# Stewart v. Korn

> Supreme Court of Alabama · January 16, 1998 · 738 So. 2d 778

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7724012

## Case

- **Full name:** Ex parte Elias GHAFARY, M.D. (Re Donna Stewart, as of the estate of Mary P. Stewart v. Chaihan Korn, M.D.)
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Alabama
- **Decided:** January 16, 1998
- **Citations:** 738 So. 2d 778; 1998 Ala. LEXIS 12; 1998 WL 12622
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Cook
- **Judges:** Brown, Butts, Cook, Hooper, Houston, Kennedy, Lyons, Maddox, See, Shores
- **Cited by:** 17 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/7724012

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that an attempt by a non-attorney executrix, acting pro se, to represent the interest of an estate in a wrongful-death action constituted the unauthorized practice of law, and as such, the pro se complaint was a nullity
- holding that Alabama law “prohibits a nonattorney executor or personal representative from representing an estate before a court of law. Thus, the complaint personally filed by Donna Stewart as executrix was a nullity.”
- explaining that the right to represent oneself expressed in Article I, § 10, of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, "does not extend to the representation of interests other than those of the pro se litigant"
- holding that the personal representative of an estate, a nonattorney, could not file a complaint on behalf of the estate
- holding that a complaint filed on behalf of a decedent's estate, seeking damages for wrongful death, was a nullity

## Opinion text

COOK, Justice
(dissenting).
Although I did not participate in the original decision in this case, after consid *783 ering the application for rehearing, I have concluded that I concur in the views expressed by Justice Kennedy in his dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7724012. Public record. Not legal advice.