas's public-school funding method), has held that no such right exists under the federal constitution.
Amendment 111 provides:
"It is the policy of the state of Alabama to foster and promote the education of its citizens in a manner and extent consistent with its available resources, and the willingness and ability of the individual student, but nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as creating or recognizing any right to education or training at public expense, nor as limiting the authority and duty of the legislature, in furthering or providing for education, to require or impose conditions *823 or procedures deemed necessary to the preservation of peace and order.
"The legislature may by law provide for or authorize the establishment and operation of schools by such persons, agencies or municipalities, at such places, and upon such conditions as it may prescribe, and for the grant or loan of public funds and the lease, sale or donation of real or personal property to or for the benefit of citizens of the state for educational purposes under such circumstances and upon such conditions as it shall prescribe. Real property owned by the state or any municipality shall not be donated for educational purposes except to nonprofit charitable or eleemosynary corporations or associations organized under the laws of the state.
"To avoid confusion and disorder and to promote effective and economical planning for education, the legislature may authorize the parents or guardians of minors, who desire that such minors shall attend schools provided for their own race, to make election to that end, such election to be effective for such period and to such extent as the legislature may provide."
Amend. No. 111, § 256, Ala. Const.1901.
The plaintiffs moved for a partial summary judgment, asking the trial court to declare Amendment 111 unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Decisions by this Court and by a three-judge panel of the federal district court, whose decision was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, had previously declared that Amendment 111 was the law of Alabama and that the Amendment served as the conduit through which the Legislature was free to repeal school-segregation laws. See Mitchell v. McCall, 273 Ala. 604, 606 , 143 So.2d 629, 630 (1962) (stating that Amendment 111 imposes on the State of Alabama "no constitutional obligation to provide public schools"); Opinion of the Justices No. 179, 275 Ala. 547, 550 , 156 So.2d 639, 643 (1963) (stating that, under Amendment 111, "it appears that the power to provide for the operation of schools is in the legislature"); Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 162 F.Supp. 372, 379-81 (N.D.Ala. 1958) (in which Judge Richard Rives, writing for himself and Judges Lynn and Grooms, specifically addressed Amendment 111 and the constitutionality of the "School Placement Law" enacted in conjunction with the Amendment, pointing out that, without Amendment 111, the original § 256 (which explicitly required segregated schools) would represent the law in Alabama), aff'd, 358 U.S. 101 , 79 S.Ct. 221 , 3 L.Ed.2d 145 (1958) (memorandum). Although the Shuttlesworth opinion dealt with the constitutionality of the School Placement Law enacted after the ratification of Amendment 111, the plaintiffs in that case proffered the same evidence of "improper motivation" that the parties in this case offered. Judge Rives noted: "If, however, we could assume that the Act was passed by the legislature with an evil and unconstitutional intent, even that would not suffice," because the impact of the implementation of the law must also be unconstitutional. Shuttlesworth, 162 F.Supp. at 381 . As noted above, the United States Supreme Court affirmed this holding.
Even so, the trial court entered the following order on August 13, 1991:
"1. Amendment 111, Section 256 of the Alabama Constitution is declared and hereby is void ab initio and in its entirety under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"2. The mandate of Section 256 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 is declared, and hereby is, in effect to the *824 extent that it provides: `The legislature shall establish, organize, and maintain a liberal system of public schools throughout the state for the benefit of the children thereof between the ages of seven and twenty-one years.' The second and third sentences of Section 256 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 are declared to be without force or effect under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"Copies of this order shall be distributed forthwith by the Clerk of this Court to all counsel of record.
"DONE and ORDERED this 13th day of August, 1991."
(Footnotes omitted.) On October 18, 1991, the trial court purported to make this order final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.; this Court has never addressed the finality of that August 13, 1991, order.
The August 13, 1991, order provided the necessary foundation for the trial court's March 31, 1993, order, which essentially held that "the present system of public schools in Alabama violates the constitutional mandate of art. XIV, § 256, and the provisions of art. I[,] §§ 1, 6, 13, and 22 of the Alabama Constitution." (March 31, 1993, Order, Appendix to Opinion of the Justices No. 338, 624 So.2d 107, 110 (Ala. 1993)). The foundational nature of the August 13, 1991, order was made clear in James v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., 713 So.2d 937, 947-50 (Ala.1997), in which we held that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 because they had prevailed in asserting their federal claim; namely, striking down Amendment 111 under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In response to the defendant's assertions "that the [March 31, 1993,] Liability Phase judgment was based entirely on the Constitution of Alabama," 713 So.2d at 949, and thus did not rest upon the August 13, 1991, resolution of the plaintiff's federal claims, Justice Cook, writing for the Court, stated:
"On the contrary, the only basis for its [March 31, 1993] holding that the system by which Alabama administered its public schools violated §§ 1, 6, 13, 22, and 256 of the Alabama Constitution was its [August 13, 1991,] holding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional, and, therefore, inapplicable. Had it held otherwise, the trial court would then have been unable to locate any principle of logic or constitutional construction of which we are aware that would have enabled it to circumvent the specific provisions of Amendment 111—nullifying the mandate of § 256—and, thereby, to reach the result obtained in the Liability Phase. In a real sense, the court's holding that Amendment 111 violated the Fourteenth Amendment is the linchpin of this entire action. We hold, therefore, that the plaintiffs-cross appellants, who prevailed on this pivotal question of federal constitutional law as the basis for the entire action, are entitled to an award of attorney fees, pursuant to § 1988."
James v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., 713 So.2d at 950.
Essentially, the August 13, 1991, order is, by necessity, incorporated into and inseparable from the March 31, 1993, order. With this in mind, I turn now to an examination of the fundamental question of the trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction.
Essential to the validity of any action by a trial court is proper subject-matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, any examination of an order issued by a trial court includes an examination of that court's subject-matter jurisdiction. A jurisdictional defect, when discovered, is of such an important nature that it may be raised by a reviewing court, *825 ex mero motu if necessary. Ex parte State ex rel. James, 711 So.2d 952, 959-60 (Ala.1998).
Addressing jurisdictional matters is not a procedure foreign to our decisions in the Equity Funding Case. We followed this very procedure in Ex parte James (the very case before us now based upon our June 29, 2001, order vacating our remand in that case). In Ex parte James, we declined to examine the merits of the Liability Order but made it clear that a review of the trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction was appropriate, even after we had issued two opinions related to this litigation in Pinto v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, 662 So.2d 894 (Ala.1995); and Opinion of the Justices No. 338, 624 So.2d 107 (Ala.1993):
"Because the Liability Phase was never appealed, we are here presented with no issue as to the correctness of that holding. The only issue that we may consider is whether the trial court—in addressing the merits of this dispute— violated the separation of powers doctrine of our constitution. If it did, then it had no subject matter jurisdiction and the judgment was void. We may address this issue because `[t]he lack of subject matter jurisdiction is not waivable and may be raised at any time by the suggestion of a party or by a court ex mero motu.' Judgments entered without subject-matter jurisdiction can `be set aside at any time as void, either on direct or on collateral attack.'"
Ex parte James, 713 So.2d at 878 (citations omitted). While the Court in Ex parte James wrestled with the issue of political questions, I believe that the equally fundamental issue of standing —an issue yet to be addressed—should be determinative here.
A plaintiff's standing is an essential (and, in fact, the chief) component of justiciability:
"Not all controversies, even very public ones, are justiciable. Justiciability is a compound concept, composed of a number of distinct elements. Chief among these elements is the requirement that a plaintiff have `standing to invoke the power of the court in his behalf.' Ex parte Izundu, 568 So.2d 771, 772 (Ala.1990)."
Ex parte State ex rel. James, 711 So.2d at 960 (emphasis added); see also Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 421 , 89 S.Ct. 1843 , 23 L.Ed.2d 404 (1969) (stating that because "the question of standing goes to this Court's jurisdiction ... we must decide the issue even though the court below passed over it without comment" (citation omitted)). As this Court stated in State v. Property at 2018 Rainbow Drive, 740 So.2d 1025, 1027-28 (Ala.1999), standing requires injury in fact:
"Standing ... turns on `whether the party has been injured in fact and whether the injury is to a legally protected right.' Romer v. Board of County Comm'rs of the County of Pueblo, 956 P.2d 566, 581 (Colo.1998) (Kourlis, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). See also NAACP v. Town of East Haven, 892 F.Supp. 46 (D.Conn.1995)....
". . . .
"When a party without standing purports to commence an action, the trial court acquires no subject-matter jurisdiction. Barshop v. Medina County Underground Water Conservation District, 925 S.W.2d 618, 626 (Tex.1996) (`Standing is a necessary component of subject matter jurisdiction'). See also Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 , 117 S.Ct. 2312 , 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997); Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 , 116 S.Ct. 2174 , 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996); United States v. *826 Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 742 , 115 S.Ct. 2431 , 132 L.Ed.2d 635 (1995) ("`standing `is perhaps the most important of [the jurisdictional] doctrines'"'); National Organization for Women, Inc., v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249, 255 , 114 S.Ct. 798 , 127 L.Ed.2d 99 (1994) (`Standing represents a jurisdictional requirement which remains open to review at all stages of the litigation.'); Romer v. Board of County Comm'rs of the County of Pueblo, supra, 956 P.2d at 585 (`standing is a jurisdictional prerequisite to every case and may be raised at any stage of the proceedings') (Martinez, J., dissenting); Cotton v. Steele, 255 Neb. 892 , 587 N.W.2d 693 (1999)."
