Neiser v. Thomas

46 Mo. App. 47, 1891 Mo. App. LEXIS 320
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided May 26, 1891·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

Rombauer, P. J.

Both parties appeal from a judgment assessing damages on the dissolution of an injunction. The plaintiff obtained a temporary injunction against both defendants, which the circuit court on final hearing dissolved, dismissing the plaintiff’s bill. The plaintiff thereupon appealed to the supreme court, • where the judgment was affirmed. Immediately after the dissolution of the injunction the defendants-filed separate motions for the assessment of damages, which motions were not acted on by the court at the time, but were continued from term to term presumably to await the issue of plaintiff’s appeal. After the supreme court had affirmed the judgment dismissing the bill, the defendants filed a joint motion to assess damages, and, these motions coming on for hearing, the court compelled defendants to elect whether they would proceed on the separate motions or on the joint motion. The defendants elected to do the latter. The plaintiff thereupon moved [49] to dismiss the motion, because it was not filed'at the term at which the injunction was dissolved. This objection was overruled, and plaintiff excepted. In hearing the evidence on the question of damages, the court, against the plaintiff’s objections, permitted the defendants to show the value of legal services rendered in the case to both defendants in the supreme court as well as in the circuit court. To this ruling the plaintiff again excepted, claiming that the damages should be confined to counsel fees in the circuit court in obtaining a dissolution of the injunction.

The defendants introduced evidence tending to show the aggregate value of the services of three counsel in the circuit court and supreme court; but the court ruled that they were entitled to an allowance only for necessary legal services, regardless of the number of counsel employed, to which ruling the defendants excepted. The court found in favor of defendants in the sum of $500, that amount representing necessary counsel fees of the defense in the circuit court and the supreme court.

The exceptions saved by the parties, as above stated, represent the assignment of errors which they now make respectively.

In passing on the defendants’ assignment of error, it is proper to say, that the only defendant substantially interested in the proceeding is Thomas. Williams was the recorder of voters, and as such was about to issue a certificate of election to Thomas, but was restrained from so doing at the instance of the plaintiff, who was the incumbent of the office to which Thomas had been elected. Williams had no interest in the controversy one way or the other, and his position was certainly not antagonistic to that of Thomas in any sense. Whether more than one counsel was needed to represent both defendants was at most a question for the court, and the court properly ruled that the value of the necessary legal services to obtain a dissolution of [50] the injunction controlled the allowance for such services, and not the number of counsel actually employed. The defendant’s assignment of error is, therefore, not tenable.

The plaintiff’s first assignment is to the effect, that the court erred in hearing any evidence on the motion, because it was not filed in time.

Where a temporary injunction is dissolved and the bill dismissed, and no further proceedings are had, the damages on the injunction bond should be assessed during the term. We have so intimated in Loehner v. Hill, 19 Mo. App. 141, and the supreme court, in referring to that case in Heffelmann v. Franke, 96 Mo. 533, said that that ruling was in accord with the prevalent practice in such cases. But it is evident that such cannot be the rule, when the cause is further prosecuted by appeal, since, regardless of the fact whether the appeal operates as a continuance of the injunction, the supreme court may on appeal reinstate the injunction which had been resolved and make it perpetual (Rose v. Garrett, 91 Mo. 65), and if it does so all the proceedings in assessing damages are nugatory. As it was decided in Cohn v. Lehmann, 93 Mo. 574, that an action on an injunction bond cannot be maintained before final decree is rendered in the case in which such bond was given, there appears to be no reason why the defendant should not wait until final decree, before he moves for an assessment of the damages, provided the plaintiff has due notice of the motion, which in Heffelmann v. Franke, supra, was deemed an essential requisite to a legal hearing. As in the case at bar, the defendants did file their motions at once upon the dissolution of the injunction in the first instance, and upon the final disposition of the case renewed it, and, as the plaintiff was present in court when the assessment of damages was had, it is not conceivable how he could be prejudiced by the .action of the court in proceeding with the assessment of damages at that stage of the [51] case. This assignment, therefore, must be ruled against the plaintiff.

The merit of the plaintiff’s second assignment is to be determined by the fact, whether an injunction is continued in force by an appeal from a judgment dissolving a temporary injunction and dismissing a bill, the sole object of which is to obtain an injunction. On this question the authorities are not uniform. This court held in Lewis v. Leahey, 14 Mo. App. 566, that it has been generally recognized by the profession in Missouri that a restraining order, dissolved by a dismissal of a bill in equity, remains in force pending an appeal from the order dismissing the bill, where the proper steps are taken to obtain a supersedeas. The same view was reiterated in State ex rel. Carroll v. Campbell, 25 Mo. App. 635, although, in view of the fact that the supreme court denied our jurisdiction in that case, it cannot be regarded as an authority. While the point was not directly involved in State ex rel. Busch v. Dillon, 96 Mo. 56, yet, Judge Bkace quotes with approval the language of Chief Justice Waite, in Leonard v. Ozark Land Co., lio U. S. 465: “That neither an injunction nor a decree dissolving an injunction is reversed or nullified by an appeal or writ of error, before the cause is heard in this court,” and thus casts some doubt on the position assumed by this court in Lewis v. Leahey, supra.

The Kansas City Court of Appeals in Teasdale v. Jones, 40 Mo. App. 243, holding the intimation made by the supreme court in State ex rel. Busch v. Dillon, supra, to be equivalent to a declaration of law, thereupon pointedly decided that an injunction dissolved on final hearing was not continued by the giving of a supersedeas bond on appeal, and, as it is important that appellate courts in this state should adopt a uniform rule on a question so important, we have concluded, in view of the intimation of the supreme court, and the [52] express decision of the Kansas City Court of Appeals, to recede from our decision in Lewis v. Leahey, supra, and to adopt the rule as stated by the Kansas City Court of Appeals.

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Neiser v. Thomas, 46 Mo. App. 47, 1891 Mo. App. LEXIS 320 (Mo. Ct. App. 1891).

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