Wood v. Hayes

104 So. 3d 863, 2012 WL 3871483
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedSeptember 7, 2012
Docket1100750 and 1100751
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 104 So. 3d 863 (Wood v. Hayes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wood v. Hayes, 104 So. 3d 863, 2012 WL 3871483 (Ala. 2012).

Opinion

MURDOCK, Justice.

Darren Woods and his half sister Joni Wood,1 appeal separately from a judgment based on a jury verdict in favor of Karrie Hayes and against Joni in the amount of $437,761.52 and against Darren in the amount of $86,540.49 for violating the Alabama Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, § 8-9A-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975 (“AUFTA”). We have consolidated the two appeals for the purpose of writing one opinion. In both appeals, we reverse and remand.

I. Facts and Procedural History

On the morning of September 28, 2004, Karrie Hayes, then age 14, was alone inside the house where she resided with her mother in Florence. Jason Earl Pruitt, at the request and under the direction of Stevie Woods,2 the father of Darren and Joni, released a large amount of propane gas into the residence and then ignited the gas, causing the residence to explode into flames.3 Hayes was thrown from the house into the front yard. As a result of the explosion, Hayes sustained severe burns to over 70 percent of her body.

Investigators quickly learned of Pruitt’s involvement, and Pruitt thereafter implicated Stevie Woods. Officer Travis Clemmons, chief investigator for the Lauderdale County Sheriffs Department, confronted Stevie Woods the day after the accident. Officer Clemmons testified at trial that Woods appeared visibly shaken when he was told that someone was in the house when it was set ablaze.

On January 27, 2006, Stevie Woods was arrested and charged with arson for the burning of the residence in which Hayes was living. Both Stevie Woods and Pruitt were convicted of arson in the first degree on November 8, 2006. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Woods’s conviction in an unpublished memorandum on November 6, 2009, Woods v. State (No. CR-[865]*86506-1150), 64 So.3d 1150 (Ala.Crim.App.2009) (table), and this Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on February 12, 2010, Ex parte Woods (No. 1090391), 76 So.3d 876 (Ala.2010) (table). Darren and Joni were not implicated in the crime.

As a result of the injuries she sustained in the explosion, Hayes was placed in a medically induced coma from which she awoke after a month and a half. She stayed in the hospital for approximately two and a half months and underwent 12 surgeries during that period. Most of the surgeries were for skin grafts to cover the burned areas of Hayes’s body. Hayes also had to undergo extensive physical therapy. Hayes’s treating physician, Dr. William Hardin, then chief surgeon in the burn unit at Children’s Hospital of Alabama, testified by video deposition at trial that Hayes “will require ongoing lifetime care. She will not be normal. She will suffer the effects of this through her entire life. It will effect her not only physically but emotionally, psychologically. Her life is changed forever.”

On September 20, 2006, Hayes, through her mother, filed a civil action against Stevie Woods and Pruitt seeking damages for the injuries she sustained as a result of the destruction of the residence.4 In amended complaints filed on May 7, 2007, and September 29, 2008, Hayes added claims alleging the fraudulent transfer of assets against Stevie Woods, Darren, Joni, and Flower Wood Development, LLC (“Flower Wood”), and conspiracy to engage in the fraudulent transfers and seeking injunctive relief to bar further transfers. With regard to these claims, Hayes specifically alleged that, with the knowledge of the existence of Hayes’s claims against him, Stevie Woods fraudulently transferred real and personal property to various relatives,5 including Darren and Joni, as well as to Flower Wood.

Pursuant to Rule 42, Aa. R. Civ. P., Darren and Joni filed a motion requesting that the claims against them related to the alleged fraudulent transfers be tried separately from the personal-injury claims filed against Stevie Woods and Pruitt. One of the stated grounds for separate trials was that

“[i]t is anticipated that photographs of the Plaintiff, Karrie Hayes, medical testimony concerning the condition of Kar-rie Hayes, testimony of Karrie Hayes describing her injuries and condition, her pain and suffering and her other damages and injuries will be elicited at the trial of the case.
“The testimony and evidence described above will prejudice the Defendants in the fraudulent conveyance claims which said prejudice will not be able to be cured by any instruction the Court may give to disregard that evidence on damages when deciding issues in the fraudulent conveyance case.
“All the proof about Karrie Hayes’s damages [is] not admissible to prove any elements of the claims concerning fraudulent conveyances.”

Darren and Joni later filed a supplement to their motion for separate trials in which they contended that “[t]he motive and intent of [Hayes] in offering photographs [866]*866and other [evidence] of serious injury is to inflame the jury in their favor and appeal to the jury’s sympathy.” They attached to the supplement an affidavit from David Odem, cocounsel for Stevie Woods in the criminal action against him resulting from the incident. In the affidavit, Odem stated that “[t]he photographs of Karrie Hayes were gruesome, awful, horrible. In fact, I cannot think of adequate words to describe how bad they were.”

The trial court subsequently ordered bifurcated trials for the claims in Hayes’s complaint. The first trial would address Hayes’s claims for “damages for acts relating to the explosion and fire made the basis of this litigation.” The second trial would address “[a]ll issues related to fraudulent conveyances.”

In the same order, the trial court found that Stevie Woods’s “willful, improper and contemptuous refusal to give deposition testimony has prevented [Hayes] from obtaining testimony and evidence necessary for the adequate prosecution of [her] case” and that Woods had “continued to exhibit a pattern and practice of willful disobedience to the Rules of Civil Procedure and to Orders of this Court.” As a result of Stevie Woods’s lack of cooperation, the trial court ruled that all of Hayes’s facts concerning her personal-injury claims “are to be taken as established,” leaving damages as the only issue to be determined by the jury.6

On December 8, 2010, a jury awarded Hayes $5 million against Stevie Woods and Pruitt on her personal-injury claims. Stevie Woods did not appeal the verdict.

Before the trial on Hayes’s fraudulent-transfer claims, the trial court entered an order assessing more sanctions against Stevie Woods because of his continued lack of cooperation. The trial court also determined before trial that 11 deeds had been used to fraudulently transfer 9 parcels of real property from Stevie Woods to Darren, Joni, and Flower Wood, and the trial court set aside those deeds. The order setting aside those deeds further stated that “the issue of any additional real and personal property which may have been fraudulently transferred among the defendants is not disposed of by this Court’s ruling and remains at issue for trial.” The defendants did not challenge the order and do not do so on appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
104 So. 3d 863, 2012 WL 3871483, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wood-v-hayes-ala-2012.