In the context of a challenge to a provision's facial constitutionality, the plaintiff's injury must "directly aris[e] from" the language of the provision. See Ex parte Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Alabama, 582 So.2d 469, 474 (Ala.1991); Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass'n, 484 U.S. 383, 392 , 108 S.Ct. 636 , 98 L.Ed.2d 782 (1988) (plaintiffs had standing to make facial challenge to the constitutionality of a statute because the statute was "aimed directly at plaintiffs, who, if their interpretation of the statute is correct, will have to take significant and costly compliance measures or risk criminal prosecution"); Initiative & Referendum Inst. v. Walker, 161 F.Supp.2d 1307, 1310 (D.Utah 2001) (plaintiffs, whose alleged injury was "directly traceable to the existence of an amendment to the Utah Constitution, had standing to challenge the facial constitutionality of that amendment).
My review of this case convinces me that the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the facial constitutionality of Amendment 111. As stated above, standing to challenge Amendment 111 would require that the plaintiffs demonstrate that they have been "injured in fact" by the existence of Amendment 111. The problem is that Amendment 111 cannot itself be the source of the alleged injuries.
It should be apparent that Amendment 111—through which the Legislature was able to repeal the various forced segregation laws [12] —merely authorizes certain legislative activities and requires or precludes virtually none. The first paragraph states a general policy of "fostering and promoting" education and declares that the Alabama Constitution of 1901 provides no fundamental right to a public education. [13] Of course, the citizens of a state *827 are free to construct their state constitution in any way they deem fit, and they are, therefore, not required to recognize any particular right. There can be no "injury in fact" stemming from this language.
The second paragraph includes the only actual requirement to be found in the entire Amendment 111—that "[r]eal property owned by the state or any municipality shall not be donated for educational purposes except to nonprofit charitable or eleemosynary corporations or associations organized under the laws of the state." Not surprisingly, the plaintiffs do not allege any injury under this language. The remainder of the second paragraph, as characterized by the first three words ("The legislature may"), is a mere authorization for the establishment of schools "upon such conditions as [the Legislature] may prescribe" (emphasis added). There is no method prescribed, duty imposed, or action required or prohibited; therefore, there is no possible injury in fact to the plaintiffs.
Likewise, in terms of active language that binds or compels the actions of the Legislature, the third paragraph is similarly barren. Under this paragraph, the Legislature "may" allow parents to choose to send their children to private, racially segregated schools—something that, according to decisions of the United States Supreme Court, parents of any race had the right to do at the time Amendment 111 was proposed and ratified. [14] While interpreting this paragraph as somehow allowing parents to send their children to racially segregated public schools is wholly irrational, given that such schools were declared unconstitutional before Amendment 111 was even proposed, see Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 , 74 S.Ct. 686 , 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), even this irrational interpretation would not provide a basis for these plaintiffs to demonstrate standing unless racially segregated public schools had in fact been established by the State. Of course, this is not the case, see Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education, 162 F.Supp. 372 (N.D.Ala. 1958), aff'd, 358 U.S. 101 , 79 S.Ct. 221 , 3 L.Ed.2d 145 (1958) (memorandum), and the plaintiffs do not so allege.
What the plaintiffs appear to allege as the "injury" is the effects of school-funding *828 policies promulgated while Amendment 111 was in effect, [15] i.e., that because Amendment 111 was proposed and ratified with an improper purpose [16] —an attempt to temper the United States Supreme Court's mandate in Brown —the "injuries" stemming from these policies are therefore "injuries" stemming from Amendment 111. If the fallacy of this reasoning is not apparent on its face, it is easily demonstrated by the following example.
Imagine that the following hypothetical constitutional provision was, for some racist purpose, proposed and ratified as an amendment to the Alabama Constitution:
"The Legislature may enact laws regulating the riding of bicycles on public streets."
Subsequently, the Legislature enacts a statute restricting only white citizens from riding bicycles on public streets. It is obvious that those white citizens would have been injured so as to have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute. However, those white citizens were in no way injured by the amendment itself, because the amendment—even though created with racist motivations— did not in any way compel the Legislature to regulate at all, let alone to regulate in an unconstitutional manner.
Given the nature of the language of Amendment 111, it is not surprising that the plaintiffs have failed—even after having been notified that the issue of standing was under examination—to address specifically how Amendment 111 itself causes any injury in fact to the plaintiffs. In short, the plaintiffs can show no injury in fact from Amendment 111 because the Amendment actually allows the Legislature to provide any type of funding method it so desires, and therefore does not preclude the Legislature from adopting— and in fact gives the Legislature the power to adopt—the very same funding method sought by the plaintiffs in this case! The ACE plaintiffs even acknowledge this fact in their complaint, which states that Amendment 111 " appears to authorize any kind of funding system for education." (ACE complaint at 23, emphasis in original.)
Without any basis from which to demonstrate that they have been injured by the *829 existence of Amendment 111 itself, rather than by school-funding policies promulgated while Amendment 111 happened to be in effect, the plaintiffs in this case have no standing to challenge the constitutionality of Amendment 111. Without standing, the constitutional challenge to Amendment 111 is nonjusticiable, a fact that renders the trial court without jurisdiction to rule on the issue.
As stated above, because the trial court's ruling on this issue is "the only basis for its [March 31, 1993,] holding that the system by which Alabama administered its public schools violated §§ 1, 6, 13, 22, and 256 of the Alabama Constitution," and because this sole basis—indeed the essential and undisputed foundation of the March 31, 1993, order—is, in my opinion, void because of a fundamental and fatal jurisdictional defect, had the State of Alabama requested that this Court vacate the Liability Order, I would have voted to do so on this basis.
Certainly, Amendment 111 is not rendered impervious to challenge simply because its language is inert; the citizens of this State reserved to themselves the ability to challenge any constitutional provision through the amendment procedure described in Article XVIII of the Alabama Constitution of 1901, as amended. In fact, this procedure allows the added benefit of not only nullifying the effect of a constitutional provision (which is the result of having the provision declared unconstitutional), but of changing the substance of the provision itself to reflect the specific desires of the citizenry. The power to rewrite the constitution properly rests in the hands of the people, and not in the judiciary; it is of this power that the plaintiffs in this case, in my opinion, should have availed themselves. [17]
*830 II.
Assuming that the plaintiffs had standing, which they did not; and assuming that the trial court was correct in holding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional, which it was not; [18] the voidance of an amendment to a constitutional provision does not automatically revive the unamended provision.
It is true that Alabama recognizes the common-law rule of statutory construction that a predecessor statutory provision is revived when the repealing statute is held unconstitutional.
"Revival of predecessor statutes has long been a part of American jurisprudence. See, E. Crawford, The Construction of Statutes, § 321 (1940). Simply stated, revival means that the very act of declaring a statute unconstitutional brings the predecessor statute or the applicable common law rule back into full force. See, id.; and Dewrell v. Kearley, 250 Ala. 18 , 32 So.2d 812 (1947). Thus, the trial court's declaration that Act No. 82-444 was unconstitutional automatically gave new life to the predecessor statutes, Acts No. 76-710 and 80-797."
Deputy Sheriffs Law Enforcement Ass'n v. Mobile County, 590 So.2d 239, 242-43 (Ala. 1991). However, the rule of automatic revival of predecessor statutes is not similarly applicable to the revival of constitutional provisions. Davis v. Synhorst, 225 F.Supp. 689 (S.D.Iowa 1964). With regard to constitutional provisions, the intent of the Legislature to repeal the predecessor provision is controlling. Id. Where the Legislature has intended that the subsequent amendment repeal the predecessor provision, there is no revival of the pre-existing provision. Id.; City of Klamath Falls v. Oregon Liquor Control Comm'n, 146 Or. 83 , 29 P.2d 564 (1934) (refusing to use the statutory-revival rule to revive a constitutional provision that had been implicitly repealed by two subsequent amendments after those subsequent amendments were themselves repealed). Therefore, the question becomes: did the Alabama Legislature intend for Amendment 111 to repeal the original § 256? The answer is yes.
Clearly, Amendment 111 repealed the original § 256, because it is a complete revision of that section. An amendment to the Alabama Constitution "must prevail over, operate a repeal or modification of any other inconsistent or repugnant elder provisions in the Constitution, to the extent such inconsistency or repugnancy exists." Opinion of the Justices No. 1, 209 Ala. 593, 601 , 96 So. 487, 496 (1923). Furthermore, the differences between the original § 256 and the amended provisions make it clear that Amendment 111 was intended to replace the original § 256. Therefore, because by ratifying Amendment 111 the people clearly repealed the original § 256, it could not automatically be revived by a declaration that Amendment 111 is unconstitutional.
III.
Assuming that the plaintiffs had standing, which they did not; assuming that the trial court was correct in holding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional, which it was not; and assuming that the trial court was correct in holding that its finding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional automatically revived the original *831 § 256, which it was not; Amendment 111 cannot logically, rationally, or coherently be unconstitutional and wholly void while part of the original § 256 is constitutional and remains in effect.
The clause in § 256 as amended by Amendment 111 that, according to the trial court violates the Fourteenth Amendment, states that "the legislature may authorize the parents or guardians of minors, who desire that such minors shall attend schools provided for their own race, to make election to that end...." (Emphasis added.) The original § 256 contains a sentence that stated: "Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race." (Emphasis added.) Amendment 111 uses the word "may," while the original § 256 uses the word "shall."
