Littlefield v. Littlefield

• Decision Date: 09 October 1917
• Docket Number: No. 18554.,18554.
• Citation: 272 Mo. 163,197 S.W. 1057
• Parties: LITTLEFIELD v. LITTLEFIELD.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

197 S.W. 1057

272 Mo. 163

LITTLEFIELD v. LITTLEFIELD.

No. 18554.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

October 9, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Johnson County; A. A. Whitsett, Judge.

Suit by Lynne R. Littlefield against Edwin C. Littlefield. There was a decree for defendant, and plaintiff appealed to the Kansas City Court of Appeals, which certified the case to the Supreme Court (168 S. W. 841). Case retransferred for final determination.

Geo. W. Barnett and C. C. Kelly, both of Sedalia, for appellant. N. M. Bradley and J. W. Suddath & Son, all of Warrensburg, for respondent.

WALKER, P. J.

This is a suit in equity, brought in the circuit court of Johnson county to annul a decree of divorce alleged to have been obtained through fraud. A trial resulted in a finding for the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed to the Kansas City Court of Appeals.

The right of action in this case rests upon our ruling in Dorrance v. Dorrance, 242 Mo. 625, 148 S. W. 94, in which we held that section 2381, R. S. 1909, should be so construed as to exclude from its purview equitable actions for relief against fraudulent judgments of divorce, and hence that said section was unconstitutional, in so far as it was sought to apply it to this class of cases. The Court of Appeals on its own motion, upon an examination of the record, no constitutional question having been raised by either party, certified the case to this court on the ground that, in determining the same, it would be compelled to decide a constitutional question, and that it was therefore divested of jurisdiction.

Appellate proceedings in the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals are regulated by well-defined rules of procedure, based upon constitutional and statutory provisions. The jurisdiction of these courts, so far as the consideration of appealed cases is concerned, is limited to a review of the proceedings of trial courts as disclosed by the records of the latter. The proper preservation, therefore, of such proceedings, is a prerequisite to the right of review, in which is included jurisdiction to hear and determine. The provision of the state Constitution which gives the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction of appeals in cases involving a construction of the state or federal Constitution (section 5, amendment of 1884 to art. 6, Const. Mo.), while general in its terms and appearing to preclude a review by the Courts of Appeals under any circumstances of a case in which it may be made to appear that the consideration of a constitutional question is involved, is subject to certain well-defined limitations, a conformity with which, under numerous rulings of this court, is necessary in determining its jurisdiction. In defining these limitations we have held that the record should show that the constitutional question was raised in the trial court. Bennett v. Railroad, 105 Mo. 642, 16 S. W. 947. Our definitive declaration in that case, which is but a type of many others, since determined, of like import, was that the question of appellate jurisdiction was not to be ascertained from anything that had been done in the appellate court, but from the record as it was when the appeal was taken; that the record is then fixed, and subsequent action cannot alter it. As a sequitur to this reasoning the conclusion was reached that, unless the record as existing at the time of the appeal showed that a constitutional question was fairly and directly raised in the trial court under a recognized method of procedure, the question was not so involved as to confer jurisdiction upon this court.

In State ex rel. K. C. Loan Co. v. Smith, 176 Mo. 44, 48, 75 S. W. 468, in which will be found cited numerous cases asserting a like doctrine, we held, in express approval of the Bennett Case, supra, that in determining the court to which an appeal must go, or in fixing the jurisdiction, it must appear from the record made in the trial court that a constitutional question was essential to the determination of the case, or that the protection of the Constitution, expressly invoked, was denied by the trial court, that...