Turner v. Anderson

Citation236 Mo. 523,139 S.W. 180
PartiesTURNER v. ANDERSON et al.
Decision Date01 July 1911
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Missouri

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Walter A. Powell, Judge.

Action by William A. Turner against Mary W. Anderson and others to contest the will of Mathew W. Anderson, deceased. From a judgment invalidating the will on the ground of undue influence, defendants Mary W. Anderson and her children appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Paxton & Rose and Reed, Atwood, Yates, Mastin & Harvey, for appellants. Wm. H. Wallace and T. B. Wallace, for respondent.

LAMM, J.

In June, 1900, Mathew W. Anderson made his will. In November, 1903, he made a codicil. On March 29, 1905, he made a new will, dying January 20, 1906. Six months later plaintiff, a grandson, sued in the Jackson circuit court to break it. After a 10 days' trial in which 67 witnesses were examined, their testimony and documentary evidence covering 764 pages of solid print, the jury broke the will, and judgment followed that verdict. Among the defendants were Mary W. Anderson, widow of testator (his second wife), and Henry Clay and Mathew William Anderson, Jr. (minor sons of testator by said second wife). These defendants on due steps appeal. There were two other defendants, Nellie Anderson Harvey and Reid S. Turner (the former testator's married daughter by his first wife and the latter his grandson, a brother of plaintiff, both of them sons of testator's deceased married daughter, Mrs. Turner, by his first wife), who do not appeal.

We allow ourselves a foreword, viz.: Our statutes ordain that, in a case determined or finally disposed of upon motion here, our opinion shall be reduced to writing and filed in the cause and shall show which judge delivered it and which concurred or dissented. R. S. 1909, § 2087. The next section of the statute prescribes what our opinions shall "always contain," viz., "a sufficient statement of the case, so that it may be understood without reference to the record and proceedings in the same." Turning to our Constitution, it prescribes that the opinions of the St. Louis Court of Appeals shall be in writing and filed. Section 15, art. 6, Const. By an amendment in 1890, said Constitution is made to further provide (section 3, of the amendment of 1890, R. S. 1909, p. 104) that the opinions of each division of the Supreme Court shall be in writing and filed.

I am indebted to the courtesy of an erudite counselor for a reference to a case apposite to conditions thus outlined, viz., Houston v. Williams, 13 Cal. 24, 73 Am. Dec. 565. In that case the Supreme Court of California, speaking by Justice Stephen J. Field, held that the decision of a court is its judgment; that the opinion is the reasons given for that judgment; that the practice of giving in writing the reasons of judgments is of modern origin; that the duty of the California court (absent a constitutional requirement) was discharged by the rendition of its decision; and that the Legislature could not require the Supreme Court to give the reasons of its decisions in writing. In that state at that time there was no constitutional provision, but there was a statute ordaining that the decisions of any appellate court should be in writing "with the reasons thereof," etc. It will be observed that our Constitution requires the divisional opinions of this court to be in writing, but says nothing about a "statement" or banc opinions. Our statute does not rest content with the provisions of the Constitution, although that instrument created both Legislature and court. The two are of co-ordinate dignity, of common birthright, and sprang from the same august and noble loins — the sovereign people, speaking as sovereigns. The statute goes further. It requires at our hands a written opinion in every case whether in division or banc, whether it is determined by a hearing or a motion. It also requires a "statement." Mark the language, a statement of a certain scope and sort, viz., one "that may be understood," etc. The term "understood," in the connection used by the lawmaker, invites observations. But as they spring spontaneously, any discriminating and good-humored reader can make them for himself. Heretofore this statutory mandate has been deemed either obligatory, or has been obeyed in a spirit of comity or out of deference to the lawmaking power. However, a certain natural and untoward thing has happened. The statute is the chief factor swelling the length of appellate opinions and causing them, now and then, to be much murmured against. For the present we reserve the point, but it may be worth while right soon to gravely consider and finally determine whether that statute is constitutional and should be longer obeyed.

Attend to the animated language of Justice Field, anent the California statute: "* * * It is but one of many provisions embodied in different statutes by which control over the judiciary department of the government has been attempted by legislation. To accede to it any obligatory force would be to sanction a most palpable encroachment upon the independence of this department. If the power of the Legislature to prescribe the mode and manner in which the judiciary shall discharge their official duties be once recognized, there will be no limit to the dependence of the latter. If the Legislature can require the reasons of our decisions to be stated in writing, it can forbid their statement in writing, and enforce their oral announcement, or prescribe the paper upon which they shall be written, and the ink which shall be used. And yet no sane man will justify any such absurd pretension. But where is the limit to this power if its exercise in any particular be admitted? The truth is, no such power can exist in the legislative department, or be sanctioned by any court which has the least respect for its own dignity and independence. In its own sphere of duties, this court cannot be trammeled by any legislative restrictions. Its constitutional duty is discharged by the rendition of decisions. The Legislature can no more require this court to state the reasons of its decisions, than this court can require, for the validity of the statutes, that the Legislature shall accompany them with the reasons for their enactment. * * * The practice of giving the reasons in writing for judgments has grown into use in modern times. Formerly, the reasons, if any were given, were generally stated orally by the judges, and taken down by the reporters in shorthand. 1 Blackstone, 71. In the judicial records of the King's Courts, `the reasons or causes of the judgment,' says Lord Coke, `are not expressed, for wise and learned men do, before they judge, labor to reach to the depth of all the reasons of the case in question, but in their judgments express not any; and, in truth, if judges should set down the reasons and causes of their judgments within every record, that immense labor should withdraw them from the necessary services of the commonwealth, and their records should grow to be like Elephantini Libri, of infinite length, and, in mine opinion, lose somewhat of their present...

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