Mills & Arnold Lumber Co. v. Tanner

271 S.W. 831, 220 Mo. App. 995, 1925 Mo. App. LEXIS 149
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 4, 1925
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 271 S.W. 831 (Mills & Arnold Lumber Co. v. Tanner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mills & Arnold Lumber Co. v. Tanner, 271 S.W. 831, 220 Mo. App. 995, 1925 Mo. App. LEXIS 149 (Mo. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

ARNOLD, J.

— This controversy is before us on a writ of error to the circuit court of Adair county and the question of the sufficiency of the writ stands at the threshold of its consideration. The writ is as follows, omitting the attestation which is regular.

‘ ‘ The State of Missouri, SS:

“The State of Missouri, To the Judge of the First Judicial Circuit in said State, Greeting: Whereas, in the record and proceedings in a certain cause lately pending in the Adair Circuit Court wherein The Mills & Arnold Lumber Company was plaintiff and L. B. Tanner and Barbara Tanner were defendants, Paul D. Higbee, Garnishee, in a civil action, manifest error hath intervened to the great damage of the said L. B. Tanner and Barbara Tanner as by their complain, we are informed.

“Now, We being willing that the error, if any there be, should be corrected, -and full and speedy justice done to the parties aforesaid, in that behalf command you, that you send to us, certified under your seal, the record and proceedings in the cause aforesaid, as fully as the same remain of record before you in said court, so that we may have them before us at our Kansas City Court of Appeals, to be begun and held at the City of Kansas, in the County of Jackson, in said State, on the first Monday in October next, so that our Judges of our Kansas City Court of Appeals, on inspecting the record and proceedings aforesaid, may cause to be further done therein, for correcting the error, what of right and according to law ought to be done, and have you then and there this writ.”

The transcript which constitutes the return to this writ is entitled :

Mills & Arnold Lumber Co., Plaintiff, #16696 v. L. B. Tanner and Barbara Tanner, Defendants.

Judgment on motion to allow exemption of B. Tanner.

The facts leading up to the controversy are as follows:

In June, 1921, L. B. Tanner and Barbara Tanner, husband and wife, owned as an estate in the entirety a farm of ninety-four acres *997 near Kirksviile, Adair county, Missouri, upon which they lived. It appears from appellant’s abstract that in June, 1921, suit was instituted against plaintiffs in error on five promissory notes executed by Tanner and his wife on an account for lumber used in-the construction of a dwelling house on the said farm. It also appears from said abstract- that in the spring of 1921, the Tanners agreed to a separation and on June 20, 1921, they executed a warranty deed to the farm, including therein all of their personal property, to Ira Linder and Mattie Linder, the consideration named therein being $16,500. At the time of the execution of this deed there was- a first deed of trust- against the land for $5,000, and a second for $1,000-, held by the Bank of Kirksviile, in which Paul D. Higbee -was named as trustee.

On June 22, 1921, the Mills & Arnold Lumber Co. instituted a suit against the Tanners upon an Open account for lumber, in the sum of $4217.70. Joined with this were four counts based upon four promissory notes, aggregating $3,000,' which the Tanners had previously executed to the National- Bank of Kirksviile, and which were assigned to the Mills & Arnold Lumber Company orL June 22, 1921. At the time the suit was filed, defendants in error attached the ninety-four acres of land and all the personal property of the Tanners, the writ and summons being made returnable at the October (1921) term of the court.

’ On August 4, 1921,- Linder and his wife, by warranty deed, re-conveyed to Tanner and wife the said land and personal property, the consideration named therein being $16,500.

In the meantime the note for $1,000 secured by the second deed of trust, held by the Bank of Kirksviile, was ordered foreclosed. At the foreclosure sale on August 5, 1921, the farm was purchased by P. C. Mills of Kirksviile for $9300 plus the'interest due on the first deed of trust of $5,000. The sum for which the land was sold was approximately $3300 in excess of the two deeds of trust.

On the day of the foreclosure sale, L. B. Tanner served upon P.' C. Mills and Paul D. Higbee, trustee, a written claim and demand for homestead exemption in the sum of $1500. These demands were refused. After the foreclosure sale, the surplus of $3300 in the hands of Higbee, trustee, was garnished by the Mills & Arnold Lumber Co. On application of defendants in error and pursuant to an order of the court granted -September -1, 1921, the personal property was sold at public auction for,'approximately the sum of $900.

Pleas in abatement to the attachment were filed by plaintiffs in error, setting up and claiming the personal property and homestead exemptions, and on February 6, 1922, the issues thereon were tried to a jury; the court directing a verdict in favor of defendant in error, the Mills & Arnold Lumber Co., and a judgment sustaining *998 the attachment was rendered. Motion for new trial was duly filed and one year later, February 2, 1923, was overruled. On the same day plaintiffs in error filed separate replies to the answer of Paul D. Higbee, garnishee, claiming the homestead exemption out of the funds in his hands. Also, on February 2, 1923, L. B. Tanner filed separate claim for personal exemption of $3,000, and on the same day defendant in error was given judgment for the sum of $7650.-98. This case was not appealed.

The .question of exemption was heard by the court on April 13 and 14, 1923, and judgment was rendered June 30, 1923, wherein a personal exemption- of $300 was allowed L. B. Tanner out of the personal .property attached and sold, but the claim for homestead exemption of $1500 was denied.

■ A motion for new trial on the court’s ruling denying the homestead exemption was overruled. The writ of error was thereupon issued out of this court. The only error therein charged is against the judgment of the court in denying plaintiffs in error the homestead exemption out of the sum of $3300 in the hands of Paul D. Higbee, .garnishee.

. As stated above, defendants in error have moved that the writ be quashed, and for grounds of the motion say, first, that in the application for the writ it is recited that on the 30th day of June, 1923, a judgment was rendered /against the plaintiffs in error by the circuit court of Adair county, Missouri, in favor of said Mills & Arnold Lumber Company for the sum of $1500, on a claim for homestead exemption for said sum out of the proceeds of the sale .of the real estate in the hands of Paul D. Higbee; that said statement,, so made in the application for the writ' of error is erroneous and incorrect, as shown by the printed record, in this, that in truth and in fact no judgment for any amount whatsoever was rendered against either of the plaintiffs in error in favor of the Mills & Arnold Lumber Co., that, on the contrary, the only judgment which purports to have been rendered is one denying the claim .of $1500 homestead exemption and not a judgment against either of the plaintiffs in error in any sum whatever; second, because Paul D. Higbee, garnishee, is not made a party defendant, and third, because each of the plaintiffs in error made separate claim for $1500 homestead exemption, as shown by the record, the same being antagonistic, and joined in the application for the writ.

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Bluebook (online)
271 S.W. 831, 220 Mo. App. 995, 1925 Mo. App. LEXIS 149, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mills-arnold-lumber-co-v-tanner-moctapp-1925.