"`The word "shall" has been defined as follows:
"`"As used in statutes, contracts, or the like, this word is generally imperative or mandatory. In common or ordinary parlance, and in its ordinary signification, the term `shall' is a word of command, and one which has always [been given] or which must be given a compulsory meaning; as denoting obligation. The word in ordinary usage means `must' and is inconsistent with a concept of discretion."
" `Black's Law Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. [1990]).'
" Ex parte Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 721 So.2d 1135, 1138 (Ala.1998)."
Ex parte Looney, 797 So.2d 427, 428-29 (Ala.2001). See also State ex rel. Hartman v. Thompson, 627 So.2d 966, 970 (Ala.Civ. App.1993) ("In the absence of clear legislative intent to the contrary, the word `shall' is to be afforded a mandatory connotation when it appears in a statute."). In contrast, as discussed above, the word "may" denotes a permissive act, as opposed to a mandatory act. American Bankers Life Assurance Co. v. Rice Acceptance Co., 739 So.2d 1082 (Ala.1999). According to the plain language of each provision, the original § 256 mandated that public schools be provided for children and mandated that those schools be segregated, while Amendment 111 mandated nothing. Therefore, under the trial court's reasoning, if Amendment 111, which mandates nothing, is unconstitutional in its entirety, based only upon a racist intent, then, certainly, the original § 256 must also be unconstitutional in its entirety because it commands that the State provide segregated schools.
In an attempt to support the reasoning behind the disparate treatment of the first paragraph of Amendment 111 and the first sentence of the original § 256, the trial court's order misleadingly sets out selected portions of the chairman's opening address to the 1901 constitutional convention. The trial court did not refer to the portion of the chairman's address that shows the racist intent of the 1901 Convention. See 1 Official Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1901, pp. 7-14.
The trial court does hold in its August 13, 1991, order that a portion of the original § 256 is unconstitutional. However, the trial court's construction of Amendment 111 cannot be reconciled with its construction of the original § 256. The trial court's 1991 order states:
"1. Amendment 111, Section 256 of Alabama Constitution is declared and hereby is void ab initio and in its entirety under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"2. The mandate of Section 256 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 is declared, and hereby is, in effect to the extent that it provides: `The legislature *832 shall establish, organize, and maintain a liberal system of public schools throughout the state for the benefit of the children thereof between the ages of seven and twenty-one years.' The second and third sentences of Section 256 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 are declared to be without force or effect under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
(Footnotes omitted.) If, under the rationale of the trial court, Amendment 111 violated the Fourteenth Amendment because the Amendment had a discriminatory intent, then, certainly, the original § 256 did as well. See, e.g., 1 Official Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1901, pp. 7-14.
The trial court voided, without any analysis or explanation, Amendment 111 in its entirety as violating the Fourteenth Amendment; in contrast, when it came to the original § 256, the trial court simply severed the last two sentences instead of declaring the whole provision void as it did with Amendment 111. The trial court gives no explanation for the different treatment of the two provisions, and we can find no such explanation in the law.
Assuming that the trial court was correct in holding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional, which it was not; assuming that the trial court was correct in holding that its finding that Amendment 111 was unconstitutional automatically revived the original § 256, which it did not; and assuming that the trial court could disparately hold that Amendment 111 was void in its entirety, while only some of original § 256 was unconstitutional, which it could not; how could the trial court hold that the second sentence of original § 256 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
That sentence provides:
"The public school fund shall be apportioned to the several counties in proportion to the number of school children of school age therein, and shall be so apportioned to the schools in the districts or townships in the county as to provide, as nearly as practicable, school terms of equal duration in such school districts or townships."
Certainly, the judicial mind cannot reasonably comprehend how this second sentence of original § 256 offends the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not. How could this be more equal? The State is to provide an equal amount for each child of school age (as defined by the first sentence of the original § 256 as ages 7 through 21), regardless of race, color, creed, gender, citizenship, or national original, regardless of where that child lives in Alabama. Each child receives the same amount from the State for his or her education. I can only assume that this sentence had to be removed to allow the trial court to interpret the word "liberal" in the first sentence of the original § 256 unrestrained by the command for equality. The second sentence of original § 256 violates no equal-protection clause, and the trial court erred when, without explanation, it held that it did.
IV.
In response to Justice Johnstone's dissent, I believe that it is essential to note that our inquiry was not initiated ex nihilo, but rather was prompted only after the yet unreviewed March 31, 1993, Liability Order was raised before us by parties— some of whom were parties in the Equity Funding Case—as a defense to proration in Siegelman v. Alabama Association of School Boards, 819 So.2d 568 (Ala.2001).
*833 In our review of the Siegelman case, we discovered that there may in fact be a jurisdictional problem relating to the finality of the March 31, 1993, order. Therefore, in an exercise of our supervisory and inherent appellate powers, we issued— without dissent—the following order on the same day we released our June 29, 2001, decision in Siegelman, ex mero motu recalling our remand of the case in Ex parte James:
"ORDER
"On December 3, 1997, we remanded cases 1950030, 1950031, 1950240, 1950241, 1950408, and 1950409 to the trial court with directions that that court retain jurisdiction. In order that the question of this Court's subject-matter jurisdiction over those cases may be addressed, that remand order is ex mero motu vacated to the limited extent of requiring the parties to present briefs directed to the issue whether the order in the Liability Phase entered on March 31, 1993, declaring that Alabama's public education system violated `Ala. Const. art. I, §§ 1, 6, 13, and 22 ... and art. XIV, § 256 ...' was a final, appealable order.
"All parties are given 28 days from the date of this order, to file briefs addressing this limited issue."
Eight Justices of this Court, including Justice Johnstone, concurred with this order; one Justice recused himself. [19] See June 29, 2001, order of this Court attached to this special writing as an appendix.
It cannot be denied that our review of the Equity Funding Case has proceeded along an unusual path; however, given the highly unusual nature of the Equity Funding Case, [20] that fact should be unremarkable. However, the fact that a court's action does not navigate a familiar course does not automatically indicate that the court is without authority so to navigate. Instead, as is true in this case, it may simply mean that unusual circumstances have compelled the court to exercise little-used but quite legitimate powers. I believe that our June 29, 2001, order implicates two such powers: our general powers of supervisory authority as the Supreme Court of Alabama over courts of inferior jurisdiction and our inherent appellate power to recall our judgments.
A. Supervisory Authority
This Court, as the Supreme Court of Alabama, has constitutionally grounded supervisory authority over the State courts of Alabama. [21] Amendment 328, § 6.02(b), Ala. Const.1901, Amending Art. VI, § 140 ("The supreme court shall have original jurisdiction ... to issue such remedial writs or orders as may be necessary to *834 give it general supervision and control of courts of inferior jurisdiction"); [22] Ex parte Burch, 236 Ala. 662, 666 , 184 So. 694, 698 (1938) (stating that the Supreme Court of Alabama "possesses supervisory power over inferior tribunals, and it is its clear duty to exercise that power whenever it is made to appear that an inferior court is guilty of usurpation or abuse of jurisdiction"). Accordingly, just as the United States Supreme Court is the final arbiter of federal law, see, e.g., New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 767 , 102 S.Ct. 3348 , 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982) (stating that "this Court is the final arbiter of whether the Federal Constitution necessitated the invalidation of a state law"); Grantham v. Avondale Indus., Inc., 964 F.2d 471, 473 (5th Cir.1992) (noting that "[i]t is beyond cavil" that the federal courts are not bound by state-court interpretations of federal law), the Supreme Court of Alabama is the final arbiter of Alabama law, with ultimate authority to oversee and rule upon the decisions of the lower State courts. See Wainwright v. Goode, 464 U.S. 78, 84 , 104 S.Ct. 378 , 78 L.Ed.2d 187 (1983) (stating that "the views of [a] state's highest court with respect to state law are binding on the federal courts"); Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 557 , 60 S.Ct. 676 , 84 L.Ed. 920 (1940) ("It is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by us in interpreting their state constitutions. .... [S]tate courts will not be the final arbiters of important issues under the federal constitution; and ... we will not encroach on the constitutional jurisdiction of the states."); see also Ala.Code 1975, § 12-2-7(6)(a) (barring the Alabama Supreme Court from transferring to the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals "[a] case that ... presents a substantial question of... state constitutional law").
And like the United States Supreme Court's duty with regard to the federal constitution, our status as final arbiter imputes to us a particularly important duty with regard to the Alabama Constitution, because while our interpretations of statutes can be, in a sense, "overruled" by subsequent legislative enactment, our interpretations of the Alabama Constitution are beyond legislative alteration. See Marsh v. Green, 782 So.2d 223, 232 (Ala. 2000) (noting that, in cases involving constitutional adjudication, the doctrine of stare decisis plays little role "because, in such cases, `"`correction through legislative action is practically impossible.'"'" (quoting Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 63 , 116 S.Ct. 1114 , 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996))); see also Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 235 , 117 S.Ct. 1997 , 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997) (noting that the policy which undergirds the principle of stare decisis—that sometimes "it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right"—"is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our prior decisions" (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil *835 & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406 , 52 S.Ct. 443 , 76 L.Ed. 815 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting))); City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 535-36 , 117 S.Ct. 2157 , 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997) (discussing Congress's inability to change the Court's interpretation of the United States Constitution); Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 271 , 79 S.Ct. 1173 , 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959) (noting that the Supreme Court has a "solemn responsibility for maintaining the Constitution inviolate") (citing Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304 , 4 L.Ed. 97 (1816); and Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 , 78 S.Ct. 1401 , 3 L.Ed.2d 5 (1958)).
