Rourke v. Holmes Street Railway Company
| Decision Date | 13 April 1914 |
| Citation | 166 S.W. 272,257 Mo. 555 |
| Parties | MAMIE E. ROURKE et al. v. HOLMES STREET RAILWAY COMPANY et al., Appellants |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court. -- Hon. Thomas J. Seehorn, Judge.
STATEMENT.
Plaintiffs sued for injuries to their property caused by the building of an electric street railway, asking $ 35,000 as damages. The judgment was rendered for defendant from which plaintiffs appealed to this court (Rourke v. Railroad, 221 Mo 46) where the judgment was reversed and the cause remanded.
Upon a retrial, plaintiff had judgment for $ 5000 on October, 1910 in the circuit court of Jackson county, from which judgment defendant appealed to the Kansas City Court of Appeals. The case was lodged there until that court transferred it to this court under the amendment of section 3937, Revised Statutes 1909, by the act of the Legislature of March 30, 1911, Laws of 1911, p. 190.
Transferred to Kansas City Court of Appeals.
John H Lucas and E. R. Morrison for appellants.
Yates & Mastin for respondents; Perry S. Rader of counsel.
OPINION
In Banc
BOND J. (after stating the facts as above).
The question necessarily arising upon the transfer of this case to this court by the Kansas City Court of Appeals, is whether the attempted amendment by the Legislature of 1911 of section 3937 of the Revised Statutes of 1909 is constitutional? In order that the exact relation to each other of the previous act and the proposed amendment may appear, we insert that act and the proposed amendment in full with the latter italicized.
It is conceded that this case involves no subject nor any class of cases reviewable by this court, unless appellate jurisdiction was vested in it by the terms of the italicized proviso attempted to be added to the above section of the statute by the Legislature of 1911. At the time of the judgment from which the present appeal was taken, the pecuniary limit of the jurisdiction of this court included all cases wherein the amount in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeded the sum of $ 7500, which was then the maximum of the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals. [R. S. 1909, sec. 3937.] This appeal having been taken to the Kansas City Court of Appeals from judgment rendered within its territorial district, that court was vested with exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the case under the constitutional grant (Wilson v. Drainage Dist., 237 Mo. 39, 139 S.W. 136; Drainage & Levee Dist. v. Jamison, 176 Mo. 557, 75 S.W. 679), unless that power has been taken away by the act of the Legislature, passed after the lodgment of the appeal. [Laws 1911, p. 190.]
In order to determine the power of the Legislature to alter the respective jurisdictions of the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals, it is necessary to make a brief reference to the provisions of the Constitution creating the courts of appeals and providing for the distribution of the appellate jurisdiction between them and the Supreme Court. The Constitution of 1875 established the first court of appeals (St. Louis) and gave it territorial jurisdiction over that city and four adjoining counties, with a right to review by appeals and writs of error taken from all judgments rendered within that district and provided that such review should be final in all cases except the following; as to each of which an appeal or writ of error would lie from the decision of the St. Louis Court of Appeals to this court. The cases thus excepted were, to-wit: "1. All cases where the amount in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars; (2) in all cases involving the construction of the Constitution of the United States and this State; (3) in all cases where the validity of a treaty or statute of or authority exercised under the United States is drawn in the question; (4) in cases involving the construction of the revenue laws of this State, or the title to any office under this State; (5) in case involving the title to real estate; (6) in cases where a county or other political subdivision of the State or any State officer is a party; (7) and in all cases of felony. [Constitution 1875, art. 6, sec. 12.]
While this plan sifted out all cases of which the St. Louis Court of Appeals had the power of final review, it left the remainder subject to be prolonged by the appeals to that court and afterwards to a final review in this court. To avoid this delay and to provide other courts of appeals with aggregate territorial jurisdiction coextensive with the State, and to relieve the crowded docket of this court, a constitutional amendment was submitted to the people and adopted in November, 1884. The objects had in view by that amendment where carried out by the establishing of the Kansas City Court of Appeals, which was granted exclusive jurisdiction identical as to subjects and amounts with that given to the St. Louis Court of Appeals, and a division between them of the entire territory of the State.
The amendment also provided for the establishing of another court of appeals by the General Assembly and vested it with authority to make an allotment of territorial jurisdiction for such court by the changing of the limits of the territorial jurisdiction of the courts of appeals then established. And also gave the General Assembly power, to-wit, "To increase or diminish the pecuniary limit of the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals; to provide for the transfer of cases from one court of appeals to another court of appeals; to provide for the transfer of causes from a court of appeals to the Supreme Court, and to provide for the hearing and determination of such cases by the courts to which they may be transferred." [Amendment of 1884, sec. 3.]
The amendment further provided, with reference to the subject-matters of appellate jurisdiction in the courts of appeals, that the provisions of the Constitution concerning "the powers, the jurisdiction and proceedings of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, . . . shall . . . apply to the Kansas City Court of Appeals and to such additional courts of appeals as may be by law created." [Amendment of 1884, sec. 4.] The amendment of 1884 then in express terms granted exclusive appellate jurisdiction of all other causes than those within the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, to the Supreme Court, and provided for direct appeals and writs of error to that court. [Amendment of 1884, sec. 5.] The effect of this constitutional provision was to give the Supreme Court exclusive and direct power of review of all classes of cases mentioned above, arising in any part of the State from which an appeal might have been taken to it from the decision of the St. Louis Court of Appeals under section 12, article 6, of the Constitution of 1875. [Steffen v. The City of St. Louis, 135 Mo. 44, 36 S.W. 31; State ex rel. v. Smith, 131 Mo. 176, 33 S.W. 11; State ex rel. v. Nortoni, 201 Mo. 1, 98 S.W. 554.]
The only power given by the amendment of 1884 to future legislatures to change or alter the express allotment by the Constitution of the appellate jurisdiction between this court and the courts of appeals, is contained in the following terms, "To increase or diminish the pecuniary limit of the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals." There is not another line or word or syllable in the amendment of 1884 which gives any other authority to any legislature to alter, change or reclassify any of the subjects of appellate jurisdiction specified and granted to this court and to the three courts of appeals. In the performance of this single function, the Legislature is a constitutional agent with limited and defined authority. Within the exercise of the power given to it, its action has all the force of a constitutional grant, but anything done by it outside of that authority is void, and without any binding force on any one. What the Constitution designed was to give the Legislature power to change the boundary of jurisdiction between this court and courts of appeals, so far as it was divided by the amount in dispute in any case, by sliding the scale up or down. For it was reasonably anticipated by the framers of the Constitution that the growth and development of the State would make it proper to enlarge the pecuniary boundary of the courts of appeals or to adjust the scale so that a proper proportion of jurisdiction dependent on amount should be vested in each of the two appellate systems.
The framers of the Constitution recognized that the act permitted to be done by the Legislature would necessarily affect the right of review on the part of the Supreme Court as well as the courts of appeals, of all cases where the appellate jurisdiction was hinged solely on the question of amount in dispute, and they were willing to entrust to the Legislature the fixing of the specific sum which should divide the jurisdiction as to all cases dependent on it. But the provision of the Constitution went no further. It gave ...
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