LYONS, Justice.
The Jefferson County Commission, Bettye Fine Collins, Travis Hulsey, and J.T. Smallwood (hereinafter referred to collectively as "the County")
In 1967, the Alabama Legislature enacted Act No. 406, Ala. Acts 1967 ("the 1967 Act"), authorizing Jefferson County to impose business-license and occupational taxes upon any person engaging in a business for which he or she was not then required to pay a license or privilege tax to either the State or Jefferson County. In 1987, Jefferson County enacted Ordinance No. 1120, which, for the first time, imposed the occupational tax authorized by the 1967 Act. There followed a complex sequence of legislative enactments and related litigation that is discussed in detail in an opinion issued in an earlier appeal in this proceeding. See Jefferson County Commission v. Edwards, 32 So.3d 572 (Ala.2009) ("Jefferson County I").
This proceeding is a class action filed in 2007 by Jessica Edwards against the County on behalf of a class composed of
During a specially called legislative session in 2009, while the appeal in Jefferson County I was pending and before oral argument in that case, the legislature enacted Act No. 2009-811, Ala. Acts 2009, which was effective August 14, 2009. Section 7 of Act No. 2009-811 authorized Jefferson County to resume collecting occupational taxes as of the effective date of that act and, relevant to this appeal, approved and ratified Jefferson County's collection of taxes subsequent to the effective date of Act No. 99-669; § 9 repealed Act No. 99-669; and § 10 included a savings clause permitting the severance of any portion of Act No. 2009-811 found to be unconstitutional while saving the remaining portions not having any constitutional infirmity. We expressly stated in our opinion in Jefferson County I that the effect of Act No. 2009-811 was not then before us.
After our affirmance of the trial court's judgment in Jefferson County I, the taxpayers, in light of the retroactivity provisions in Act No. 2009-811, filed a motion to release the tax proceeds that had been placed in the escrow fund to a court-appointed settlement administrator for the calculation of refunds due. The County filed a motion to dissolve the injunction, to vacate the escrow order, and to release the escrowed taxes to Jefferson County. The taxpayers then filed a motion to enforce the January 12, 2009, order; the County filed a motion to clarify the escrow period. On December 23, 2009, the trial court entered an order denying the County's motion to dissolve the injunction, holding that Act No. 2009-811 violates § 95 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 prohibiting the enactment of legislation taking away a cause of action after a suit based on that cause of action has been filed. The trial court's order also required the County to transfer the moneys in the escrow fund, together with the interest accrued, to a special master charged with administering refunds of the taxes Jefferson County had
On January 15, 2010, the trial court entered an order purporting to certify the December 23, 2009, order as final pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.
We are met at the threshold by the taxpayers' contention that in several instances former counsel for the County admitted that § 95 rendered the retroactive feature of Act No. 2009-811 void. The taxpayers contend that, in light of former counsel's admission, judicial estoppel prevents the County from taking a contrary position in this proceeding. In the alternative, the taxpayers argue that the County has waived the position it takes in this appeal. We conclude that neither the doctrine of judicial estoppel nor the doctrine of waiver applies.
In Ex parte First Alabama Bank, 883 So.2d 1236, 1244 (Ala.2003), quoting New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 750-51, 121 S.Ct. 1808, 149 L.Ed.2d 968 (2001), this Court recognized an essential element of judicial estoppel—the party attacked for asserting an inconsistent position must have been successful in the prior proceeding so that judicial acceptance of an inconsistent position in a later proceeding would create the perception that either the first court or the second court was misled. No such circumstance exists here. Nor can the County be held to have waived its position for failing to assert the mootness of this proceeding based on Act No. 2009-811 in its application for rehearing in Jefferson County I. As previously noted, the issue of the effect of Act No. 2009-811 was not before us in Jefferson County I, and any argument on rehearing asserting the applicability of Act No. 2009-811 would have violated our rule prohibiting new matters from being argued for the first time on rehearing and would not have been considered. See Chism v. Jefferson County, 954 So.2d 1058, 1106 (Ala.2006).
