Moffett v. Commerce Trust Co.
| Decision Date | 16 March 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 14115.,14115. |
| Parties | MOFFETT v. COMMERCE TRUST CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Martin J. O'Donnell, Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.
James E. Goodrich, Kansas City, Mo. (Hugh M. Hiller and Philip J. Close, Kansas City, Mo., were with him on the brief), for appellee Commerce Trust Co.
Orlin A. Weede, Kansas City, Mo. (Walter A. Raymond and R. Carter Tucker, Kansas City, Mo., were with him on the brief), for appellees Helen Weede and Orlin A. Weede.
B. C. Howard, Kansas City, Mo. (Wm. Dennis Bush, Kansas City, Mo., was with him on the brief), for B. C. Howard and William H. Kopp.
Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH, and RIDDICK, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment dismissing the complaint in a civil action under the Civil Rights Act, 8 U.S.C.A. § 43 et seq., for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Jurisdiction of the Federal court is asserted under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343.
The action is brought by Louise McGrew Moffett, individually and as executrix of the estate of her deceased husband, Thomas S. Moffett, against Commerce Trust Company, its attorney B. C. Howard, Helen Weede, formerly Helen Moffett, widow of John Moffett, deceased, Orlin A. Weede, present husband of Helen Weede and her attorney, and Kopp and Copman, accountants employed in auditing the accounts of the businesses in which Thomas S. and John Moffett were interested during their lives. All of the defendants participated as parties, attorneys, or witnesses in litigation arising out of the administrations of the estates of John and Thomas S. Moffett and of the estates of the partnerships of which they were members. The litigation has been in progress in the courts of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma since 1928.
The complaint alleges that John and Thomas S. Moffett were for more than 30 years prior to 1927 engaged individually and as partners in ranching operations and related businesses in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, where they had extensive holdings in real and personal property. They were associated in the following partnerships:
1. Moffett Brothers, which was owned equally by them;
2. Moffett Brothers and Andrews, in which each of the brothers and Andrews owned a one-third interest; and
3. Moffett Brothers Cattle, Land and Lumber Company, which was owned in association with their brothers, Renwick J. and Joseph W., in equal shares.
Thomas Moffett also was engaged in business through the partnership of Andrews, Lewis and Moffett, and, together with his brothers, was interested in a corporation known as Moffett Brothers and Andrews Commission Company. All of these enterprises kept a common office and common set of books in Kansas City, Missouri.
John Moffett died on August 23, 1927, leaving a will prepared by B. C. Howard, as trust officer and attorney for the Commerce Trust Company, in which Thomas S. Moffett was appointed executor and the Commerce Trust Company alternate executor. The will executed one day prior to John Moffett's marriage to Helen Weede devised all his property to his relatives with the exception of a bequest of $5,000 to Helen Weede.
Thomas S. Moffett was appointed executor under the will of John Moffett, deceased, by the Probate Court of Jackson County, Missouri. He also undertook to administer upon the assets of the partnerships in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, acting in this capacity in Missouri under his powers as surviving partner, and in Kansas and Oklahoma by court appointments. In November 1928 the Probate Court of Jackson County removed Thomas S. Moffett as executor under the will of John Moffett and as administrator of the Moffett partnerships, and substituted the Commerce Trust Company in his place.
Thomas S. Moffett died on December 22, 1930, leaving plaintiff, Louise McGrew Moffett, as surviving widow and sole beneficiary under his will. In January 1931 Louise McGrew Moffett was appointed executrix of the estate of Thomas S. Moffett by order of the Probate Court in Missouri, and her sister, Grace Torrance Clark, was appointed administratrix of his Kansas estate by order of a Kansas probate court. Mrs. Clark was also appointed by Kansas courts to administer upon the Kansas assets of the partnership estates of Moffett Brothers and Andrews, Andrews, Lewis and Moffett, and Moffett Brothers in Kansas; but in further court proceedings was removed and succeeded by L. B. Andrews, surviving partner of Moffett Brothers and Andrews, and Andrews, Lewis and Moffett, and by R. O. Robbins in the administration of the Moffett Brothers partnerships in Kansas.
The complaint charges a conspiracy of defendants to deprive plaintiff and her husband, Thomas S. Moffett, of their property without due process of law and to deny to them the equal protection of the laws, as follows:
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All of the overt acts of defendants charged in the complaint as done pursuant to the alleged conspiracy occurred in the course of litigation in State courts. It is alleged that between July 14, 1928, and December 23, 1931, the defendants "instituted, or caused to be instituted, 14 fictitious suits and claims in the courts of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma;" that some of the suits were still pending despite the efforts of plaintiff to have them dismissed; that in some of them the courts in which they were pending have been caused by the defendants to "purposefully and intentionally" enter judgments which were contrary to law or void because the court entering the judgment was without jurisdiction of the subject matter of the action, or because in much of the litigation in the Probate Courts of Kansas and Missouri the Commerce Trust Company appeared on both sides of the litigation, for example, as executor of the...
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