Additionally, the instillation of supervisory authority in a sovereign's highest court is not a concept unique to Alabama. See, e.g., United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171 , 180 n. 7, 95 S.Ct. 2133 , 45 L.Ed.2d 99 (1975) ("We recognize that the question whether evidence is sufficiently inconsistent to be sent to the jury on the issue of credibility is ordinarily in the discretion of the trial court. `But where such evidentiary matter has grave constitutional overtones... we feel justified in exercising this Court's supervisory control.'" (quoting Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 423-24 , 77 S.Ct. 963 , 1 L.Ed.2d 931 (1957))); Dominguez v. Enterprise Leasing Co., 197 Ga.App. 664, 666 , 399 S.E.2d 269, 271 (1990) ("The superior courts have ever in our history been the great reservoir of judicial power—the aula regis, as it were—in which the judicial powers of the state were vested, and ... the practice has been uniform to retain in [the Supreme Court] ... supervisory power over them...." (quoting Porter v. State, 53 Ga. 236, 238 (1874))); Winder v. State, 640 So.2d 893, 900 (Miss.1994) (Hawkins, J., concurring specially) ("Contrary to many state constitutions which give their supreme courts supervisory power over trial courts in addition to appellate jurisdiction, our Constitution is silent as to such authority. We have nonetheless asserted and exercised a supervisory power over trial courts... as inherent in us by virtue of being the final court of appeals in this State."); Tenn.Code § 16-3-501 (1994) (stating that the Tennessee Supreme Court "is hereby granted and clothed with general supervisory control over all the inferior courts of the state").
Furthermore, examples of courts exercising this extraordinary power in extraordinary circumstances are not difficult to find. In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Robbins, 541 So.2d 477 (Ala.1989), we examined a remittitur that had been raised in a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, but that had been effectively waived by the filing of a notice of appeal. Given the extremely unique circumstances of the procedural posture of the case, we described the case as " sui generis, " and, in an exercise of our supervisory powers, we considered the remittitur as though it had not been waived. Id. at 479 .
In Panama R. Co. v. Napier Shipping Co., 166 U.S. 280 , 17 S.Ct. 572 , 41 L.Ed. 1004 (1897), the court of appeals had originally reversed a decree dismissing a libel in admiralty, and remanded the case for a determination of damages. On the second appeal, it affirmed the determination of damages. It was argued that on certiorari review of the final judgment, the Supreme Court could review only the damages issue. That argument was rejected:
"If, under such circumstances, this court were powerless to examine the whole case upon certiorari, we should then be compelled to issue it before final decree, whereas, as was recently said..., it is and generally should be issued only after a final decree.... But, while the Court of Appeals may have been limited on the second appeal to questions *836 arising upon the amount of damages, no such limitation applies to this court, when, in the exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction, it issues a writ of certiorari to bring up the whole record. Upon such writ the entire case is before us for examination."
Id. at 284 , 17 S.Ct. 572 (emphasis added). Although the final order had not been issued, the United States Supreme Court exercised its supervisory jurisdiction to review the entire case. See also Jackson v. Jackson, 425 So.2d 379 (La.Ct.App.1982) (holding that although "the judgment of the trial court is not an appealable partial final judgment" under Louisiana law, "by exercising our supervisory jurisdiction, this court has authority to review the case"); Barber v. Commonwealth, 353 Mass. 236, 239 , 230 N.E.2d 817, 819 (1967) (stating that "[w]hile these [supervisory] powers are by nature extraordinary, in an appropriate case this court could and should act at whatever stage in the proceedings it becomes necessary to protect substantive rights" (emphasis added)).
Our supervisory authority, while broad, is certainly not unlimited; its use is governed by the particular circumstances of a case in accordance with our "clear duty to exercise that power whenever it is made to appear that an inferior court is guilty of usurpation or abuse of jurisdiction." Burch, 236 Ala. at 666 , 184 So. at 698 . I believe that the exceptional circumstances of this case certainly validate the use of this power.
B. Inherent Power to Recall Judgments
Related to our general supervisory authority, this Court, as an appellate court, has the inherent power to recall its judgments. See, e.g., Ex parte Martin, 616 So.2d 353 (Ala.1992) (placing a case on rehearing ex mero motu after initially denying the defendant's 1991 petition for certiorari review); Brown v. State, 277 Ala. 108 , 167 So.2d 291 (1964) (discussing generally the ability to recall a judgment); see also Youngblood v. State, 372 So.2d 34, 35 (Ala.Crim.App.1978) (placing a case on rehearing ex mero motu in light of a problematic intervening opinion, in order "[t]o avoid confusion and to assure a final judgment of this court in the instant case conformable to the present views of this court"); Watts v. State, 337 So.2d 91 (Ala. Crim.App.1976) (restoring a case to the rehearing docket ex mero motu ); Dye v. Kansas State Supreme Court, 48 F.3d 487, 490-91 (10th Cir.1995) (noting the Kansas Supreme Court's "general supervisory powers" and holding that the court had the right to recall and correct the mandate of the Kansas Court of Appeals).
This power has been and continues to be widely recognized as a power inherent in federal and state appellate courts. See, e.g., Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 549 , 118 S.Ct. 1489 , 140 L.Ed.2d 728 (1998) (stating that "the courts of appeals are recognized to have an inherent power to recall their mandates"); IAL Aircraft Holding, Inc. v. Federal Aviation Admin., 216 F.3d 1304, 1305-07 (11th Cir.2000) (recalling mandate and vacating earlier decision after the court learned of a jurisdictional defect in the earlier decision); Sargent v. Columbia Forest Prods., Inc., 75 F.3d 86, 89-90 (2d Cir.1996) (discussing generally the court's "unquestioned" ability to recall a mandate); Demjanjuk v. Petrovsky, 10 F.3d 338, 356 (6th Cir.1993) (reopening ex mero motu a habeas proceeding the court had affirmed six years earlier ); Coleman v. Turpen, 827 F.2d 667, 671-72 (10th Cir.1987) (recalling ex mero motu a mandate issued over two years before, and stating that "an appellate court has power to set aside at any time a mandate that was procured by fraud or act to prevent an injustice, or to *837 preserve the integrity of the judicial process"); Uzzell v. Friday, 625 F.2d 1117, 1119-21 (4th Cir.1980) (describing reasons for recall of mandate and reargument of case); Greater Boston Television Corp. v. FCC, 463 F.2d 268 , 275-80 (D.C.Cir.1971) (discussing generally the power to recall an appellate mandate); State v. Earl, 336 Ark. 271, 273 , 984 S.W.2d 442, 443 (1999) (noting, as an example of the appropriate use of the inherent recall power, "when a subsequent Supreme Court decision renders a previous appellate court decision demonstrably wrong"); District of Columbia v. Stokes, 785 A.2d 666, 671 (D.C.2001) (discussing the court's inherent authority to recall mandate to prevent injustice); John W. Brown Props. v. Blaine County, Idaho, 132 Idaho 60, 61-62 , 966 P.2d 656, 657-58 (1997) (citing cases from various jurisdictions); Jameson Chem. Co. v. Love, 403 N.E.2d 928, 928 (Ind.Ct.App. 1980) (stating that "[t]he Court of Appeals has inherent power to correct, on its own motion, an error in a decision and an opinion it has handed down"); Harrison v. Harrison, 109 Md.App. 652, 681-82 , 675 A.2d 1003, 1017-18 (1996) (stating that "even absent a statute permitting the correction of judgments, i.e., mandates, an appellate court has always had the inherent power to correct its mandates" and citing several other states' recognition of that power); State v. Breit, 122 N.M. 655, 660 , 930 P.2d 792, 797 (1996) ("Appellate courts have the power, in exceptional situations, to recall one of their own mandates after it has issued." (citing Lindus v. Northern Ins. Co., 103 Ariz. 160, 162 , 438 P.2d 311, 313 (1968))).
It is true that appellate courts have historically adopted self-imposed time limitations on their power to recall judgments. For example, the Florida Supreme Court generally follows a rule pursuant to which the Court's power to recall its judgment ends at the conclusion of the "term" within which the judgment being recalled was rendered. [23] Chapman v. St. Stephens Protestant Episcopal Church, 105 Fla. 683 , 138 So. 630 (1932). We specifically adopted the rule as stated in Chapman in Brown v. State, supra, 277 Ala. at 109 , 167 So.2d at 292-93 . However, this "term" limitation is not considered to be constitutionally (or otherwise) mandated; rather, it is merely an arbitrary, but historical, rule based upon pragmatic concerns relating to "ending litigation"; even then the rule provided for exceptional circumstances:
"The prevailing rule is that an appellate court is without power to recall a mandate regularly issued without inadvertence and resume jurisdiction of the cause after the expiration of the term at which its judgment was rendered and the mandate issued. It also appears to be a rule, sustained by an overwhelming weight of authority, that a judgment rendered by an appellate court cannot be vacated or amended by such court after the expiration of the term at which it was rendered, except for the purpose of correcting clerical error and mistake, or perhaps where shown for some reason to be absolutely void. This is in keeping with the sound principle of jurisprudence that some time, somewhere within reasonable limits, there must be an end to litigation. "
Washington v. State, 92 Fla. 740, 745 , 110 So. 259, 260-61 (1926) (cited in Chapman, *838 supra, 105 Fla. at 696-97 , 138 So. at 631-32) (citations omitted; emphasis added).
