Miller v. Iron Cnty.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1859
• Parties: MILLER, Appellant, v. IRON COUNTY, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

29 Mo. 122

MILLER, Appellant,

v.IRON COUNTY, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1859.

1. The county courts are not agents of their respective counties in exercising their statutory jurisdiction over probate matters, guardians, minors, lunatics, idiots, &c. In this field of jurisdiction they are a branch of the state judiciary, and the counties can not be held responsible for their action.

Appeal from Iron Circuit Court.

This was an action under the provisions of the act of December 12, 1855, (R. C. 1855, p. 47,) against the county of Iron to recover damages alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff by reason of the death of her husband through the gross negligence of the county court of Iron county in not appointing a guardian for and in not confining one Richard Callaway, who had been found, under an inquisition had by said county court, to be of unsound mind and dangerous to be permitted to run at large. Plaintiff's husband was, it was alleged, killed by said Callaway. The court sustained a demurrer to the petition.Perryman & Carter, for appellant.

I. The court erred in sustaining the demurrer. (2 Denio, 433; 1 Sandf. 223; 3 Hill, 612, 531; 3 Comst. 463; 12 Mo. 414.)

Pipkin, for respondent.

I. The court properly sustained the demurrer. (1 Hill, 545; Hill, S. C., 571; 1 Amer. Lea. Cas. 622.)

NAPTON, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

We consider it against all the well settled principles of law to hold a county responsible for the action of the county court, held within its limits, in the exercise of that jurisdiction over insane persons confided to it by statute. We do not regard the county court of Iron county as in any proper sense a mere agent or servant of that county in exercising its statutory jurisdiction over probate matters, over guardians and minors, lunatics, idiots, and insane persons, apprentices, &c. In this field of jurisdiction, the court is a branch of the state judiciary, exercising in fact a jurisdiction originally found in the chancery courts and ecclesiastical courts of England, and conferred here by statute upon these county tribunals. It would be quite as reasonable to sue the county of Iron for injuries sustained by some action or non-action of the circuit court. The county courts, in matters of this sort, are as much state courts as the circuit courts. Their judges were formerly appointed by the governor, and, although they are now elected by the people of the county, yet when elected, they...