Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

212 Ala. 31

101 So 653

Bell v. Bannister

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided October 23, 1924

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1924-10-23

Relies on Hamilton v. Tolley · Griffith v. Ventress · Levystein Bros. v. O'Brien

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1924-10-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently October 1951

9 state decisions

501924193019401950decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

BOULDIN, J.

¶1 The suit is statutory ejectment. Some of the defendants are infants. They have no general guardian. No guardian ad litem was appointed to represent them on the trial. The issues involved their title to the land sued for.

¶2 A judgment against infants brought within the jurisdiction of the court by proper service of process is not void and subject to collateral attack for want of a general guardian or guardian ad litem to represent and protect their interests; but such judgment is erroneous and subject to reversal on appeal.

¶3 The fact that their mother was a co-defendant, entered a plea of not guilty for them, set up their title, and probably produced all the evidence which a guardian could have produced, will not suffice. They “must be defended by a guardian of the appointment of the court.” .Such is the plain mandate of the law. Code 1907, § 2476; Id., § 4482; Levystein Bros. v. O’Brien, 106 Ala. 352, 17 So. 550, 30 L. R. A. 707, 54 Am. St. Rep. 56; Conway v. Clark, 177 Ala. 99, 58 So. 441; Crowder v. Arnett, 193 Ala. 470, 68 So. 1005; Hamilton v. Tolley, 209 Ala. 533, 96 So. 584; Griffith v. Ventress, 91 Ala. 366, 8 So. 312, 11 L. R. A. 193, 24 Am. St. Rep. 918.

¶4 For this error the court below properly granted the motion for a new trial.

¶5 Affirmed.

ANDERSON, C. J., and SOMERVILLE and THOMAS, JJ., concur.
/212/ala/31 · .json · Public domain