Ranney v. City of Cape Girardeau
| Decision Date | 03 March 1914 |
| Citation | 164 S.W. 582,255 Mo. 514 |
| Parties | EMMA WATHEN RANNEY v. CITY OF CAPE GIRARDEAU, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Cape Girardeau Court of Common Pleas -- Hon. J. L. Fort Judge.
Transferred to St. Louis Court of Appeals.
M. A Dempsey and R. H. Whitelaw for appellant.
Wilson Cramer for respondent.
Mrs. Ranney, in the Cape Girardeau Common Pleas Court, sued the city of Cape Girardeau in equity. The life of her bill was to have certain benefit assessments for street improvements and the tax bills issued therefor declared null and void on seventeen grounds. Some of those grounds related to the absence of a publication of a preliminary resolution declaring the street improvements necessary; some, to the fact that the work was not let to the lowest bidder; some, to the absence of any estimate of the cost of the improvements; some, to omissions and inadvertences of the city clerk; some, to imperfect property descriptions; some, to informalities in the tax bills; some, to the fact that the ordinance was not presented to the mayor for his approval or signature (Cape Girardeau being a city of the third class) nor was such signature attached to the ordinance providing for the work; some, to other defects of the ordinance; some, to imperfections in the plan adopted for assessment of benefits; some, to the partiality of the committee under whose supervision the work was done; some, to an alleged illegal exemption of the property of a street railway company; yet others related to other alleged illegalities of the ordinance providing for the work; and, finally, complaint is made of certain omissions and neglects of the street commissioner.
In connection with one or two of said specifications the bill avers that sec. 3 of art. 10 of the Constitution, relating to uniformity of taxation, was violated.
Defendant demurred and, its demurrer being overruled, then answered, admitting some and denying other allegations of the bill, then making certain averments of alleged facts supposed to establish the validity of the tax bills and assessment, among them estoppel. No constitutional point was raised on behalf of defendant.
The court decreed the ordinance authorizing the work to be null and void, as well as the tax bills issued thereon against plaintiff's property, and that the latter, involving a hundred or two dollars, be cancelled. It is not apparent that the decree decided any constitutional question adversely to appellant. So, in neither the motion in arrest nor for a new trial was complaint made that defendant (appellant) had been denied the benefit of any constitutional provision.
On those motions being overruled, defendant excepted and in due time perfected its appeal to the St. Louis Court of Appeals. In that court respondent took up the constitutional cudgels (seemingly refused by appellant) by filing a motion to transfer the cause to this court on the ground that the determination of the cause involves the construction of section 3, article 10, of the Constitution. That section reads:
Presently that motion was sustained and the cause was transferred to this court by the mandate of that court, in which it is recited as follows: "Now at this day, because a constitutional question is involved, it is considered and adjudged by this court that this cause be transferred to the Supreme Court of Missouri."
It is of significance that in briefs filed in the St. Louis Court of Appeals and in this court we perceive no point made on either side that a constitutional question is involved.
On such record a question springs spontaneously at the threshold, viz.: Has this court jurisdiction? We are of opinion it has none whatever and that the cause must be retransferred to the St. Louis Court of Appeals which alone has jurisdiction to decide it. This, because:
(a) In order to bring an appeal within our jurisdiction on a constitutional ground it must appear that a constitutional question is essential to the determination of the case. [Miller v. Connor, 250 Mo. 677, 683, and cases there cited.] Under that rule jurisdiction does not belong here.
(b) Another rule is that it must appear from the record that a constitutional question was not only raised in the trial court but was ruled on to the disadvantage of the party appealing. [Miller v. Connor, supra, l. c. 684, and cases therein cited.] There may be exceptions, but the present case falls within none of them and under that general rule jurisdiction does not belong in this court.
(c) But there is another insurmountable obstacle to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, to-wit: The constitutional provision invoked does not apply to special benefit assessments for street improvements, hence there is no constitutional question in the case. As said, the constitutional question is that the ordinance plan for assessing special benefits and issuing tax bills violates section 3, article 10 of the Constitution. That section ordains that taxes may be levied and collected for public purposes only, must be...
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