While "terms of court" technically exist with regard to Alabama's appellate courts, see Ala.Code 1975, §§ 12-2-8, 12-2-9, and 12-3-12, they have not served a significant jurisprudential role because the Alabama appellate courts have always remained open. The Legislature has provided that the Supreme Court's regular term commences on the first Monday in October and ends on the last day of June of the ensuing year. Ala.Code 1975, § 12-2-8. This would assure the Supreme Court a three-month recess, as is taken by the United States Supreme Court. However, since 1985, when I became a Justice on the Court, the Supreme Court has remained open year-round, ordering and holding a special term for the months of July, August, and September, which we are authorized to do by Ala.Code 1975, § 12-2-9.
Furthermore, the notion that an appellate court's inherent power to recall its mandate is strictly and in all circumstances limited by the "term" of court has fallen on hard times. The outdated nature of the "term of court" designation and the arbitrary nature of the "term" limitation was recently acknowledged by one Florida court,
"The concept of a `term of court' in the 21st century seems odd and anachronistic. It is a relic of an agrarian time when cases were fewer and courts did not sit continuously in session. It was also forced by the slow pace of travel in a large geographic district when the court moved from place to place within the district to hold court. We now sit throughout the year (except for August when we schedule no oral arguments) and easily travel within our district to hold court. It is no longer necessary to designate specific `terms of court' when everyone can expect that court will be held. It would therefore seem that it is long past time for the legislature to send this relic to history's museum as an oddity, like the powdered wig and the quill pen, tied to our beginnings. Today it seems that the only function of a term of court is to artificially limit our power to recall a mandate. "
Pinecrest Lakes, Inc. v. Shidel, 802 So.2d 486 , 487 n. 2 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2001) (emphasis added). Moreover, the "term" limitation has been completely abandoned in the federal system:
"Our power to recall a mandate is unquestioned. See generally 16 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller, Edward H. Cooper & Eugene Gressman, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3938 (1977). The power `apparently originated in the inherent power of all federal courts to set aside any judgment during the term of court at which it was entered.' Id. at 276. It `exists as part of the court's power to protect the integrity of its own processes,' Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 861 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir.1988), and is analogous to the power conferred on district courts by Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b).
"Amendments to the federal judicial code in 1948 extended this power beyond the current term of court, see 28 U.S.C. § 452 , and we thus have the power to reopen a case at any time. Fine v. Bellefonte Underwriters Ins. Co., 758 F.2d 50, 53 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 826 , 106 S.Ct. 86 , 88 L.Ed.2d 70 (1985); Patterson v. Crabb, 904 F.2d 1179, 1180 (7th Cir.1990). See also 2d Cir.R. 27(c). However, this power is to be `exercised sparingly,' Greater Boston Television Corp. v. FCC, 463 F.2d 268 , 277 (D.C.Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 950 , 92 S.Ct. 2042 , 32 L.Ed.2d 338 (1972), and reserved for `exceptional circumstances.' Fine, 758 F.2d at 53 ." *839 Sargent, supra, 75 F.3d at 89 ; see also Aerojet-General Corp. v. American Arbitration Ass'n, 478 F.2d 248 , 254 n. 6 (9th Cir.1973) (noting that "the better view is that [the `term'] limitation was removed by the abolition of the `term' concept in 1948, the lapse of time being significant only with respect to the court's duty to `prevent injustice'" (quoting Greater Boston, supra, 463 F.2d at 275-76)).
Furthermore, the cases relying on the "term" rule do not address the situation where, as here, the underlying litigation is still pending before the trial court when recall is considered. The still pending nature of the underlying action—while perhaps not determinative by itself, see Sargent, supra, 75 F.3d at 91 (stating that "[e]ven if litigation of an action is ongoing, the reopening of previously dismissed claims is thus not lightly contemplated")— must factor into any decision to recall a judgment. For example, in Maryland Casualty Co. v. Hallatt, 326 F.2d 275 (5th Cir.1964), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit considered of great importance the fact that underlying litigation had not terminated when it decided to recall and correct a judgment it had issued almost three years earlier:
"As a general rule, the decision of an appellate court in a case establishes the law of the case, not only for trial upon remand, but also for the appellate court itself upon subsequent review. But this rule is not an inexorable command, and must not be used to accomplish an obvious injustice. We recognize that an appellate court's power to depart from its own ruling on a former appeal should be exercised sparingly and only in exceptional cases. This is an exceptional case. The litigation has not yet terminated. The initial error was our misapplication of governing state law. That error is revealed by an intervening clear enunciation emanating from a Florida Appellate Court.
"This Court has jurisdiction of and will correct an initial opinion where as here, between the date of the initial decision and the time we are again called upon to pass upon the same case, a controlling state court has made a decision that we were `dead wrong.' The Florida Court in Barnes[ v. Threshermen & Farmers' Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., 146 So.2d 119 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1962)] has saved us from committing a miscarriage of justice. We are not insensible to possible complications but are of the opinion that under the total circumstances it is our duty to conform our decision to the supervening decision of the State Court, such decision being under Erie [R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 , 58 S.Ct. 817 , 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938)] the right decision.
". . . .
"Accordingly, we now grant the petition for rehearing in Civil Action 18485, vacate our initial opinion and order therein, and affirm the judgment of the District Court rendered on June 17, 1960."
Hallatt, 326 F.2d at 276-77 (footnote omitted; emphasis added).
The fact that limitations on this inherent appellate power have been based upon pragmatic concerns does not necessarily invalidate or disparage the wisdom of applying much restraint to the use of this power. However, given that no particular time limitations are constitutionally mandated, the exercise of this power falls within this Court's discretion. I do not believe that it is necessary, at this point, to delineate specific standards for the use of that discretion in all cases, because I find it beyond dispute that our June 29, 2001, recall of the case then pending on remand in James —which had Justice Johnstone's *840 vote and approval (see the appendix to this special writing)—was appropriate. I earnestly believe that recalling our remand in this case—a still pending, and without doubt, sui generis case involving extremely important issues of constitutional integrity (which this Court, as explained above, has a special duty to protect) in order to examine fundamental separation-of-powers and other jurisdictional concerns—is certainly within our power. See Ala.Code 1975, § 12-2-13.
APPENDIX to Justice Houston's Special Writing
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA
June 29, 2001
1950030
Ex parte Governor Fob James et al. (In re: Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., an Alabama nonprofit corporation, et al. v. Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al.)
1950031
Ex parte Governor Fob James et al. (In re: Mary Harper, suing as next friend of Deion Harper; and Kerry Phillips, a minor, et al. v. Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al.)
1950240
Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al. v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, Inc., et al.
1950241
Fob James, Jr., in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Alabama and as president of the State Board of Education, et al. v. Mary Harper et al.
APPENDIX to Justice Houston's Special Writing—Continued
1950408
Joyce Pinto et al. v. Alabama Coalition for Equity et al.
1950409
Joyce Pinto et al. v. Alabama Coalition for Equity et al.
ORDER
On December 3, 1997, we remanded cases 1950030, 1950031, 1950240, 1950241, 1950408, and 1950409 to the trial court with directions that that court retain jurisdiction. In order that the question of this Court's subject-matter jurisdiction over those cases may be addressed, that remand order is ex mero motu vacated to the limited extent of requiring the parties to present briefs directed to the issue whether the order in the liability phase entered on March 31, 1993, declaring that Alabama's public education system violated "Ala. Const. art. I, §§ 1, 6, 13, and 22 ... and art. XIV, § 256 ..." was a final, appealable order.
All parties are given 28 days from the date of this order, to file briefs addressing this limited issue.
This the 29th day of June 2001.
MOORE, C.J., and HOUSTON, SEE, BROWN, JOHNSTONE, HARWOOD, WOODALL, and STUART, JJ., concur.
LYONS, J., recuses himself.
[END OF APPENDIX.]
WOODALL, Justice (concurring in the result).
As previously recognized by this Court, the trial court's Liability-Phase order was based, in part, on its holding that § 256 of Amendment 111 to the Alabama Constitution of 1901 "is void ab initio and in its entirety under the Equal Protection *841 Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." James v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, 713 So.2d 937, 949 (Ala.1997) (emphasis omitted). Today, this Court, for the fifth time, has properly refused to review the Liability-Phase order, including the trial court's holding regarding Amendment 111.
Justice Maddox, writing specially in Ex parte James, noted:
"The plaintiffs have sought a resolution in a case involving a justiciable controversy. The trial court heard substantial evidence, interpreted the law, and decided the `case' or `controversy,' not as a result of a constitutional assignment of a special competence or superiority of the judiciary vis-à-vis the other branches in this regard, but in the performance of a constitutional duty. It would appear that the state defendants would be bound by that judicial resolution, which has become final because the state defendants did not appeal. If these state defendants, or any other defendant, could decide, on a case-by-case basis, which decisions they will or will not obey, then we would have a government of men, which the Constitution forbids, rather than a government of laws. § 43, Ala. Const.1901.
"In conclusion, the Constitution is a species of law superior to legislative action or inaction. It appears to me that if the state defendants disagreed with the judicial interpretation, they should have appealed to this Court. Having failed to do so, they are bound by the declaration made in the Liability Phase, which states their duties in general terms. In performing their duties, however, I do not believe they should be bound by a specific plan, but should be free to exercise their discretion in protecting what has been judicially determined to be the constitutional rights of Alabama citizens. I personally believe that they will carry out their duties, and I would consider the role of the judicial branch [in this case] to be at an end once it declared what those [general] duties and responsibilities were."
Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 894 (Ala. 1997) (Maddox, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with Justice Maddox's conclusions; therefore, I concur in the result.
MOORE, Chief Justice (concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the result in part and dissent in part. I not only agree that this case should be dismissed, but I would go further and say that it should be vacated. As I explain in this special writing, the trial court never had subject-matter jurisdiction over the original complaints. Therefore, the circuit court's every act—from the first day—was illegal and is void. I cannot concur with the rationale of the majority opinion because the "Liability Order," which was not a legal order in the first place, could never be final. Therefore, while I agree with this Court in finally ending the judicial system's usurpation of legislative power by dismissing this case, I state unequivocally my opposition to a court even beginning to exercise such power.
The question before this Court is whether the order in what has been termed the "Liability Phase" of the Equity Funding Case, entered on March 31, 1993, declaring that Alabama's public-education system violated Art. I, §§ 1, 6, 13, and 22, and Art. XIV, § 256, Ala. Const.1901, was a final, appealable order. Because the issues involved in the plaintiffs' complaint and the trial court's orders involved nonjusticiable political questions, the trial court lacked *842 subject-matter jurisdiction [24] to issue the March 31, 1993, order—or any other order in this case. [25] Therefore, the March 31, 1993, order could never become final and appealable; it was void ab initio. Even if it was not void, there is a fundamental problem with one of the grounds upon which that order was based, i.e., the basis of equal protection under the Alabama Constitution of 1901. In Ex parte Melof, 735 So.2d 1172 (Ala.1999), this Court determined that an equal protection clause does not exist and has never existed in a combination of §§ 1, 6, and 22, Ala. Const. 1901. Also, with respect to the trial court's August 13, 1991, order, because no party had standing to contest the constitutionality of § 256 and/or Amendment 111, which, among other things, amends § 256, the court lacked jurisdiction. I would vacate all judgments heretofore entered in these cases and then dismiss them.
Peculiar Nature of this Case
On February 2, 2001, Governor Don Siegelman prorated state funds at 6.2%. In order to stop proration from affecting the order in the Equity Funding Case, the Alabama Coalition for Equity ("ACE"), the original plaintiff in the Equity Funding Case, sought a declaratory judgment in the Montgomery Circuit Court. The circuit court granted ACE injunctive relief on February 22, 2001. On appeal to this Court, the intervenors, as well as ACE, raised the issue of the constitutionality of the proration order, based on the orders that had been entered in the Equity Funding Case. It was clear that the finality of the March 31, 1993, order in the Equity Funding Case was critical to any resolution of that issue. We ordered the parties to address the question of the finality of that order, and during the study of that question, discovered that the trial court may well have lacked jurisdiction to rule in the Equity Funding Case. That discovery led to our order to the parties to brief the issues of the jurisdiction of the trial court to rule and the constitutionality of that March 31, 1993, order and all other orders associated with the Equity Funding Case.
This Court has never had to deal with a case as unusual as this one, and it is unusual in several ways. The trial court violated the limits of its own jurisdiction with respect to the other two branches of *843 the civil government of this State, to which the Constitution delegates the power to establish a public-education system. As I explain below, the very name of the case— "Equity Funding" [26] —describes the jurisdictional violation committed by the trial court.
While this case was pending in the trial court, the then governor was convicted of a felony; that, in turn, produced the unusual occurrence that several of the plaintiffs realigned themselves as defendants, so that there appeared to be adverse parties and a case and controversy during the 42-day period within which an appeal could be taken. In reality there was no case or controversy and there were no adverse parties. Lacking a case or controversy, the case should have been dismissed. Lacking any disagreement between the parties, there was no case or controversy before the March 31, 1993, order was certified as final on June 9, or during the 42-day appeal period following that date. Nor did the trial court allow any other interested parties to intervene in the case. [27]
While the case was pending before the trial court, the trial judge campaigned for a position on the Alabama Supreme Court as "The Judge for Education Reform." In his campaign literature he stated that he was a "tough judge" because he had ruled "Alabama's education system unconstitutional," "order[ed] the Legislature back to work," and told "a governor and the Legislature to fix the problem." Those public statements ultimately forced his removal from the case while it remained pending. However, before his removal, the trial judge declared his orders final and then continued to order hearings and different *844 forms of relief, in contradiction to the supposed finality of his own order. Using racism as a basis, the trial court declared all of the education portion of Amendment 111, Ala. Const.1901, unconstitutional, but preserved a portion of the original Art. XIV, § 256, Ala. Const.1901. He divided the case into two parts—a "Liability Phase" and a "Remedy Phase"—a faulty distinction. Then, using one word found in § 256—"liberal"—the trial judge renovated and reformed the entire education system to the tune of an estimated $1 billion and instituted a scheme of continuing supervision by his court of every aspect and agency of the entire Alabama education system, including the Alabama Legislature, the Governor, and the State Board of Education.
The orders issued to promulgate this plan would necessarily require an increase in taxation, amounting to taxation without representation, and would create a "right" to public education which was expressly prohibited by Amendment 111. The trial judge proceeded to set up this program even though the Legislature was not properly a party to the action. He went to great lengths to micromanage the State's school system, to the point of requiring that adequate toilet paper be provided for each student. [28] A trial court in a proper *845 case may hold an act of the Alabama Legislature unconstitutional, but to enter an order that would require the Legislature to pass legislation and spend money on an education project of the trial judge's own making is unprecedented in the history of this State. [29] By its wholesale striking of Amendment 111, the trial court appears to have attempted to create a new right to public education, disregarding the expressed wishes of the people as set forth in Amendment 111 to the Alabama Constitution. [30] Even if the trial court had had jurisdiction—and I conclude that it did not—we should not ignore an abuse of power by the judicial branch that represents an attempt to change our constitution.
It is not surprising that there has been a lack of clarity on several matters in this litigation. The trial court made legislative and executive, instead of judicial, decisions. While some states have been willing to allow their courts to make extensive and endless forays into supervising education in the name of necessity, particularly in this type of litigation, see Chief Justice Hooper's dissent in Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 906-08 (Ala.1997), Alabama must not make such a fundamental error. Any change to our constitution must be effected only by the lawfully established amendment process. Under our constitution, the power over public education belongs to the Legislature, not the courts. An attempt to usurp that power by the judicial branch is a fundamental breach of the separation-of-powers doctrine and an improper subject of the court's jurisdiction. Courts issue opinions that are binding on the parties to a particular case and controversy; those opinions have precedential value only so far as they correctly interpret and faithfully apply the law.
Procedural History
The March 31, 1993, order is but one of numerous orders the Montgomery Circuit *846 Court issued in this case, and it is but one of several the circuit court certified as final, appealable orders.
Those orders, collectively part of what is known as the "Equity Funding Case," originated with a complaint filed in the Montgomery Circuit Court on May 3, 1990, by ACE. Additional plaintiffs filed separate actions, and the circuit court subsequently consolidated those cases. The plaintiffs sought both declaratory and injunctive relief, but did not seek money damages.
The plaintiffs requested a declaration that Alabama's public-education system violated schoolchildren's statutory and constitutional rights to a state-funded education. On August 13, 1991, the circuit court purported to grant plaintiffs' summary-judgment motion, declaring that § 256, Ala. Const.1901, as amended by Amendment 111, violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and that all but the first sentence of § 256 as it originally appeared in the Alabama Constitution of 1901 was without force and effect because it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The trial judge again purported to grant declaratory relief on March 31, 1993. Based on evidence admitted at trial, the trial judge ruled "[t]hat the present system of public schools in Alabama violates the aforesaid constitutional and statutory rights of plaintiffs." Opinion of the Justices No. 338, 624 So.2d at 166 (Ala.1993). (For full transcript of March 31, 1993, order, see 624 So.2d at 110-67 .)
The March 31, 1993, order also purported to provide injunctive relief, stating "[t]hat the state officers charged by law with responsibility for the Alabama public school system, are hereby enjoined to establish, organize and maintain a system of public schools, that provide equitable and adequate educational opportunities to all school-age children." 624 So.2d at 166 .
On June 9, 1993, the trial judge purported to certify the March 31, 1993, order as a final, appealable order pursuant to Ala. R. Civ. P. 54(b). Because of the rather unusual sequence of events related above, some of the named plaintiffs who were initially defendants again became defendants. Because they had previously supported the plaintiff's position, these defendants understandably did not appeal the March 31, 1993, order within the 42 days required by the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure for taking an appeal.
The issue of the finality of the March 31, 1993, order has been raised before by parties in the Equity Funding Case and summarily referenced by this Court. In one of its opinions in this case, this Court operated on the assumption that the March 31, 1993, order was properly certified as a final order under Rule 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., and that it had not been appealed or could not be appealed. [31] On June 29, 2001, after *847 reviewing an appeal dealing with the proration of Alabama's education system, we requested the parties to brief this Court as to whether the Montgomery Circuit Court had issued a final judgment in this case. Although this question did not come before this Court in an appeal from the order, the finality of which was being questioned, this Court has jurisdiction to review the finality of the March 31, 1993, order because the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to issue that order. We may review a question of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction at any time:
"[L]ack of subject-matter jurisdiction is not waivable and may be raised at any time by either the parties or by the court, ex mero motu. Ex parte Johnson, 715 So.2d 783 (Ala.1998); Greco v. Thyssen Mining Constr., Inc., 500 So.2d 1143 (Ala.Civ.App.1986). "The question of jurisdiction is always fundamental, and if there is an absence of jurisdiction, over the person, or the subject matter, a court has no power to act, and jurisdiction over the subject matter cannot be created by waiver or consent."' Poff v. General Motors Corp., 705 So.2d 442, 443 (Ala.Civ.App.1997) (quoting B.F. Goodrich Co. v. Parker, 282 Ala. 151, 155 , 209 So.2d 647, 650 (1967))."
