Murphy v. Barron

228 S.W. 492, 286 Mo. 390, 1921 Mo. LEXIS 113
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 5, 1921
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 228 S.W. 492 (Murphy v. Barron) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murphy v. Barron, 228 S.W. 492, 286 Mo. 390, 1921 Mo. LEXIS 113 (Mo. 1921).

Opinion

JAMES T. BLAIR, P. J.

This is a second appeal (Murphy v. Barron, 275 Mo. 282) in a suit to quiet title in ejectment, which respondents instituted in 1914. As appears from the record and the former opinion, Joseph Murphy owned the land prior to 1901. In that year a suit was commenced against him for hack tases on the tract here in question and service obtained. The case was not tried until June, 1903. Murphy was then in the penitentiary. In October, 1903, the land was sold under the tax judgment to Green who, three days later, conveyed to" the present appellant. After his release in 1905 Murphy took possession of the tract and retained it until 1914, when he was ousted under a judgment in an action this appellant had brought against the Baurtons in 1904, as more fully appears from the former opinion. Murphy had conveyed the tract to Baurton in 1902, and Baurton reconveyed to Murphy and his wife, these respondents, in 1904. August 11, 1911, the Butler County Railway began proceedings to condemn a right of way across the tract and made the present respondents and appellant and one Horton defendants thereto, alleging that all claimed the land and that it did not know which had title. September 18, 1911, commissioners were appointed- who qualified and, on September 29, 1911, filed their report in which they “assessed as damages to the owners” (of the tract in suit) “to-wit, William F. Barron, *398 M. C. Horton or Joseph Murphy, the true owner hereof to be declared and decreed by the court upon the trial of this cause, for said strip taken, the sum of $100.” On March 5, 1912, Murphy filed in that case a motion to require the Butler County Railroad to pay into the court the amount of the award “to the end that said defendants may interplead for same.” This motion was overruled on March 8, 1912, and in. the order the court granted Murphy “leave to answer or plead on or before. the first day of the next regular term of this court, to which this cause is continued.” Thereafter Barron, the present appellant, and Horton filed a pleading in the nature of an interplea admitting they claimed title to the tract, alleging they were the owners thereof, denying that the Murphys had any interest therein, and praying a decree and order that the damages awarded by the commissioners be directed to be paid to them, Barron and Horton. Joseph and Sarah Murphy, the present respondents, also filed in those proceedings their plea in the nature of an interplea in which they alleged they were the owners of the land affected and entitled to the $100 awarded by the commissioners as damages for the taking of the right of way across it. They denied Barron and Horton had any interest in the land and prayed judgment “in the sum of $100 and costs.” The court heard the evidence on these conflicting claims, found that Barron was the owner of the land, that he was entitled to the $100 awarded as damages for the taking of the right of way, adjudged that Joseph and Sarah Murphy had no title to or interest in or to the land or to the $100 damages awarded by. the commissioners, and “that upon the payment into court by the plaintiff of the sum aforesaid that the said W. N. Barron be entitled to the said sum of $100,” and adjudged the costs of the proceeding against the Murphys. From this judgment Joseph and Sarah Murphy appealed to the Springfield Court of Appeals, where the judgment was affirmed. [Railroad *399 v. Barron et al., 173 Mo. App. 365.] In tliat proceeding and on the issue concerning the right to the $100 fund the evidence was confined to the question of title to the land. In this case appellant called Wm. McGuire, Circuit Clerk of Butler County, who testified he was circuit clerk at the time of the trial of the issues between respondents and appellant and Horton on May 2, 1912. He produced a receipt which reads as follows:

“Poplar Bluff, Missouri, May 23, 1912.
“Received of William McGuire, Circuit Clerk of Butler County, Missouri, the sum of one hundred ($100) dollars, payment in full for a strip of ground taken for railroad right of way by thé Butler County Railroad Company, a corporation, which strip of ground is more particularly described in the report of the commissioners filed in this court on the 29th day of September, 1911; and the above amount being the amount awarded hv said commissioners.
“William N. Barrow,
By Eabl Y. Walker.”

McGuire testified he had no record of the receipt of this sum from the Butler County Railroad Company; that he paid it to Walker, Barron’s agent, on the date named in the receipt and took the receipt for it; that funds of the kind did not go upon his abstract of fees collected but were listed by him and kept in a separate trust fund account; that this list was revised and rewritten as payments were made from it and old lists then destroyed; that he did not pay it out if his own money but that the sum came to him from the Butler County Railroad; that he had no recollection when the money v/as paid to him. Appellant testified that the Butler County Railroad did not pay the $100 award to the circuit clerk until after May 2, 1912, but that it was paid in before May 23, 1912, when he received the money. Other facts appear from the opinion on the former appeal. On the second trial the Murphys had judgment, and this appeal followed.

*400 Second Appeal: Effect of Decision on Former Appeal. I. On the former appeal in this case it was held, among other things, that the Bntler Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to try the issues made by the interpleas of respondents and appellant and Horton in their contest for the damages awarded the own-erg 0f the land involved in that and in ... -in, ,. .. this case, and that, consequently, the trial and judgment in that proceeding could constitute no obstacle to the assertion by respondents against appellant of title in this case. Appellant contends the decision on the former appeal was wrong on the record then before this court, is wrong for the same and additional reasons on the present record, and that the question should be re-examined. Respondents insist the holding on the former appeal was such a determination of the question that it is not now open to examination.

(1) The decision on the former appeal is not res acljudicata in the full sense. [Mangold v. Bacon, 237 Mo. l. c. 517.] It is not a judgment from which the court cannot legally depart on this second appeal in the same case. Under the decisions in this State it was not an absolute and final determination of all matters decided of such inexorable force that the court must adhere to it on this appeal at all events and whether it he right or wrong. The general rule is that matters decided on one appeal will he considered settled on a second appeal in the same case, unless exceptional circumstances call for a re-examination of them. A discussion of - the nature of the exceptional circumstances which warrant a re-examination of questions decided on a former appeal is found in the case above cited. It follows that the decisions cited by respondents (Donnell v, Wright, 147 Mo. l. c. 647, and the like) in which this court considered the effect in a second action of a previous and final adjudication of same matter are not in point.

(2) Respondents also rely upon the rule announced in McLure v. Bank, 263 Mo. l. c.

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Bluebook (online)
228 S.W. 492, 286 Mo. 390, 1921 Mo. LEXIS 113, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-barron-mo-1921.