Hilton v. The City of St. Louis

• Decision Date: 25 June 1895
• Parties: Hilton, Interpleader, Appellant, v. The City of St. Louis; Smith, Interpleader
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

31 S.W. 771

129 Mo. 389

Hilton, Interpleader, Appellant, v. The City of St. Louis; Smith, Interpleader

Supreme Court of Missouri, First Division

June 25, 1895

Appeal from St. Louis City Circuit Court. -- Hon. Jacob Klein Judge.

Transferred to st. louis court of appeals.

M Hilton for appellant.

Joseph S. Dobyns and Horatio D. Wood for Smith, respondent.

OPINION

Macfarlane, J.

In the year 1881 a judgment was rendered in favor of the city of St. Louis condemning portions of lots 5, 6 and 7 of block 1 of Compton Hill Addition to the city of St. Louis, for the opening of Park avenue, and damages were assessed in favor of the owners in the sum of $ 1,940.40. On the twenty-seventh of June, 1884, the city deposited in court the amount so assessed. Plaintiff and defendant, by interpleas, each claim the fund. The claim made to the fund by each is based on the alleged ownership of the land condemned. No claim is made by either party to the land itself, nor is objection made to the sufficiency of the condemnation proceedings to vest in the city of St. Louis the land taken.

On the twenty-fourth day of November, 1893, after a trial of the rights of the interpleaders to the fund in question, the court rendered a judgment allowing to interpleader Anna M. Hilton $ 284.92 of the fund less her proportion of the costs, and to interpleader Huntington Smith the balance of the fund less his proportion of the costs. The court further ordered the clerk to sell "the securities in which said fund of $ 1,940.40 has heretofore been invested by said clerk under the orders of this court made in this cause, and that from the proceeds of such sale and the interest which has accumulated from said securities, he deduct and pay all the costs of this case in this court." The judgment then directs the payment to interpleaders of the balance in the proportions above stated. From this judgment the said interpleader Hilton appealed, and the record has been sent to this court for its review.

On the trial of the issues between the interpleaders and of their respective rights to said fund each party undertook to show title in himself to the lots when condemned, but neither claimed a present title to the lots themselves, but recognize the sufficiency of the condemnation proceedings to invest the city with the right thereto.

No question of the jurisdiction of this court to hear and determine the appeal has been raised by either party. The question, however, is one which the parties have no right to waive, and unless this court has jurisdiction it has no power to decide. Dodson v. Scroggs, 47 Mo. 285; Stone v. Corbett, 20 Mo. 350.

It does not affirmatively appear from the record that the amount in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum of $ 2,500 which is necessary to give this court jurisdiction to review a proceeding under which a money judgment is sought. The record shows that the fund claimed was originally only $ 1,940, out of which the costs were adjudged to be paid. It does not appear when the fund was invested in securities, what rate of interest they bore, or their value when the...