Metro. Bank of St. Louis v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 31 January 1876
• Parties: THE METROPOLITAN BANK OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent, v. WILLIAM F. TAYLOR, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

62 Mo. 338

THE METROPOLITAN BANK OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent,

v.WILLIAM F. TAYLOR, et al., Appellants.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1876.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court.

Hitchcock, Lubke & Player, for Appellants, cited Yale vs. Dedion, 29 N.Y., 450-9; Willard vs. Eastham, 15 Gray, 335; and these cases are cited with strong approbation in the text of his opinion by Wagner, J., in Kimm vs. Weippert, 46 Mo., 543-4.

F. K. Ryan & Daniel Dillon, for Respondent, cited Miller et al. vs. Brown, 47 Mo., 504; Meyers vs. Van Wagoner, 56 Mo., 115; Kimm vs. Weippert, 46 Mo., 545; Claflin vs. Van Wagoner, 32 Mo., 252; Lincoln vs. Rowe, 51 Mo., 571; McQuie vs. Peay, 58 Mo., 56; Coates vs. Robinson, 10 Mo., 757; Whitesides vs. Cannon, 23 Mo., 457; Tuttle vs. Haag, 46 Mo., 43; Schaforth vs. Ambs, 46 Mo., 114; Bonner vs. Wheaton, 46 Mo., 366.

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a suit brought for the purpose of charging the separate estate of the defendant Lucy G., with the payment of a promissory note which she signed in conjunction with her husband. This case has been once before in this court, (53 Mo., 444) and it was then held, that the property now sought to be charged was the separate estate of the defendant, and as such liable for the debt. After the case was remanded here, it was again tried in the circuit court, and a judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff, subjecting the property specifically to the satisfaction of the demand.

At the trial the defendant admitted that she signed the note, and testified that it was done at the request of her husband; that she received no part of the consideration, and did not know for what purpose the note was made. She was then asked what connection the note had with her separate estate, but the question was objected to by the plaintiff, and the objection was sustained. She was also asked if she knew that she had a separate estate, but this question was ruled out. The further inquiry was put, whether by signing the note she intended to bind her separate estate; but the court excluded the question.

The point is presented now, that was raised when the case was here before, that Mrs. Taylor had no separate estate, but this question was ruled against her in our former decision, and it must be considered as settled.

When the case of Roberts vs. Cooper, (20 How., 467), was before the Supreme Court of the United States the second time, after it had been tried in the circuit court on the principles established by the Supreme Court in the first trial, it was decided that the court could not be compelled, on a second writ of error in the same case, to review their decision on the first; that after a case had been brought there and decided, and a mandate issued to the court below, if a second writ of error was sued out, it brought up for review nothing but the proceedings subsequent to the mandate; that none of the questions which were before the court on the first writ of error could be reheard or examined upon the second, and to allow a second writ of error or appeal to a court of last resort on the same questions, which were open to dispute in the first, would lead to endless litigation; for there would be no end to a suit if every litigant could by repeated appeals compel a court to listen to criticisms on their opinions, or speculate on chances from changes in its members.

This doctrine has been approved and followed in this court. (Chambers vs. Smith, 30 Mo., 156; Overall vs. Ellis, 38 Mo., 209.) When a case has been decided upon solemn argument in this court,...