Ross v. Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad

42 S.W. 957, 141 Mo. 390, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 330
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 16, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 42 S.W. 957 (Ross v. Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad) 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
Ross v. Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, 42 S.W. 957, 141 Mo. 390, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 330 (Mo. 1897).

Opinion

IN DIVISION TWO.

Burokess, J.

— Plaintiffs, who are the only minor children of James Ross, deceased, recovered judgment against the defendant in the circuit court of Barton county in the sum of $5,000, by reason of the alleged negligence of defendant, its servants and employees in the management and control of one of its trains of cars in running it over and killing deceased without any negligence upon his part contributing directly thereto.

Defendant appealed.

The bill of exceptions does not show that defendant excepted to the action of the court in overruling its motion for a new trial, and in order to correct the bill in-this regard especially, this court, on the application of defendant, did on the twenty-first day of October, 1896, make an order directed to the circuit court of Barton county, commanding and directing it, “that if the bill of exceptions • filed by appellant in said cause does not in fact show on its face that appellant took and saved exceptions to the action of the circuit court in overruling appellant’s motion for a new trial, then that said circúit court cause the same to be amended so [394]*394as to show that appellant did take and save such exceptions, provided said circuit court shall find from competent evidence that such exceptions were in fact taken and saved by appellant.”

In pursuance of said order defendant on the twenty-fourth day of October, 1896, filed its motion to correct and amend said bill of exceptions so as to show that it did in fact except at the time to the ruling of the court in overruling its motion for a new trial, and upon a hearing of said motion by the court in pursuance of said order, defendant offered in evidence in support thereof the affidavits of several different persons including members of the bar, which showed that defendant by its counsel did in fact except at the time to the ruling of the court in overruling its said motion for a new trial, but which said affidavits were upon motion of plaintiff stricken out and excluded from the consideration of the court over the objection and exception of defendant. The court then overruled defendant’s motion to correct the bill, but stated in its return to said order the following:

“But the court further says and returns to the Supreme Court that, except for its ruling in excluding said affidavits on the account of incompetency, it wbuld have found therefrom the facts therein set forth to be true, and would have sustained defendant’s motion to amend its said bill of exceptions. The court finds from an inspection of the defendant’s bill of exceptions that it does not appear on the face thereof that defendant took or saved any exception to the ruling of the court in overruling its motion for new trial.”

Defendant now insists that the court erred in rejecting the affidavits filed by it in support of its motion to amend the bill of exceptions, and in refusing to allow said amendment to be made. But that as it in effect found the facts stated in said motion and affidavits to [395]*395be true, that this court should now treat the cause as though said amendment had been allowed.

It has been uniformly held by this court that unless an exception be taken and preserved by bill of exceptions to the action of the court in overruling a motion for a new trial, there is nothing before the Supreme Court for review, save and except the record proper. State v. Murray, 126 Mo. 529; The State ex ret. Dopkins v. Hitchcock, 86 Mo. 231; Wilson v. Haxby, 76 Mo. 345; Danforth v. Railroad, 123 Mo. 196; State v. Harvey, 105 Mo. 316; McIrvine v. Thompson, 81 Mo. 647; State v. Marshall, 36 Mo. 400.

Therefore, unless the court below erred in overruling the motion to correct the bill, and this court should under the evidence adduced treat it as having been corrected, defendant is in no better position than it was under the bill when first filed with the clerk of this court, having gained nothing by its effort to have the bill corrected.

The question of the power and authority of a circuit court to correct its record by nunc pro tunc entries has been many times before this court, and the rule announced seems to be that in order to justify it in so doing the record must in some way show, either from the judge’s minutes, the clerk’s entries, or some paper in the cause, the facts authorizing such entries. No such entries can be made from the memory of the judge, nor on parol proof derived from other sources. State v. Jeffors, 64 Mo. 378; Bank v. Allen, 68 Mo. 476; Belkin v. Rhodes, 76 Mo. 650; Saxton v. Smith, 50 Mo. 490; Fletcher v. Coombs, 58 Mo. 434; Wooldridge v. Quinn, 70 Mo. 370; Blize v. Castlio, 8 Mo. App. 294; Evans v. Fisher, 26 Mo. App. 546.

The action of the court in overruling a motion for new trial is a matter of exception, which exception is no part of the record in the cause in which made unless [396]*396made so by bill of exceptions. No entry of record is made with respect to such an exception nor does it appear that any memoranda was made by the judge on his docket in this instance showing, or tending to show, that defendant saved its exceptions to the ruling of the court in overruling the motion for a new trial. So that, unless parol evidence can be resorted to for facts authorizing the correction of the record, there was nothing whatever to justify the court in so doing, and this, we have seen, could not be done.

In State v. Jeffors, supra, it is said: “The power possessed by courts to make mine pro kmc entries in a cause, after the end of the term, does not authorize the entry of an order which ought to have been made, but only those which were actually made, the evidence of which is preserved by some minute made at the time. Evidence aliunde can not be resorted to for such purpose. To allow such ehtries to be made on facts resting in the mere memory of witnesses, and their statements as to what occurred, would be to establish a rule which would breed the utmost confusion and uncertainty, and make courts of record everything except what the law intends them to be. Neither can such entry be made after the end of the term upon the knowledge of the judge himself........Inasmuch as the record was attempted to be amended upon the statement of witnesses and the knowledge of the judge, after the end of the term, the motion of plaintiff for a nunc pro tunc entry ought to have been overruled.”

Wooldridge v. Quinn, supra; Saxton v. Smith, supra; Evans v. Fisher, supra.

And in Cunningham v. Wells et al., 16 Mo. App. 78, it is held, that a nunc pro kmc entry of the allowance of a bill of exceptions can not be made at a subsequent [397]*397term where no paper or memorandum in .the cause shows the facts.

In Dougherty v. The People, 118 Ill. 160, it was said: ¿/The amended record here affirmatively shows that this amendment to the bill of exceptions was made alone upon the testimony of witnesses as to their recollection of what evidence was given on the trial.

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Bluebook (online)
42 S.W. 957, 141 Mo. 390, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 330, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ross-v-kansas-city-fort-scott-memphis-railroad-mo-1897.