EX PARTE VALLEY NATIONAL BANK (In re: Jesse Blount, Wilson Blount, and William Blount
v.
Valley National Bank f/k/a Aliant Bank).
Montgomery
Circuit Court, CV-18-901327
Page 1156
[Copyrighted Material Omitted]
Page 1157
Gary
E. Sullivan of Sullivan Law Group LLC, Tuscaloosa, for
petitioner.
J.
Doyle Fuller, Susan G. Copeland, and Jacob A. Fuller of
Fuller & Copeland, Montgomery, for respondents.
On
Application for Rehearing
STEWART,
Justice.
This
Court's opinion of July 12, 2019, is withdrawn, and the
following is substituted therefor.
Valley
National Bank ("VNB")[1] petitions this Court for
a writ of mandamus directing the Montgomery Circuit Court
("the trial court") to dismiss a
declaratory-judgment
Page 1158
action filed against VNB by Jesse Blount, Wilson Blount, and
William Blount. We grant the petition in part and deny it in
part.
Facts
and Procedural History
According
to the materials submitted by the parties, William owned a
33% interest in Alabama Utility Services, LLC
("AUS").[2] William also served as the president
of WWJ Corporation, Inc. ("WWJ"), and WWJ managed
AUS. Wilson and Jesse, William's sons, owned all the
stock of WWJ. In May 2013, William transferred his 33%
interest in AUS to WWJ, and WWJ then owned all the interest
in AUS.
In July
2015, VNB obtained a $905,599.90 judgment against William in
an action separate from the underlying action. On August 31,
2015, Asset Management Professionals, LLC, purchased from WWJ
all the assets of AUS for $1,600,000.
On July
17, 2018, the Blounts filed a declaratory-judgment action in
the trial court seeking a judgment declaring
"that a) William's transfer of his interest in AUS
to WWJ was not fraudulent as to [VNB], b) William was not
the alter ego of AUS or WWJ, c) the sale of AUS did not
result in a constructive trust in favor of [VNB], and d)
the [Blounts] did not engage in a civil conspiracy."
VNB
responded by filing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule
12(b)(1) and (b)(6), Ala. R. Civ. P., asserting the lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction and the lack of a justiciable
controversy. The parties were referred to mediation, which
was unsuccessful.
On
September 7, 2018, VNB filed an action in the Jefferson
Circuit Court under the Alabama Uniform Fraudulent Transfer
Act, § 8-9A-1 et seq., Ala. Code 1975 ("the
AUFTA"), against the Blounts and others in which it
asserted that William had fraudulently transferred assets and
sought to pierce the corporate veil of WWJ.
On
October 4, 2018, the trial court denied VNB's motion to
dismiss. VNB timely filed its petition for the writ of
mandamus in this Court. According to the parties, the
litigation in both the trial court and in the Jefferson
Circuit Court was stayed by agreement pending the resolution
of this mandamus petition.
Standard
of Review
"A ruling on a motion to dismiss is reviewed without a
presumption of correctness. Nance v. Matthews, 622
So.2d 297, 299 (Ala. 1993). This Court must accept the
allegations of the complaint as true. Creola Land Dev.,
Inc. v. Bentbrooke Housing, L.L.C., 828 So.2d 285, 288
(Ala. 2002)....
"For a declaratory-judgment action to withstand a
motion to dismiss there must be a bona fide justiciable
controversy that should be settled. Anonymous v.
Anonymous, 472 So.2d 640, 641 (Ala.Civ.App. 1984);
Smith v. Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co.,
293 Ala. 644, 309 So.2d 424, 427 (1975). The test for the
sufficiency of a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment
is whether the pleader is entitled to a declaration of
rights at all, not whether the pleader will prevail in the
declaratory-judgment action. Anonymous, 472 So.2d
at 641."
Harper v. Brown, Stagner, Richardson, Inc., 873
So.2d 220, 223 (Ala. 2003).
"A writ of mandamus is an extraordinary remedy which
requires a showing of (a) a clear legal right in the
Page 1159
petitioner to the order sought, (b) an imperative duty on
the respondent to perform, accompanied by a refusal to do
so, (c) the lack of another adequate remedy, and (d) the
properly invoked jurisdiction of the court. Ex parte
Bruner, 749 So.2d 437, 439 (Ala. 1999)."
Ex parte McInnis, 820 So.2d 795, 798 (Ala. 2001).
"This Court has held that a writ of mandamus is an
appropriate means by which to review the following:
subject-matter jurisdiction, Ex parte Johnson, 715
So.2d 783 (Ala. 1998)[,] ... [and] nonjusticiability as a
component of subject-matter jurisdiction, Ex parte
Valloze, 142 So.3d 504 (Ala. 2013)...." Ex
parte U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n, 148 So.3d 1060,
1064 (Ala. 2014).
Discussion
At the
outset, we must address a motion filed by VNB in this Court
seeking to strike certain exhibits that are attached to the
Blounts' response to VNB's mandamus petition.
Exhibits 2, 3, 4, and 5 to the Blounts' responses appear
to include documentation related to William's transfer of
his ownership interest in AUS to WWJ and a valuation of
shares in AUS. VNB asserts that those documents are not part
of the trial-court record and that, therefore, they should be
stricken. Exhibits 15 and 16 appear to be correspondence
related to settlement negotiations between the parties and,
likewise, are not part of the trial-court record. The Blounts
did not respond to VNB's motion to strike. Because this
Court does not review materials that were not considered by
the trial court, see, e.g., Ex parte Alabama Med.
Ctr., 109 So.3d 1114, 1116 (Ala. 2012), and because the
Blounts have not opposed VNB's motion, we grant VNB's
motion to strike.
VNB
challenges the trial court's exercise of subject-matter
jurisdiction over the declaratory-judgment action. VNB argues
that a claim under the AUFTA, under which the Blounts could
be liable, is a tort claim and that a declaratory-judgment
action is not ...