State ex rel. Duggan v. Dillon
State ex rel. Duggan v. Dillon
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
This application arises in this way: On the sixteenth of June, 1881, Michael Carroll recovered a judgment in the circuit, court of Dubuque county, Iowa, against John Thornton for the sum of $4,499.00 with interest and costs. Thereafter Carroll commenced a suit in equity in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, to sequester. certain annuities payable to Thornton as life tenant by Peter Richard Kenrick, trustee. By consent, Archbishop Kenrick paid into court two semi-annual instalments of the profits of the estate held by him, and the court made an order that he should pay into court the successive instalments until the further order of the court, subject to his right of an allowance to be thereafter made, which should be taxed as costs in the cause. By agreement, Michael Duggan was made a party defendant in the character of assignee of the interest of Thornton. In the meantime Carroll died, arid the suit was revived in the name of Tittmann, public administrator. Thereafter such proceedings were had that, on the twenty-sixth day of January, 1888, a final decree was entered, charging the plaintiff’s judgment on the rents, issues, and profits of the fund in the hands
The judgment of the circuit court was in favor of the plaintiff Tittmann in the sum of $6,323.19. The fund presently disposed of by the judgment of the court appears to have exceeded nineteen hundred dollars. The death of Thornton might prevent the fund disposed of under the judgment from ever reaching the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars, though if he should live until the decree should be satisfied by the gradual sequestration of the profits of the fund in the hands of the archbishop, according to its terms, the amount paid
After this appeal had been granted and this bond given, and the term at which the decree was rendered had elapsed, on motion of the plaintiff, the court made an order upon the clerk to pay over to him such sum as was then in his hands subject to the decree, after satisfying the costs then accrued. To restrain the execution of this order, Michael Duggan, the appellant and defendant in that suit, brings into court a petition for a writ of prohibition against the judge of the circuit court, the clerk of said court, and the public administrator, who is the plaintiff in that suit. The substantial question for our decision is, whether the circuit court is acting without jurisdiction in directing the disbursement of this fund, and, if so, whether the petitioner has exhausted his remedy in that court.
This court is .of opinion that, the order of the circuit court is merely an order in the nature of an execution of its decree ; that the bond, which was given in the suof eight hundred and fifty dollars, is not a sufficient bond to supersede the execution of the decree,, under the terms of section 3713 of the Revised Statutes; and that, consequently, the circuit court has jurisdiction to proceed with the execution of its decree under the doctrine announced by this court in State ex rel. v. Adams, 9 Mo. App. 464. By the terms of the statute (Rev. Stat., sec. 3713), the allowance of an appeal stays the execution “in the following cases, and no others: * * * Second, when the appellant, or some responsible person for him, together with two sufficient securities, to be approved by the court, shall, during the term at which the judgment appealed from was rendered, enter into a recognizance to the adverse party, in a penalty double the amount of whatever debt, damages, .and costs, or damages and costs, have been recovered by
The statute contains no exceptions applicable to a case where the fund disposed of by the judgment is in the hands of the clerk of the court or of any other bonded officer. And, while the fund would undoubtedly
It is stated in the petition and was pressed upon our attention in the oral' argument, that the circuit court fixed a bond in the sum of eight hundred and fifty dollars, as a bond which, under the circumstances of the case, would operate as a supersedeas of the decree. The circuit court can only speak by its records, and no record of that court has been presented to us which contains any order characterizing the bond as sufficient for a supersedeas. We cannot adjust our holdings to any allocution, which may be shown by oral testimony or otherwise, to have passed between the circuit judge and a party before him tendering an appeal bond. The judge was bound, under our decision in State ex rel. v. Adams, supra, to accept a bond in any sum which was tendered, provided • he found the sureties to be good; and the question whether the bond would operate as a supersedeas of the judgment did not arise then, but properly arose when the plaintiff moved for an order in the
The circuit court, then, had authority to proceed with the execution of its decree, notwithstanding the appeal; and, .laying out of view any other questions which might have been discussed if this conclusion were at all doubtful, the judgment of the court will be that the present petition be dismissed. It is so ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State of Missouri ex rel. Michael Duggan v. Daniel Dillon
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Published