State Dep't of Rev. v. Medical Care Equip., Inc., 737 So.2d 471, 473 (Ala.Civ.App.1999).
"Furthermore, the lack of subject matter jurisdiction is an issue that is reviewable at any time, whether or not it has been preserved by way of objection."
Ex parte Tuck, 707 So.2d 292, 294 (Ala. Crim.App.1997). With this opinion, I address that issue specifically and in a more detailed manner than has heretofore been provided.
The Orders
August 13, 1991, Order Certified as Final on October 18, 1991
Section 256, as amended by Amendment 111, expressly states that it is the policy of the State to promote education, but that there is no right to an education at public expense. [32] The circuit court ruled that *848 Amendment 111 is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The stated reason for its ruling was that other parts of Amendment 111, adopted in 1956, were designed to permit the State to maintain a segregated public-school system in spite of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 , 74 S.Ct. 686 , 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). However, those parts of Amendment 111, which allowed the Legislature to authorize parents or guardians of children to elect to send the children to schools comprised of members of their own race, were never implemented by the Legislature; therefore, no injury ever occurred because of that language.
The August 13, 1991, order, although certified as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., was never appealed.
March 31, 1993, Order Certified as Final on June 9, 1993
The circuit court bifurcated the nonjury trial into what it called a "Liability Phase" and a "Remedy Phase." Trial in the Liability Phase began on August 3, 1992, and was completed on August 27, 1992. Not until March 31, 1993, did the trial court issue its ruling purporting to grant declaratory and injunctive relief, which was improperly titled a "Liability Order." The term "Liability Order" suggests that the trial court found only that some legal standard had been breached and that no remedy had yet been provided. However, on the face of the March 31, 1993, order, an injunction—a form of remedy—was issued, ordering state officials to establish a school system meeting as yet unidentified requirements of State law.
The March 31, 1993, order also set the matter for a status conference to be held on June 9, 1993 "for the purpose of establishing the procedures and timetable for determination of an appropriate remedy in this case." 624 So.2d at 166 . Even though the trial court certified the March 31, 1993, order as final, and therefore appealable, on June 9, 1993, it held a hearing the same day to determine the dates for further proceedings. It also issued an order purporting to provide further injunctive relief to the plaintiffs even though the period within which to appeal the March 31, 1993, order had not elapsed. In other words, the circuit court itself, by continuing to hold hearings and provide further relief, did not treat the March 31, 1993, order as final under recognized legal standards, even after it had certified it as such.
June 9, 1993, Certification of March 31 Order as Final
On June 9, 1993, the circuit court issued an order that (a) directed the defendants to cooperate with the plaintiffs in developing a remedy, (b) directed the defendants to submit a proposed remedy by a day certain, (c) appointed Professor Wayne Flynt as "court facilitator," (d) allowed attorney fees and costs to the plaintiffs, and (e) "pursuant to Rule 54(b), the Court certifie[d] th[e] Order as a final judgment."
*849 December 3, 1993, Order Certified as Final on October 6, 1995
The defendants submitted a proposed "Remedy Plan," which the circuit court, subject to a "fairness hearing," incorporated into an order it issued on October 22, 1993. Following a fairness hearing on November 18, 1993, the circuit court incorporated a modified Remedy Plan into an order it issued on December 3, 1993.
A copy of the entire Remedy Order is found as an appendix to Chief Justice Hooper's dissent in Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 923 (Ala.1997). By that order, the circuit court judge used legislative and executive powers to conform the Alabama school system with his vision for public-education reform. That order contained, in embryonic form, further orders the circuit court would be required to issue to accomplish that reform. Those orders would have ensured, among other things, that the Legislature appropriated sufficient moneys to fund the program, that teachers would be trained and paid in accordance with the trial court's specifications, and that students would be inculcated with the values the trial judge believed were important.
October 6, 1995, Order Certified as Final on October 6, 1995
Because of a series of events I recount in detail at the end of this opinion, the December 3, 1993, order was not made final until October 6, 1995, by an order of the trial judge who had succeeded the original trial judge after he was removed from the case by the Judicial Inquiry Commission for his campaign conduct relating to the case. In its opinion, the Judicial Inquiry Commission stated that he was "disqualified from continuing to sit in the case." Between December 3, 1993, and May 19, 1995, the circuit court had denied certain parties the right to intervene. This Court reversed that order on May 19, 1995. Pinto v. Alabama Coalition for Equity, 662 So.2d 894 (Ala.1995).
The circuit court purported to certify a "Remedy Order" as final, and therefore appealable, on October 6, 1995. The succeeding judge made one modification to the original trial judge's December 3, 1993, "Remedy Order" by striking paragraph XI(F). That paragraph stated that the trial court retained jurisdiction to issue further orders. Yet at the same time the trial judge asserted the trial court's "inherent power to issue such orders as necessary to render its judgments effective," Governor Fob James filed a timely appeal of that order.
The Alabama Supreme Court vacated the December 3, 1993/October 6, 1995, order on January 10, 1997, to the extent that it concerned the implementation of the Remedy Plan. Ex parte James, 713 So.2d 869, 935 (Ala.1997). This Court then remanded the case to the trial court with directions that that court stay the action "while retaining jurisdiction" for one year to allow coordinate branches of the government to formulate a plan complying with the March 31, 1993, order.
February 6, 1996, Order Reversed on January 10, 1997
On February 6, 1996, after the December 3, 1993/October 6, 1995, order had been certified as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), the circuit court issued another order, this time appointing an independent monitor to report to the trial court regarding the implementation of the remedy plan. The trial judge issued that order in spite of the fact that she had certified the October 6, 1995, order as final under Rule 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., and the Equity Funding Case was pending on appeal. Like the original trial judge, she did not treat the order as final and appealable, in spite of her own Rule 54(b) certification.
*850 May 15, 2001, Order
Following this Court's decision on January 10, 1997, there were no further proceedings until March 21, 2001, when certain plaintiffs moved to reopen the case for remedy proceedings because they believed that no adequate remedy plan had been developed. On May 15, 2001, the trial judge ordered the State Board of Education to file its proposed remedy plan by October 15, 2001, and ordered responses from the plaintiffs to that proposed plan by November 21, 2001. She set the case for hearing on December 5, 2001.
Finality of the March 31, 1993, Order
Courts have inherent authority to issue final judgments:
"The Constitution of Alabama of 1901 vests the judicial power in the Unified Judicial System. Ala. Const.1901, amd. 328, §§ 6.01(a). The judicial power, at its core, is the power to render final judgments in cases before the courts. See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 , 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) (`It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.'); Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 219 , 115 S.Ct. 1447 , 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995) (stating that the Constitution gives the `Judiciary the power, not merely to rule on cases, but to decide them'); Sanders v. Cabaniss, 43 Ala. 173, 177 (1869) (stating that the judicial power requires the exercise of judgment in a case or controversy). Inherent in the constitutional obligation to render final judgments is the power to conduct judicial proceedings in an efficient and effective manner."
Ex parte Segrest, 718 So.2d 1, 5 (Ala.1998). If an Alabama trial court goes further and issues an order it does not have jurisdiction to enter, the order is void and can never be final. It is this Court's duty to vacate such an order.
The rationale behind a Rule 54(b) certification is that it is more efficient to have a single appeal than to have multiple appeals. Without interlocutory appeals, a trial will proceed more rapidly to completion. The basis for Rule 54(b) certification entails more than mere policy considerations. A trial court continues to have jurisdiction until a case is final, and two courts (trial and appellate) cannot have jurisdiction at the same time. In this case, however, Rule 54(b) certification has been used to multiply, rather than to reduce, the number of appeals.
A commonly used definition of the term "final judgment" is that it is an order that "ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233 , 65 S.Ct. 631 , 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945). The distinction is clearer in cases at law where money damages are the remedy sought. Thus, where a court issues an order establishing liability for damage but has delayed hearings on the amount of damages, it has not issued a final judgment. Moody v. State ex rel. Payne, 351 So.2d 547 (Ala.1977).
For example, consider a typical action in negligence arising out of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The question of breach of duty is analytically distinct from the question of the amount of damages. It is not necessary to determine the amount of damages in order to determine whether there has been a breach of duty. If a driver crosses the centerline because he is distracted while talking on his cellular telephone and hits an oncoming car, his breach of duty can be determined without knowing what the damages are. Yet a judgment entered on his liability would not be final and appealable until damages are determined and awarded.
*851 By the eighteenth century, English courts were applying different rules in equity cases. Appeals might be taken from interlocutory orders and decrees as well as from final decrees. Crick, The Final Judgment Rule as a Basis for Appeal, 41 Yale L.J. 539 , 541-43, 545-48, 550 (1932). The trend in American courts, on the other hand, has been to apply the common-law rule of final judgments to equity cases. 41 Yale L.J. at 541-43, 545-48, 550.
During the course of this litigation the circuit court judges certified several orders as final, but it is primarily the March 31, 1993, order with which this Court is concerned. Rule 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., states:
"When more than one claim for relief is presented in an action ... or when multiple parties are involved, the court may direct the entry of a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the claims or parties only upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay and upon an express direction for the entry of judgment."