The second sentence of § 95 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 provides:
Section 7 of Act No. 2009-811 provides:
(Emphasis added.) Section 9 of Act No 2009-811 expressly repeals Act No. 99-669, the act the trial court and this Court determine to have eliminated Jefferson County's authority to impose the occupational tax. Section 10 of Act No. 2009-811 provides:
We examine the constitutionality of Act No. 2009-811 with the presumption that it is constitutional. See 1568 Montgomery Highway, Inc. v. City of Hoover, 45 So.3d 319, 328-329 (Ala.2010):
Section 95 elaborates on § 43, which calls for the separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government:
Limitations on the legislature's ability to impose a retroactive tax have been recognized where concerns over due process of law are implicated. The Court of Civil Appeals in IEC Arab Alabama, Inc. v. City of Arab, 7 So.3d 370, 374 (Ala.Civ.App.2008), stated:
Whether limits on the extent of retroactive tax liability based upon considerations of due process could deprive Act No. 2009-811 of a field of operation in that it constitutes a new tax, as opposed to an adjustment of the rate in an existing tax, is a question not before us. The taxpayers expressly renounced in the trial court any basis for challenge other than the contention that Act No. 2009-811 took away of a cause of action in contravention of § 95. Counsel for the taxpayers stated at a hearing in the trial court:
This Court will affirm the judgment of the trial court on any valid legal ground presented by the record, regardless of whether that ground was considered, or even if it was rejected, by the trial court; however, we do not apply this rule to resurrect an omitted affirmative defense. Liberty Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. University of Alabama Health Servs. Found., P.C., 881 So.2d 1013, 1020 (Ala.2003). The taxpayers' opposition to the motion to dissolve the injunction based on Act No.
The phrase "any cause of action," which § 95 protects from legislative encroachment after suit has been filed, must be analyzed in the context of the cause of action filed by the taxpayers. As previously noted, the taxpayers' complaint alleged that the occupational tax levied by Jefferson County was unlawful because the 1967 Act, the law that authorized the tax, had been repealed by Act No. 99-669, and, therefore, the taxpayers claimed a refund. The complaint did not assert immunity from retroactive tax liability.
Act No. 2009-811 does not conflict with the taxpayers' claim that the taxes were collected under a repealed statute, nor does it conflict with our holding in Jefferson County I that the taxpayers were correct in such claim. Had Act No. 2009-811 provided that "there shall be no recovery of taxes illegally collected pursuant to a repealed statute," a different question would be presented because such language would have indeed taken away the cause of action here asserted—that the occupational tax levied by Jefferson County was unlawful because the 1967 Act, the law that authorized the tax, had been repealed by Act No. 99-669.
The inapplicability of § 95 to curative statutes with retroactive impact in the context of taxation was recognized in dicta in Southern Ry. v. Webb, 232 Ala. 324, 167 So. 729 (1936), in which a curative statute was enacted during the pendency of litigation seeking a refund. One Justice of this Court added the necessary concurring vote to attain a majority. In doing so, he observed, "I am also of the opinion that section 95 of the Constitution has no application to cases of this kind relating to taxation." 232 Ala. at 327, 167 So. at 731 (Anderson, C.J., concurring specially). Directly contra to Chief Justice Anderson's opinion is Lusk v. Starkey, 53 Okla. 794, 798, 158 P. 918, 919 (1916), in which an invalid tax levy was retroactively cured by an act of the Oklahoma legislature. Applying a constitutional provision identical to § 95, the court in Lusk stated:
The Oklahoma court offered no analysis of the scope of the cause of action set forth in the complaint, nor did it consider the power of the legislature to enact retroactive tax legislation. We decline to follow such precedent, because to do so would broaden the language of § 95, an act that is beyond
Returning to Act No. 2009-811, we conclude that there remains a problem with a portion of the act. Section 7 of the act "ratified, validated, and confirmed" the collection of the taxes determined to be illegal and, therefore, is the equivalent of an impermissible legislative determination that there could be no recovery of these illegally collected taxes, contrary to the prohibition against taking away a cause of action in § 95. However, in light of the legislature's authority to impose retroactive taxes, we cannot read the portion of § 7 of Act No. 2009-811 ratifying, validating, and confirming the collection of the illegally collected taxes in isolation from the other portion of § 7 of Act No. 2009-811 that provides "[t]his Act is therefore intended to be retroactive and curative to November 29, 1999," and § 9, in which the legislature repealed Act No. 99-669, the statute that rendered the collection of the taxes illegal. By the provisions in Act No. 2009-811 for repeal and retroactive effect, the legislature imposed a retroactive tax, because the repeal of Act No. 99-669 retroactively reinstated Jefferson County's authority to collect the taxes authorized by the 1967 Act. In other words, while one portion of Act No. 2009-811, standing alone, impermissibly defeats the taxpayers' right to recover, other portions of the act, not subject to the constitutional infirmity imposed by § 95, authorize Jefferson County at this time to collect additional occupational taxes. We are left with the continued validity of the escrow fund and the simultaneous levy of a new tax. This anomaly is dictated by the terms of Act No. 2009-811.
Our authority to give effect to the retroactive feature of § 7 and the provision for repeal in § 9 of Act No. 2009-811, notwithstanding the constitutional infirmity of the offending portion of § 7, is recognized in § 10 of Act No. 2009-811 and in settled precedent. Nevertheless, this Court may sever any provision of Act No. 2009-811 it finds unconstitutional rather than declaring the entire act unconstitutional.
