Kinard v. C.A. Kelly and Co., Inc.

This case reaches us on an appeal from a summary judgment. The dispositive issue involves Alabama's fictitious party rule, A.R.Civ.P. 9 (h).

On August 12, 1979, Emogene Kinard, a tenant of the Magnolia Inn Apartments in Mobile, fell in the apartment's parking lot while carrying a small trash can toward the apartment's garbage collection point. The parking area had recently been resurfaced and Kinard claims that her fall was the proximate result of the uneven condition of the surface.

Kinard retained an attorney, who contacted her lessor, C.A. Kelly Co., Inc. Kelly Co. (hereinafter Kelly Co.),…