Keating v. Skiles
| Decision Date | 31 October 1880 |
| Citation | 72 Mo. 97 |
| Parties | KEATING v. SKILES, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jackson Special Law and Equity Court.--HON. R. E. COWAN, Judge.
REVERSED.
This was an action on certain special tax bills for work done on Bell street, Kansas City. The defense was that the street had not been brought up to the grade fixed by ordinance, and the evidence showed that the surface of the street was two and one-half feet lower than the grade established by ordinance No. 5205. To overcome this defense, plaintiff undertook to show that ordinance No. 5205 had been repealed by ordinance No. 8449, and the grade of Bell street established by this latter ordinance on a different level. For that purpose he offered to read as ordinance No. 8449 a package consisting of eight half sheets of paper, all the writing on which was in the same hand, except the small portions hereafter mentioned. The sheets were not paged or numbered, but were fastened together with two brass fasteners in the way that pleadings in court are often fastened together, and all folded together in four folds, and on and across the second fold, on the outside of the package thus formed, there was indorsed, Counting from the inside, the first half sheet contained the following, viz:
“The elevations of the grade of State street above the city directrix shall be as follows:
At the south line of the Levee 20 feet. At the center line of Seventh street 21 feet. * * * * * * * At the center line of Seventeenth street
30 feet.
All adjacent grade points shall be connected by true planes.
All ordinances or parts thereof in conflict with the foregoing ordinance are, insomuch as they conflict with the foregoing ordinance, hereby repealed.”
The second half sheet contained the following, viz:
“The elevations of the grade of Bell street above the city directrix, shall be as follows:
At the center line of Twelfth street feet. At the center line of Fourteenth street 25 feet. At the center line of Fifteenth street 26 feet. At the center line of Sixteenth street 27 feet.
| At the south line of Seventeenth street |
29 feet.
All adjacent grade points shall be connected by true planes.”
The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh half sheets purported to fix the grades of Genesee, Wyoming, Liberty, Hickory and Mulberry streets in the same manner as the foregoing
The eighth half sheet contained the following, viz:
“An ordinance to re-establish the grades of certain streets. Be it ordained by the common council of the City of Kansas: That the grades of streets as hereinafter mentioned shall be and the same are hereby re-established, as follows:
The elevation of the grade of Sante Fe street above the city directrix, shall be as follows:
At the south line of the Levee 22 feet. At the center line of Eighth street 23 5 10 feet.
| At the center line of Kansas Avenue |
28 feet.
All adjacent grade points shall be connected by true planes. Approved March 19th, 1873.
R. H. HUNT, Mayor.”
Plaintiff read in evidence the entries from the journal of the common council of the city as to the action of that body on the package 8449 as a bill, as follows: Under date of March 11th, 1873, And under date of March 18th, 1873, Plaintiff also read in evidence from record book E of ordinances of the city, page 353, the record of said package as an ordinance, with the No. “8449” at the beginning and end of the same, certified by the clerk as correct.
In connection with this doumentary evidence plaintiff against the defendant's objections, offered parol evidence tending to show that the package of papers numbered “8449,” was prepared by H. L. Marvin, while city engineer; that said Marvin wrote the matter of said package on eight several half sheets of legal-cap paper, (except as hereinafter stated,) in the inverse order in which they now appear, counting from the inside to the outside, and fastened together the several half sheets of paper composing said paokage as they now are, and by mistake failed to reverse the half sheets before so fastening, so as to bring the present outside sheet on the inside; that after so fastening together said half sheets, he folded the same and indorsed thereon the words: “An ordinance for the establishing of the grades of certain streets;” that...
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Verdin v. City of St. Louis
...at all had been passed, by reason of the ordinance not having been properly authenticated, as will be seen by reference to Keating v. Skiles, 72 Mo. 97, on which the action in the former case was based. Here, on the contrary, the ordinance and contract are valid, so far as reconstruction is......
- Hammond Packing Company v. State
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Verdin v. The City of St. Louis
...at all had been passed by reason of the ordinance not having been properly authenticated, as will be seen by reference to Keating v. Skiles, 72 Mo. 97, on the action in the former case was based. Here, on the contrary, the ordinance and contract are valid so far as reconstruction is concern......
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Porter v. R. J. Boyd Paving & Construction Company
...ex rel. v. Dist. Court of Dakota County, 41 Minn. 518; Railroad v. Waterbury, 55 Conn. 19; Carondelet v. Wolfert, 39 Mo. 305; Keating v. Skiles, 72 Mo. 97; v. Port Huron, 63 Mich. 528; Whitney v. Port Huron, 88 Mich. 268; In re Standiford, 5 Mackey (D. C.) 549; Chapman v. Inhabitants of Lim......