Nutter v. Brown

52 S.E. 88, 58 W. Va. 237, 1905 W. Va. LEXIS 105
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 7, 1905
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 52 S.E. 88 (Nutter v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nutter v. Brown, 52 S.E. 88, 58 W. Va. 237, 1905 W. Va. LEXIS 105 (W. Va. 1905).

Opinions

POFFENBARGER, JUDGE:

This is a third appeal in the case of Nutter v. Brown, the history of which may be obtained by reference to 51 W. Va. 598 and 46 S. E. 375, where the dispositions made of the first and second appeals are reported. The decree from which the second appeal was taken directed the special receiver to pay over and deliver the proceeds of the property in controversy to the plaintiff, Cordelia Nutter, and the defendants, C. T. Arnett and J. M. Garrett, in the proportions in which they were entitled, one-half to Cordelia Nutter and one-fourth to each of the other two parties, and required the defendants, Beeson H. Brown, Henry K.. Smith and Gertrude Duncan, to pay to the plaintiff, Cordelia Nutter, her costs. But that decree reserved for future adjudication all questions relating to the compensation of the receiver and his costs and expenses, and also the question whether such costs and expenses should be taxed against the defendants as part of the costs in the cause. After the affirmation of said decree by this Court, the receiver filed his report in the court below, showing that he had received on account of the oil $14,052.42, had paid out on account of taxes $404.04, had paid a fee of $25.00 to the attorney of the receiver and retained his commission of five per cent, amounting to $702.62, making a total of $1,127.66, which deducted from the total receipts, left $12,924.76, which he had distributed to the parties entitled under the decree aforesaid; and the court confirmed his report and discharged him. Later, May 28, 1904, Cordelia Nutter, James M. Garrett and C. T. Arnett, out of whose funds said attorney’s fee and receiver’s compensation had been retained, applied to the court for a decree against Beeson H. Brown, one of the defendants, for said sums as part of their costs in the prosecution of their suit and such decree was entered for the sum of $723.62. From it Brown has obtained the present appeal.

The appeal is resisted on the ground that the decree is for costs only as to which no appeal lies. The appellate jurisdiction of this Court, -in cases pecuniary in their nature, is [240]*240limited by the Constitution to those in which the matter in controversy, exclusive of costs, is of greater value or amount than one hundred dollars. Const., Art. VIII., section 3. This expressly excludes the addition of costs to the value or amount in controversy for the purpose of making it more than one hundred dollars. It does not prevenc costs, when a subject of independent adjudication, from reaching-the appellate court. Taney v. Woodmansee, 23 W. Va. 709, in which an appeal was entertained from a decree overruling a motion to quash an execution, although the amount in controversy was composed wholly of costs. It only inhibits addition of costs to the matter in controversy on the merits in order to bring the amount up to the jurisdictional point, a sum in excess of one hundred dollars, and has nothing to do with the question whether an appeal from a decree for costs only may be entertained. In this view of the constitutional limitation, my associates do not concur. However, the general rule is, and always has been, both in England and in this country, that, independently, of any constitutional limitation, a decree for costs only is not ordinarily appealable. Pritchard v. Evans, 31 W. Va. 137; Long v. Perine, 41 W. Va. 314; Graham v. Bank, 45 W. Va. 702; Cowles v. Whitman, 10 Conn. 121; Smith v. Shaffer, 50 Md. 132; Lake v. Shumate, 20 S. C. 23; Temple v. Lawson, 19 Ark. 148; Howe v. Hutchinson, 105 Ill. 501; Shields v. Bogliolo, 7 Mo. 136; Sanborn v. Kitredge, 20 Vt. 632; Elastic Fabrics Co. v. Smith, 100 U. S. 110; Wood v. Weimar, 104 U. S. 786; Russell v. Farley, 105 U. S. 433; Paper Bag Cases, 105 U. S. 766; Trustees v. Greenough, 105 U. S. 527; Burns v. Rosenstein, 135 U. S. 449; Dubois v. Kirk, 158 U. S. 58; Bank v. Hunter, 152 U. S. 675; Bank v. Cannon, 164 U. S. 319. Kittredge v. Race, 92 U. S. 116; Canter v. Ins. Co., 3 Peters, 307: 3 Eng. Ruling Cas. 243; 5 Enc. Pl. & Pr. 219.

This is true, however, of those cases only in which the awarding of costs is in the discretion of the court below. In refusing to take jurisdiction, the courts all say the reason for declining is that the case is one in which the trial court has discretion to award or refuse costs. In 3 Eng. Ruling Cases, 243, the rule on the subject is stated, as follows: “The general rule of the Court of Chancery — which is now [241]*241confirmed and made absolute (by tlie Judicature Act 1873, s. 49) so far as relates to costs which are in the discretion of the Court — that no appeal can be entertained upon a mere question of costs.” This is the old rule of equity practice, simply declared or confirmed by statute. The reason given by the authorities in this country, where the judiciary act, governing the present English practice, has no application, is the discretionary power of the court below. “Whether costs shall be decreed by a eom't of equity, is a question always addressing itself to the discretion of the chancellor, and the authority of an appellate court to correct his decrees is not without doubt.” 5 Enc. Pl. & Pr. 218; Cowles v. Witman; Sanborn v. Kittredge; Howe v. Hutchinson; Lake v. Shumate; Smith v. Shaffer; Temple v. Lawson, all cited; Joslyn v. Parlin, 54 Vt. 670: Railroad Co. v. Bixby, 57 Vt. 548; Hastings v. Perry, 20 Vt. 272. The opinion in Temple v. Lawson, 19 Ark., 148, seems to have been very carefully prepared and makes the clearest and most exhaustive presentation of the authorities to be found among the American decisions, and the conclusion announced is that costs are not always in the discretion of the chancellor, but that such costs as are in his discretion cannot be the subject of appeal. His conclusion is expressed in the following language: “The discretion which we have said resides in the court to award or give costs, must be understood to relate only to those costs in a suit, which are denominated ‘general,’ or properly ‘costs in the caused and not such as may be said to be extraordinary, such as directing the costs of the suit to be paid out of a particular fund, or where the court under special circumstances and a particular state of facts, developed by a proper course of pleading and demanded at the proper time, will direct counsel fees to be paid by a party either generally or out of a particular fund.” The principle thus laid down is fully sustained by the English decisons from which the rule in this country was originally deduced, but in the specification of instances it stops short of many of the precedents.

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Bluebook (online)
52 S.E. 88, 58 W. Va. 237, 1905 W. Va. LEXIS 105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nutter-v-brown-wva-1905.