The common-law rule is that orders may not be reviewed until all matters in a particular case are final. Because modern rules of civil procedure generally provide for more liberal joinder of parties and claims in a single action, it is necessary also to give some flexibility to the finality rule. That, in part, is the purpose of Rule 54(b). That rule provides that a trial court may certify certain orders as final, and therefore appealable, even if all claims of all parties have not been finally resolved by the trial court. [33] The plaintiffs in this case argue that the March 31, 1993, order resolved fewer than all claims and that the resolved claim was separate and distinct from the unresolved ones. However, Rule 54(b) does not change the common-law standard of finality as to individual claims or parties. A Rule 54(b) certification cannot make final an order that is not inherently final, such as the denial of a motion for a summary judgment. It is my opinion that the March 31, 1993, order resolved nothing at all.
The plaintiffs contend that one of the claims was made final by the order of March 31, 1993; however, all of the claims are intertwined and focus on the alleged unconstitutionality of Alabama's public-school system. Whether any claim is or is not final depends upon whether the order reaches a definitive resolution. The Rule 54(b) partial-claim adjudication rule stated above applies to one or more, but not all, of the claims being adjudicated to a complete resolution. It does not allow an incomplete resolution of one claim. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U.S. 737, 742-44 , 96 S.Ct. 1202 , 47 L.Ed.2d 435 (1976) (interpreting Rule 54(b), Fed.R.Civ. P.).
In many cases, the award of equitable relief is functionally, if not essentially, the same as the award of damages, and there clearly is no need for more than one final order in a particular action. For example, ordering specific performance of a contract is functionally the same as awarding damages. The order is final, and although the damages award is not an order directed personally to the defendant, if he does not pay voluntarily, the court may have to issue subsequent orders to execute the judgment. Other equity cases may not *852 bear as marked a similarity to cases at law for damages. For example, an order to partition real estate may be final even though the court issues a subsequent order calling for an accounting, which may also be final.
The plaintiffs argue that this case has been properly divided into a "Liability Phase" and a "Remedy Phase" that are analytically distinct. In other words, liability can be determined without determining an appropriate remedy. Additionally, the plaintiffs argue that because the remedy sought and awarded in this case is equitable in nature, this action can have more than one final order. The intervenors in the proration case (the universities), which have filed briefs in response to this Court's question as to the finality of the March 31, 1993, order, argue that the distinction between law and equity has been abolished in Alabama and that the same finality rule that applies to cases where the plaintiff seeks damages at law should apply to cases where the plaintiff seeks an equitable remedy. In short, the plaintiffs argue that the case should be treated as a case in equity, while the intervenors argue that the case should be treated like any action at law for purposes of applying the final-order rule.
The question of the finality of an order is one of jurisdiction. "A final judgment is necessary to give jurisdiction to this court on appeal." Marsh v. Wittmeier, 280 Ala. 172, 173 , 190 So.2d 920, 920 (1966). [34] The purpose of Rule 54(b), Ala.R.Civ.P., is to make final "an order which does not adjudicate the entire case but as to which there is no just reason for delay in the attachment of finality." Foster v. Greer & Sons, Inc., 446 So.2d 605, 609 (Ala.1984), overruled on other grounds, Ex parte Andrews, 520 So.2d 507 (Ala.1987).
Rule 54(b) does not create an exception to the rule that finality is required in order for a judgment to be appealable.
"[N]one of the procedures that this Court has adopted to facilitate the policies underlying Rule 54(b) should be construed as relaxing the Rule 58 requirements for the entry of a proper judgment.... On the contrary, these provisions, taken in conjunction with the cases construing them, compel the conclusion that if an order entered in a case with multiple claims `does not meet the requirements of Rule 54(b),' then `no formal "judgment" [has been] entered.'"
Burlington Northern R.R. v. Whitt, 611 So.2d 219, 223 (Ala.1992), quoting Balboa Ins. Co. v. Sippial Elec. Co., 379 So.2d 579 (Ala.1980).
"A final judgment is an `order that conclusively determines the issues before the court and ascertains and declares the rights of the parties involved.' An order or ruling that `adjudicates fewer than all of the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties shall not terminate the action as to any of the claims or parties.'"
Lunceford v. Monumental Life Ins. Co., 641 So.2d 244, 246 (Ala.1994) (citations omitted).
The proper use of Rule 54(b) dictates that even in actions involving multiple claims or parties there must be full adjudication of one claim or of all claims as to one party. Therefore, a ruling that holds a defendant liable without fully deciding the remedies is not final and cannot be the subject of a Rule 54(b) certification. A *853 prime example of this type of ruling was present in Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Wetzel, supra. In that case, the trial judge, by entering a partial summary judgment, held the defendant liable but failed to determine the remedies. The United States Supreme Court held that "despite the fact that the District Court undoubtedly made the findings required under the Rule,[ [35] ] had it been applicable, those findings do not in a case such as this make the order appealable pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 [the federal equivalent to § 12-22-2, Ala.Code 1975]" 424 U.S. at 743-44 , 96 S.Ct. 1202 , because orders "where assessment of damages or awarding of other relief remains to be resolved have never been considered to be `final' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 ." 424 U.S. at 744 , 96 S.Ct. 1202 .
In this case, the trial court purportedly found liability and then ordered some remedies in its March 31, 1993, order, but left determination of other remedies for a later date. The order is not, by its own terms, a final disposition of the claim at issue in the case; therefore, it does not meet the standards of Rule 54(b). "[T]he trial court cannot confer appellate jurisdiction upon this court through directing entry of judgment under Rule 54(b) if the judgment is not otherwise `final.'" Robinson v. Computer Servicenters, Inc., 360 So.2d 299, 302 (Ala.1978). Thus, the March 31, 1993, order cannot be considered a final, and therefore appealable, order.
This Court explained the requirement in Jewell v. Jackson & Whitsitt Cotton Co., 331 So.2d 623, 625 (Ala.1976). There the Court stated:
"A final judgment is a terminative decision by a court of competent jurisdiction which demonstrates there has been complete adjudication of all matters in controversy between the litigants within the cognizance of that court. That is, it must be conclusive and certain in itself. All matters should be decided; damages should be assessed with specificity leaving the parties with nothing to determine on their own. A judgment for damages to be final must, therefore, be for a sum certain determinable without resort to extraneous facts."
(Citations omitted.) Nevertheless, as stated earlier, where a court anticipates further "remedies," an order will not be considered final. In other words, the Court erroneously fashioned different rules for finality in a case seeking equitable relief as opposed to one seeking money damages.
Such a ruling is at odds with the elimination of the distinction between law and equity, accomplished in Alabama in 1973. [36] This Court has emphasized on several occasions that "it should be remembered that the procedural differences between law and equity have been abolished and there is only one form of action, known as a `civil action.'" Du Boise v. Brewer, 349 So.2d 1086, 1087 (Ala.1977). It is also at odds with other rulings of this Court, where the rule of requiring "complete disposition" of a claim has been applied in cases seeking equitable remedies. See Tubbs v. Brandon, 366 So.2d 1119, 1120 (Ala.1979) (applying the final-judgment rule in dismissing an appeal from an order in an action to enjoin the violation of a restrictive covenant); Chambers v. Chambers, 356 So.2d 634, 635 (Ala.1978) (dismissing an appeal *854 because "[a]s yet the trial court has not decided whether the property can be equitably divided, or whether a sale is necessary, or whether the multiple plaintiffs are entitled to the accounting requested"); Cates v. Bush, 293 Ala. 535 , 307 So.2d 6 (1975) (applying the final-judgment statute in dismissing an appeal from a decree in a case involving, among other things, requests for sale of land); Cherokee County Hospital Bd. v. Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, 294 Ala. 151 , 313 So.2d 514, 517 (1975) (dismissing an appeal in an action seeking an injunction).
It would be counterproductive to our unified system of law and equity to continue the distinction set forth in James v. Alabama Coalition for Equity ; the result being that some cases would require finality and others would not, depending on the type of remedy sought. Moreover, to do so ignores the Supreme Court's words in Liberty Mutual Insurance v. Wetzel : "[W]here assessment of damages or awarding of other relief remains to be resolved," the order will not be considered final. 424 U.S. at 744 , 96 S.Ct. 1202 (emphasis added).
Even in James, this Court quoted the proper standard for finality but elected to draw a distinction between final judgments at law as opposed to those at equity. Quoting Newton v. Ware, 271 Ala. 444, 450 , 124 So.2d 664, 670 (1960), the Court stated: "`If there is a decree directing further proceedings under the direction of the court in order to make the final decree effective, such decree is interlocutory and remains within the control of the court because as to such decree and further proceedings thereunder the cause remains in fieri.'" 713 So.2d at 945.
That description precisely defines the March 31, 1993, order, because the order itself expressly provided for further proceedings "for the purpose of establishing the procedures and timetable for determination of the appropriate remedy in this case." Appendix to The Opinion of the Justices No. 338, 624 So.2d at 166 . Thus, by this Court's own words, if we ignore the distinction between law and equity, as we should, the March 31, 1993, order represented an interlocutory order, which the trial court could never make final unless he had fashioned a remedy.
This Court directed the parties to address the issue whether the March 31, 1993, order was a final, and therefore appealable, order. Although the March 31, 1993, order is the only one directly at issue, the question cannot be answered without considering its relationship to the other orders entered in this case that were certified under Rule 54(b) or that were reviewed on appeal. The record shows that the circuit court contemplated the issuance of

[Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.]

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1885183. Public record. Not legal advice.