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209 Ala. 408

96 So 184

Fulton v. Watts

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided April 19, 1923

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1923-04-19

Relies on Henderson v. Tennessee Coal, Iron & Ry. Co. · Sanitary Plumbing Co. v. Simpson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1923-04-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently March 1981

10 state decisions

501923193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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ANDERSON, C. J.

¶1 In order to establish a Hen upon the property it was essential for the complaint to aver the owner or proprietor of same. Sanitary Plumbing Co. v. Simpson, 200 Ala. 590, 76 South. 948. None' of the counts save the last one, which we number four, avers that the defendants, or either of them, owned the property upon which the Hen was sought and fastened by the judgment' of the circuit court. As the defendants’ demurrer raising this point went to the complaint and each count thereof separately and severally, the trial court1 erred in overruling same as to counts 1, 2, and 3. This case is appealed, however, upon the record proper, and the record shows that it was tried úpon issues submitted to the jury, and from aught appearing the defendants were proven to be the owners of the property as charged in the fourth count of the complaint. This case therefore falls under the influence of rulé 45 as construed in the case of Henderson v. Tenn. Co., 190 Ala. 126, 67 South. 414. Moreover the oral charge of the court is not set out as required by the acts of 1915, p. 815, and it might disclose that the court charged that' the plaintiff had to prove that the defendants were the owners of the property.

¶2 We do not think that the counts were subject to the other grounds of demurrer, though the same could have more properly averred that the land was “not in a city, town or village,” as set forth in section 4754 of the Code, rather than “in the country.” We think, however, as the term “country” is used in the complaint it excludes the idea that the property is in a city, town, or village. It is evident the lawmakers did not intend “country” and “village” to mean the same, else “village” would not' have been expressed with city and town as not being 'in the country.

¶3 The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.

¶4 Affirmed.

SAYRE, GARDNER, and MILLER, JX, concur.
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