Price v. Blankenship

45 S.W. 1123, 144 Mo. 203, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 287
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 24, 1898
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 45 S.W. 1123 (Price v. Blankenship) 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
Price v. Blankenship, 45 S.W. 1123, 144 Mo. 203, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 287 (Mo. 1898).

Opinion

Marshall, J.

Joseph H. Price executed, a mortgage, with power of sale, on certain land in Barry county, to defendant to secure a debt of $250 and interest. Price died leaving a widow and children, some by a prior marriage, and the plaintiffs, who are minors. Defendant sold the property under the mortgage for $1,400 but only required the purchaser to pay $300, just enough to satisfy his mortgage debt, interest and costs, and then made a deed to the purchaser, who entered into the possession of the land. The mortgage required thirty days notice of sale to be given, but defendant gave only twenty-four. The minor heirs by their next friend sued defendant to recover $1,100, the balance of the price the land brought at the foreclosure sale. Defendant set up that he had only received $300; that the notice of sale was insufficient and therefore the effect of the sale was simply to transfer the mortgage to the purchaser, and that the equity of redemption still remained to the plaintiffs. The. plaintiffs obtained judgment in the circuit court for $1,364. Defendant appealed to the St. Louis Court of Appeals. That court affirmed the judgment below, Judge Biggs dissenting, and the cause was certified to this court because of the opinion of Judge Biggs that the title to real estate is involved in this action, as construed by this court in Gray v. Worst, 129 Mo. 122, and that the decision of the St. Louis Court of Appeals is in conflict with the decision of this- court in Kerr v. Bell, 44 Mo. 120.

I. The first question for our determination, therefore, is, whether the title to real estate is involved in this action so as to confer jurisdiction upon this court under section 12, article VI, Constitution 1875.

The decision in Gray v. Worst, 129 Mo. 122, undoubtedly affords room for the opinion of Judge [206]*206Biggs in this case. That ease was an action for the conversion of a crop which had been severed from the realty. It sounded in. damages, and could only be satisfied by the payment of money. Yet it was held that it involved the title to real estate. That case was decided on the seventh of June, 1895. It did not long remain an authority in this State, for on the twenty-fifth of June; 1895, the case of Hilton v. St. Louis, 129 Mo. 389, was decided. That case was a controversy between two claimants to a fund paid into court in a condemnation proceeding; that is, two parties claimed the res resulting from a condemnation of land. Maceablane, J., delivering the opinion of the court, said: “The Constitution does not declare that the .jurisdiction exists if a question of title is involved in the trial, but that the case tried must involve the title. We take the provision to mean that the title to real estate must, in some way,'be affected by the judgment to be rendered on the entire case as made by the pleadings and evidence. This seems to be the view this court has uniformly taken. Bobb v. Wolff, 105 Mo. 52; Blondeau v. Sheridan, 103 Mo. 134; Bailey v. Winn, 113 Mo. 161; State ex rel. v. Rombauer 124 Mo. 598.” Gray v. Worst, supra, was not referred to in Hilton v. St. Louis, supra, notwithstanding the principles decided in the two cases are antipodes. But it is clear that the decision in Gray v. Worst was in conflict with the prior adjudications of this court, which were not referred to or overruled in Gray’s case,

The matter, however, did not rest here. On June 8, 1897, Fischer v. Johnson, 139 Mo. 433, was decided. It was an action in replevin for a crop which had been severed from the land, and it was claimed that as the ownership to the land determined who had the right to the crop grown on the land, the title to real estate was involved. Brace, J., speaking for the Court in Banc, [207]*207quoted the language of Macfarlane, J., in Hilton v. St. Louis, 129 Mo. 391, and added: “To this list” (the cases cited by Macearlane, J.) “might be added the earlier cases of Corrigan v. Morris, 97 Mo. 174; Dunn v. Miller, 96 Mo. 324; State ex rel. v. Court of Appeals, 67 Mo. 199, and perhaps others, as well as the recent case of Barber Asphalt Co. v. Hezel, 138 Mo. 228. The action of replevin lies only for the recovery of ‘specific personal property.’ R. S. 1889, sec. 7479. It is well settled that while title to real estate may be inquired into in such action for the purpose of determining the title to personal chattels, it can not be made the means of determining the title to real estate. Wells on Replevin, secs. 58, 79 et seq. A crop severed from the land is a personal chattel, and a proper subject of the action of replevin, and while the title to it may depend on the ownership of the land, the title of the land is not within the issues to be tried, and the judgment thereon can in no way affect such title........Consequently a title to real estate is not involved in this case within the meaning of the Constitution, article VI, section 12. .......This conclusion is not in harmony with the ruling in the first paragraph of the opinion in Gray v. Worst, 129 Mo. 122, which is accordingly overruled.” All the judges concurred in this opinion except the writer of the opinion in Gray's case, who filed a dissenting opinion.

Heman v. Wade, 141 Mo. 598, decided December 7, 1897, was a suit in equity to enjoin waste pending an ejectment suit. Macearlane, J., said: “Nor do we think the title to real estate is so involved as to give this court jurisdiction of the appeal. It is true, the right of plaintiffs to injunctive relief may depend upon their title to the land and their right to its possession; yet the title is only incidentally or collaterally involved. The suit is merely in aid of the pending ejectment suit, [208]*208and is not intended to try and determine the title to land. Neither plaintiffs nor defendants ask to have the title established, .nor does the judgment rendered undertake to do more than to prohibit waste, until the title is determined in the ejectment suit. Itis sometimes difficult to determine when the title is involved, within the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, but the rule is now well settled that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction on this ground, unless the result of the litigation may directly, without subsequent proceeding, affect the title to real estate. The determination of a purely personal or pecuniary right, though dependent upon the condition of the title to land, does not involve that title unless it may in some way be affected by the judgment.”

State ex rel. v. School District, 148 Mo. 89, was a proceeding by mandamus to compel the levy of a tax to pay a sum allowed relator by the commissioners in a condemnation suit. Williams, J., followed Hilton v. St. Louis, supra; Heman v. Wade, supra, and Fischer v. Johnson, supra, and said: “If relator should be successful in this action, he will be entitled to a peremptory writ of mandamus, compelling the levy of a tax to pay the same. If defeated, the judgment will simply deny said relief. In neither event will the title to real estate be directly affected.”

Thus it appears that Gray v. Worst, 129 Mo. 122, was not in harmony with the rulings of this court made prior to that decision, that it was not followed at the same term of this court in Hilton's case, that it was expressly overruled in Fischer v. Johnson, 139 Mo. 433, and the principle it decided has been uniformly held exactly the other way since then, in Heman v. Wade, supra, and in

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45 S.W. 1123, 144 Mo. 203, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 287, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/price-v-blankenship-mo-1898.