Ingham v. Wm. P. Harper & Son

• Decision Date: 14 December 1912
• Citation: 71 Wash. 286,128 P. 675
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: INGHAM v. WM. P. HARPER & SON.

128 P. 675

71 Wash. 286

INGHAM v. WM. P. HARPER & SON.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 14, 1912

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; D. H. Carey Judge.

Action by Arthur H. Ingham, administrator of Maud Ingham, deceased against Wm. P. Harper & Son. From the judgment, plaintiff appeals. On motion to dismiss appeal. Appeal dismissed.

Willett & Oleson, of Seattle, for appellant.

ELLIS J.

The respondent has moved to dismiss this appeal, on the ground that this court has no jurisdiction to entertain it, for the reason that the original amount in controversy does not exceed $200. The complaint set up two causes of action. The first was for $22 and interest from May 8, 1911; the second was for $170.75 and interest from the same date. The whole principal amount sued for was, therefore, $192.75. The prayer was for $205.52.

It is well established that the amount in controversy, as limiting the right of appeal, is determined by the averments of the pleadings, not by the demand for judgment. Doty v Krutz, 13 Wash. 169, 43 P. 17; Incorporated Town of Central City v. Treat, 101 Iowa, 109, 70 N.W. 110; Seward v. Steeley, 29 Ind.App. 689, 65 N.E. 216; Williamson v. Brandenberg, 133 Ind. 594, 32 N.E. 834; Shacker v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 93 U.S. 241, 23 L.Ed. 862.

The clause of section 4, art. 4, of the Constitution, limiting the appellate jurisdiction of this court, reads: 'Excepting that its appellate jurisdiction shall not extend to civil actions at law for the recovery of money or personal property when the original amount in controversy, or the value of the property, does not exceed the sum of two hundred dollars.' Whether we have the constitutional power to entertain this appeal must be determined by the answer to the question, What was 'the original amount in controversy?' The appellant contends that it was the amount of the principal, with interest to the date of trial. The respondent contends that it was either the principal sum claimed, or, at most, that sum with interest to the date of the commencement of the action. Whether any interest should be included, and, if so, to what date it should be computed in determining the original amount in controversy, has never been decided by this court in a case where jurisdiction was dependent upon that single element. The nearest approach to a definite expression of this court upon this subject to which our attention has been called is found in Penter v. Staight, 1 Wash. 365, 25 P. 469, where it was held that jurisdiction was assured by the fact that the original amount in controversy stated in two causes of action, one for $200, the other for $500, was $700; an exception having been saved to an order sustaining a demurrer to the second cause of action, thus reserving the right of review as to both causes of action in this court. The court said: 'The demand, however, remained $700, and there was no amendment making it less. Inasmuch as the allegations of the first cause of action tended to show a right in the plaintiffs to compensation for services rendered of the value of $200, for which demand had been made before suit, the proper judgment would have been $200, with interest thereon from the date of the demand until the judgment, something more than $200; therefore it was proper that the prayer of the complaint on that cause of action should be more than the bare principal, which would have given this court jurisdiction.' A reading of the whole opinion makes it manifest that the last sentence was not intended as expressing the real ground of the decision. It is equally manifest that interest computed to the date of the commencement of the action would also have made 'something more than $200.' In any view of the case, therefore, the breadth of language above quoted was unnecessary to the conclusion reached.

The maxim stare decisis, invoked by the appellant as making this language conclusive upon us, has no application. That maxim contemplates: 'Not whatever a court may happen to say, in a perhaps discursive argument of a cause, or even several causes, but has regard only to points and adjudications actually involved, as essential elements, in the questions in actual controversy.' Wells, Res Adjudicata and Stare Decisis, § 581; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264-399, 5 L.Ed. 257. In National Surety Co. v. Bratnober Lumber Co., 67 Wash. 601, 122 P. 337, the question of interest as an element in determining the appellate jurisdiction was not discussed. We have been cited to no prior decision of this court, nor have we found any, which can be taken as such positive authority upon the point here involved as to foreclose its further consideration.

We will preface the further discussion by adopting what seems to us a necessary view that interest to one date or the other should be included, for the reason that, where interest is allowable at all, it is because the interest is in incident to the principal demand. There still, however, remains the question as to what date interest shall be included in determining the ...