Ex parte Mobile County Board of Health and Family Oriented Primary Health Care Clinic, [SC-2025-0391, Jan. 30, 2026] ___ So. 3d ___ (Ala. 2026). The Court (Mendheim, J.; Stewart, C.J., and Shaw, Wise, Bryan, Sellers, Cook, McCool, and Parker, JJ., concur) granted the petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the Mobile Circuit Court erred in awarding litigation expenses to former counsel based on an attorney’s lien because it lacked jurisdiction over settlement proceeds obtained in a separate, first-filed statewide action overseen by the Montgomery Circuit Court. Ms. **29–30.
The Court reiterated that an attorney’s lien under § 34-3-61, Ala. Code 1975, exists only as to money or property recovered through the attorney’s services in the particular action in which the lien is asserted. Because Mobile Health’s claims in the Mobile Circuit Court were dismissed and no recovery or judgment was obtained in that action, there was no fund to which an attorney lien could attach. Ms. **25–27.
Although Mobile Health later received settlement funds, the Court explained that those proceeds were obtained by the State of Alabama in the Attorney General’s first-filed statewide opioid litigation and were allocated pursuant to settlement agreements, special-master proceedings, and arbitration under the continuing jurisdiction of the Montgomery Circuit Court. Ms. **23–24, 28–29. A circuit court lacks authority to exercise in rem jurisdiction over property subject to another court’s prior and continuing jurisdiction.
Because the Mobile Circuit Court treated the statewide settlement proceeds as funds recovered in the Mobile Health action and ordered payment of litigation expenses from those proceeds without jurisdiction to do so, the order enforcing the attorney’s lien was vacated, and the case was remanded with directions to vacate the April 2, 2025, order. Ms. **29–30.