City of Birmingham v. Smith, 507 So.2d 1312, 1315 (Ala.1987). We therefore strike that portion of § 7 of Act No. 2009-811 ratifying, validating, and confirming the illegal collection of taxes as inconsistent with the restraint on legislative authority set forth in § 95, but we leave the remainder of Act No. 2009-811 intact and in force. The escrow fund into which Jefferson County placed the illegally collected taxes remains intact for distribution as ordered by the trial court, subject to the modifications hereinafter discussed. However, as is called for by the remainder of Act No. 2009-811, Jefferson County is not barred from collecting the retroactive tax authorized by Act No. 2009-811.
Because the conclusion that the trial court erred in declaring the retroactive tax authorized by Act No. 2009-811 unconstitutional does not eliminate the escrow fund, nor does it necessitate vacatur of the
The trial court's order of December 23, 2009, resolved a dispute between the parties as to the amount Jefferson County had collected in taxes between January 12 and August 14, 2009. The County calculated the total amount collected during that period, with interest, as $37,796,302.06; the taxpayers calculated the total amount collected during that period as $47,812,627.95. The trial court adopted the taxpayers' method of calculation and ordered the County to pay the additional $10,016,325.89 to the special master within 15 days of its order. The County complied with that order.
The County argues that the amount of the escrow fund should include only those taxes Jefferson County levied between January 12, the date of the trial court's injunction, and August 14, the effective date of Act No. 2009-811. The County contends that the trial court used an irrational methodology for calculating the amount collected, but it also contends that even under the trial court's methodology, the court miscalculated the amount of the refund and required the County to pay more than $10 million too much. The taxpayers argue that the total proceeds of Jefferson County's occupational taxing activities after the trial court's order of January 12 and before any new tax was authorized by the legislature should be included in the escrow fund. It is factually undisputed, the taxpayers say, that Jefferson County collected a total of $47,812,627.95 in occupational taxes and business-license fees attributed to the injunction ordering the moneys to be deposited to the escrow fund.
It is unnecessary for this Court to decide whether the trial court erred in using the methodology argued by the taxpayers rather than the methodology argued by the County because we agree with the County that under either method, the trial court erred in including approximately $10 million in the escrow fund. According to the trial court's order of January 12, which has become the law of the case, Jefferson County had the authority to levy an occupational tax before January 12 and after August 13. Under the "when received" approach as used by the trial court, the taxes paid after January 12 as a result of a valid levy and taxes paid after August 13 as a result of an invalid levy are both refunded. Requiring a refund of approximately $10 million in taxes levied before January 12, 2009, and received thereafter, while also requiring a refund of approximately $10 million in taxes levied before August 13, 2009, and received thereafter is inconsistent and allows the taxpayers a double recovery. If the tax was legal when levied, then those tax receipts received after January 12 but levied before that date should not be included in the escrow fund. By the same token, however, those taxes levied before August 13, 2009, but received thereafter should be included in the escrow fund.
The trial court's December 23 order also required the County to pay post
Section 8-8-10, Ala.Code 1975, provides:
The trial court held in its December 23 order that the "amount owed by the County to the taxpayers became fixed in an amount no less than the amount reported each month." Then, in its order of January 15, 2010, the trial court stated:
"Section 8-8-10 applies only when the judgment is one for the payment of money, i.e., a `money judgment.'" Alabama Dep't of Conservation & Natural Res. v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 11 So.3d 194, 203 (Ala.2008). This Court has defined a final judgment as follows:
Moody v. State ex rel. Payne, 351 So.2d 547, 551 (Ala.1977) (quoting Jewell v. Jackson & Whitsitt Cotton Co., 331 So.2d 623, 625 (Ala.1976)).
The order of January 12, 2009, clearly was not a final judgment. That order was not a "money judgment"; instead, it held
Taxpayers' response, p. 2 (emphasis added). The taxpayers continued to describe the January 12, 2009, order as an injunction in their appellees' brief in this appeal:
Taxpayers' brief at 34-35 (emphasis added).
The fact that the amount owed by the County to the escrow fund became fixed each month does not transform the injunction into a final judgment. This Court rejected that reasoning in Exxon, in which the trial court had issued a declaratory judgment ordering Exxon to pay the State royalties beginning in December 2003 "`according to the plain, unambiguous language of the leases'" between the State and Exxon. 11 So.3d at 198. After Exxon paid the royalties in 2008, the State requested postjudgment interest on the amount of the royalties. In explaining why the 2003 declaratory judgment "did not constitute a money judgment for purposes of § 8-8-10," this Court stated that the judgment did not "adjudicate or fix an amount of future royalties owed the State by Exxon. Rather, the judgment simply informed Exxon that it was to compute future royalties according to the leases as interpreted by the jury." 11 So.3d at 203. The Court rejected the State's argument that the declaratory judgment had "incorporat[ed] into that judgment each monthly royalty payment as it came due," thus fixing the State's right to those payments. 11 So.3d at 202. The trial court erred in awarding postjudgment interest on the monthly deposits the County made to the escrow fund.
