# Poiroux v. Rich

> Supreme Court of Alabama · March 14, 2014 · 150 So. 3d 1027

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4815111

## Case

- **Full name:** Clement David POIROUX v. Ashley RICH
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Alabama
- **Decided:** March 14, 2014
- **Citations:** 150 So. 3d 1027; 2014 Ala. LEXIS 38; 2014 WL 982967
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Murdock
- **Judges:** Bolin, Bryan, Main, Moore, Murdock, Parker, Shaw, Stuart, Wise
- **Cited by:** 16 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/4815111

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that public law constitutes " '[t]he body of law dealing with the relations between private individuals and the government, and with the structure and operation of the government itself’ ” (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 1350-51 (9th ed.2009))
- stating that “[e]xceptions to State immunity for sheriffs (and their deputies) that have been recognized” include the first five exceptions

## Opinion text

MURDOCK, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the main opinion. I write separately to offer two comments.
First, in reference to footnote 12 of the main opinion, 150 So.3d at 1043-44, I would simply note that the case cited, Ex parte Town of Lowndesboro, 950 So.2d 1203 (Ala.2006), was not a case in which the plaintiffs claim for a declaratory judgment implicated the State’s treasury. Insofar as we reinstate the bail-bond companies’ claim for a declaratory judgment in the present case, the same is true. Compare Ex parte Alabama Dep’t of Transp., 978 So.2d 17, 25 (Ala.2007) (holding that a claim seeking a declaratory judgment should have been dismissed on sovereign-immunity grounds because, among other things, a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would “directly affect a contract right of [the State] and would ‘necessarily open the doors of the State treasury to legal attack’ ” (quoting Lowndesboro, 950 So.2d at 1211 )).
Second, in the final paragraph of its “Analysis,” the main opinion considers the defendants’ argument that “‘[e]ven if the circuit court had jurisdiction ..., the judgment should be affirmed because [the] defendants are due to prevail on the merits.’ ” 150 So.3d at 1044.1 do not foreclose the possibility that some of the alternative grounds offered by the defendants in support of the circuit court’s judgment are valid, alternative legal grounds — grounds allegedly entitling the defendants to a judgment as a matter of law based on facts that are not genuinely disputed. Notwithstanding that possibility, I have no objection to returning this case to the circuit *1045 court for it to consider those grounds in the first instance.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4815111. Public record. Not legal advice.