Carroz v. Kaminski

• Decision Date: 24 February 1970
• Docket Number: No. 33628,33628
• Citation: 452 S.W.2d 312
• Parties: Clarence CARROZ and Belva Carroz, Plaintiffs,-Respondents, v. Eugene M. KAMINSKI and Marcella E. Kaminski, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 312

452 S.W.2d 312

Clarence CARROZ and Belva Carroz, Plaintiffs,-Respondents, v. Eugene M. KAMINSKI and Marcella E. Kaminski, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 33628.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Feb. 24, 1970.

McQuie & Deiter, Montgomery City, for defendants-appellants.

Max Oliver, Montgomery City, for plaintiffs-respondents.

SMITH, Commissioner.

This is an appeal from a judgment in a court-tried case having its origin in a boundary line dispute between adjoining landowners in Montgomery County. It reaches us upon transfer from the Supreme Court which sustained appellants' motion to transfer upon the ground that title to real estate was not directly involved.

The cause commenced upon plaintiffs-respondents' petition which sought a judgment decreeing plaintiffs' ownership of a described tract of land in fee simple absolute and which prayed the court to quiet title in plaintiffs. Defendants' answer alleged their ownership of a described tract of land and alleged that to the extent that described tract coincided with, overlapped or consisted of a portion of the premises of plaintiffs' described tract defendants claimed title thereto in fee simple absolute. The answer prayed a decree adjudging title to the premises described in the answer as the court should find.

The evidence at trial consisted of the testimony of a surveyor, his survey, a survey recorded in April 15, 1912, a book certified by the Secretary of State of Missouri in 1894 as being a complete copy, on file in his office, of the plats of survey of certain townships and ranges including the ones containing the land in dispute, and a stipulation of the legal description in the parties' deeds. Defendants offered no evidence. Plaintiffs make no claim of title to or interest in any real estate north of the north line of Section 7, Township 48 North, Range 3 West, and defendants make no claim of title to or interest in any real estate south of the south line of Section 6, Township 48 North, Range 3 West. The controversy therefore is over the location of the section line between Sections 6 and 7.

The judgment appealed from reads as follows:

'Now, on this 13th day of May, 1968, this cause having heretofore been taken up and heard and submitted to the Court upon the pleadings and evidence, and the Court being fully advised in the premises finds the issue for plaintiffs and against defendants and finds and adjudges and decrees that plaintiffs are vested with the fee simple title to the real estate described in the petition herein, to-wit: (then follows a description identical to that in plaintiffs' petition).

'The Court further finds, adjudges and decrees that defendants and all those claiming under them or in their behalf have no right or claim or interest in the estate or title whatsoever, either legal or equitable in or to said real estate.' (Emphasis supplied).

Defendants appealed to the Supreme Court and thereafter filed their motion for transfer to this court. The ground of the motion was that title to real estate was but incidentally or collaterally involved and the appeal therefore was not within the exclusive constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Art. V, § 3, Constitution of Missouri, V.A.M.S. The motion set out that the action was originally commenced as a quiet title action, but that the issue tried was simply the location on the ground of the section line, beyond which neither party claims. The motion made no reference to the judgment appealed from. As indicated the motion to transfer was sustained.

Ordinarily the transfer by the Supreme Court would end all inquiry into our jurisdiction. But we draw our jurisdiction from the Constitution and if it affirmatively appears upon the face of the record that the case is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court no mistaken transfer can impart jurisdiction upon this court. See Schmidt v. Morival Farms, Inc., Mo.App., 232 S.W.2d 215(1). We are, of course, bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court and its construction and application of the Constitution of this State, including its determination of our jurisdiction. Here the motion which the Supreme Court granted did not completely reflect the state of the record for it totally ignored the most important document in the record, the judgment appealed from. It is not the pleadings nor the issue tried which here determines whether title to real estate is involved; it is the judgment entered by the court.

In State ex rel. Brown v. Hughes et al., en banc, 345 Mo. 958, 137 S.W.2d 544, the rule was stated as follows:

'The test of whether or not title to real estate is directly involved has been stated as follows: 'The judgment sought or rendered must be such as will directly determine title in some measure or degree adversely to one litigant and in favor of another; or, as some of the cases say, must take...