Chilton v. Drainage Dist. No. 8 of Pemiscot County
Decision Date | 12 June 1933 |
Docket Number | 30911 |
Citation | 61 S.W.2d 744,332 Mo. 1173 |
Parties | O. W. Chilton et al., Appellants, v. Drainage District No. 8 of Pemiscot County |
Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pemiscot Circuit Court.
Transferred to the Springfield Court of Appeals.
Von Mayes for appellants.
C G. Shepard for respondent.
Hyde C. Ferguson and Sturgis, CC., concur.
This is a suit on an account. Plaintiffs, newspaper publishers, as partners, sued defendant, alleged to be a drainage district organized, under the laws of this State relating to drainage districts, by the county court. Plaintiffs alleged:
"That the defendant by its attorney instituted in the Circuit Court of Pemiscot County, Missouri, divers suits for delinquent drainage taxes due defendant and recovered judgment therein that certain notices, as required by law, were published at the instance of defendant, in said suits, by and through the clerk of the Circuit Court and the Sheriff of said county, as shown by the itemized statement herewith filed and market Exhibit 'A.'"
This exhibit stated the nature of the account, as follows:
"To publishing Orders of Publication (notices to non-residents of the State of Missouri), in Tax suits brought in the Circuit Court of Pemiscot County, Missouri."
It listed seventeen separate suits, with the publication fee in each, aggregating $ 423.14, which was the amount sued for. Defendant filed a demurrer upon the ground that plaintiffs' petition failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. This demurrer was sustained and plaintiffs refused to plead further. The court entered judgment dismissing the petition and plaintiffs appealed therefrom to the Springfield Court of Appeals. The cause was certified here because the Court of Appeals considered that a constitutional question was involved. [Chilton v. Drainage District No. 8 of Pemiscot County (Mo. App.), 28 S.W.2d 120.]
Defendant's theory of the case was that it was not liable for the publication fees charged by plaintiffs, because of the exemption from payment of costs in delinquent tax suits contained in Section 12259, Revised Statutes 1919, now Section 9969, Revised Statutes 1929. The Court of Appeals in its opinion stated plaintiffs' contention as follows:
That the construction of a statute contended for by one party might, if accepted by the court, result in a rule which would violate some constitutional provision, if the statute had so provided, does not, however, involve "the construction of the Constitution of the United States or of this State." within the meaning of Section 12 of Article VI of our Constitution, so as to give this court jurisdiction. The construction contended for might be erroneous. This court recently reviewed this matter in Woodling v. Westport Hotel Operating Co., 331 Mo. 812, 55 S.W.2d 477, l. c. 481, and set forth the conclusions of a number of other recent cases upon this proposition, as follows:
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