The trial court also erred in requiring the County to pay postjudgment interest during the pendency of this appeal after it satisfied the judgment of December 23. We agree with the reasoning of the Court of Civil Appeals that the dispositive issue for determining whether a defendant has satisfied a judgment is "not whether [the defendant] ... continued to prosecute its appeal beyond the date of the purported satisfaction ...; rather, it is whether moneys owed by [the defendant]
We reverse that aspect of the December 23, 2009, judgment in which the trial court declared the retroactivity of tax collection pursuant to Act No. 2009-811 to be unconstitutional, but, because we strike that portion of Section 7 of Act No. 2009-811 ratifying, validating, and confirming the collection of the illegal tax, we affirm that aspect of the judgment in which the trial court ordered the transfer of the escrowed funds to a special master. We reverse the January 15, 2010, order in which the trial court ordered the County to pay postjudgment interest. In further proceedings on remand, consistent with the determination that Act No. 2009-811 is not unconstitutional, the trial court, whether or not it uses the services of a master to assist it in the distribution of the escrowed funds, shall compute the County's liability exclusive of taxes collected after January 12, 2009, but levied prior thereto, and without the obligation to pay interest pursuant to § 8-8-10, Ala.Code 1975.
1090437—AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED.
1090517—REVERSED AND REMANDED.
COBB, C.J., and STUART, SMITH, and SHAW, JJ., concur.
PARKER, J., concurs in the result.
WOODALL, BOLIN, and MURDOCK, JJ., recuse themselves.
PARKER, Justice (concurring in the result).
I concur in the result reached by the main opinion, differing only as to the interpretation of the limits of the prohibition on legislative power in regard to existing lawsuits in § 95, Ala. Const, of 1901.
Before the adoption of the Alabama Constitution of 1901, this Court had recognized the inherent power of the legislature to impose taxes with retroactive application within certain limitations. "It may be conceded that the General Assembly has power to impose taxes having a retroactive operation; and may take the profits or income of a business for a preceding year as the measure of assessment." New England Mortgage Sec. Co. v. Board of Revenue of Montgomery Co., 81 Ala. 110, 111, 1 So. 30, 31 (1886).
In 1929, under our current constitution, this Court returned to New England Mortgage Security Co., quoted above, to explain that taxes may be imposed retroactively under certain conditions:
Alexander v. Board of Revenue, 219 Ala. 110, 112, 121 So. 390, 391-92 (1929).
This case presents a clash between that inherent power of the legislature and the express constitutional prohibition in § 95, which provides, in pertinent part: "After suit has been commenced on any cause of action, the legislature shall have no power to take away such cause of action, or destroy any existing defense of such suit." Heretofore, the pronouncements of this Court on the intersection of the power of the legislature to enact tax legislation with a retroactive effect with the prohibition in § 95 have not been models of clarity. The main opinion relies on the solo writing of Chief Justice Anderson in Southern Ry. v. Webb, 232 Ala. 324, 327, 167 So. 729, 731 (1936), in which Chief Justice Anderson stated: "I am also of the opinion that section 95 of the Constitution has no application to cases of this kind relating to taxation." Chief Justice Anderson offered no further insight into what he meant by his qualification of "cases of this kind." Three Justices dissented on the basis of § 95, but did not write separately. Justice Gardner, writing the three-Justice plurality main opinion, stated the position of the three dissenters thusly:
232 Ala. at 326, 167 So. at 730-31. Justice Gardner's plurality opinion, joined by two other Justices of the then seven-member Court, did not mention § 95. Therefore, Southern Ry. v. Webb represents three Justices' reading of § 95 to mean that the curative tax legislation in question there could not affect a pending lawsuit and the opinion of one Justice, the Chief Justice, "that section 95 of the Constitution has no application to cases of this kind relating to taxation."
Two other cases from this Court during the same era imply that § 95 has application in cases relating to taxation but do not define the limitations of § 95, if any, in regard to retroactive tax legislation. In Miller-Brent Lumber Co. v. State, 210
I, instead, would interpret the prohibition on legislative power in § 95 in relation to the inherent authority of the legislature to enact tax statutes with retroactive effect as embodying
56 Am.Jur.2d Municipal Corporations § 550 (2000). As Judge Cooley wrote:
1 Thomas M. Cooley A Treatise on Constitutional Limitations 175 (8th ed.1927). Here the inherent authority of the legislature is limited by the express prohibition on legislative power in § 95 of the constitution in regard to pending lawsuits. The legislature's inherent power is abridged by the express prohibition.
Nevertheless, though I differ on the meaning of § 95 in regard to existing suits relating to taxation, I nonetheless concur in the result reached in the main opinion.