City of St. Louis v. Chartrand

• Decision Date: 04 October 1923
• Docket Number: No. 23091.,23091.
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CHARTRAND
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

254 S.W. 866

CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CHARTRAND

No. 23091.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

October 4, 1923.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Vital W. Garesche, Judge.

Suit by the City of St. Louis against Adolph Chartrand and others. From an adverse judgment, the city appeals. Appeal dismissed.

George F. Raid, Oliver Senti, G. Wm. Senn, and Henry S. Caulfield, all of St. Louis, for appellant.

Leahy, Saunders & Walther, William Hilkerbaumer, Julius C. Goebel, and Kurt Yon Reppert, all of St. Louis, for respondents.

DAVID E. BLAIR, P. J.

This is a condemnation suit brought by the city of St. Louis, growing out of the plan for widening Kingshighway Southwest from Wilington road to Gravois avenue. In due course commissioners were appointed by the circuit court to award damages and assess benefits incident to said improvement. Plaintiff filed. exceptions to the report of the commissioners. Trial of the issues involved in such exceptions was had, and plaintiff offered evidence in support of its exceptions. At the conclusion of the evidence offered by the plaintiff and upon motion of defendants, in the nature of a demurrer to such evidence, the circuit court overruled the exceptions of the plaintiff and sustained and approved the report of the commissioners. Formal judgment was not entered at that term and not until a year later. Plaintiff thereupon appealed from such judgment.

Respondents (defendants below) have filed in this court their motion to dismiss the appeal because (so it is alleged) appellant (plaintiff below) has failed to comply with certain rules of this Court. Such motion was taken with the case, and thereafter the case was argued and submitted on the merits.

Appellant has filed here a document designated as "Appellant's Abstract of the Record." It consists of 328 pages of printed matter, including index. It sets out verbatim much of the record proper. It includes the petition, comprising 18 printed pages, and the report of the commissioners, comprising 37 printed pages. This report enters into minute details of description of the various tracts of land. The bill of exceptions is incorporated in its entirety and requires 259 pages of printed matter. The questions and answers are set out in full, as well as all exhibits offered, without any attempt whatever to abstract such evidence. Much of the testimony covers introductory and formal matters, which clearly were not required to be reproduced verbatim. An examination of the bill of exceptions discloses few objections to testimony, and most of these become unimportant, in view of the fact that the only assignment of error made here, as to the admission or rejection of testimony, is that—

"The court erred in permitting counsel for the owners of certain property to cross-examine plaintiff's witnesses concerning matters relating to damages sustained by and benefits accruing to property of defendants whom he did not represent."

The main point in the case, as appears from the assignment of errors, is whether there was sufficient evidence to require the trial court to submit to the jury the exceptions of plaintiff, based on the alleged excessiveness of the awards of damages and inadequacy of the benefits assessed by the commissioners. It was not necessary to a complete understanding of these issues by this court to print in full the pleadings, the report of the commissioners, and the entire evidence by questions and answers.

Appellant has not even attempted to lighten the labors of this court by making adequate reference in its statement, brief, and argument to the pages of the so-called abstract, where the testimony, claimed to support its contention as to the excessiveness of damages and inadequacy of benefits, may be found. Not a single reference of...