City of Springfield ex rel. Central National Bank v. Weaver
City of Springfield ex rel. Central National Bank v. Weaver
Opinion of the Court
The suit is upon a special tax bill. The judgment in the trial court was for the defendants. The plaintiff appeals and assigns numerous errors which we can not consider, since we must conclude that a constitutional question is raised upon the record, which deprives us of jurisdiction of the appeal.
The abstract of the record recites that, before the introduction of any evidence, the defendant made the
It will be thus seen that the constitutional question has been fairly raised upon the record, and adjudicated by the court. As the decision of the court was in favor of the defendants upon the merits, they do not urge any exceptions to the ruling of the court on that point. It is evident, however, that if we should conclude that the judgment of the court on the merits is wrong, we would necessarily have to pass on the constitutional question thus raised before reversing the judgment, and this we are powerless to do.
According to the view of the supreme court, every case involves a constitutional question where such question is properly raised upon the record, regardless as to whether the party raising it has any interest in the question raised. In State ex rel. v. Macklin, 41 Mo. App. 335, which was a proceeding by quo warranto, the defendants challenged by demurrer the constitutional validity of the act, under which they claimed title; that is to say, they set up a defense which, if true, conclusively established their own illegal holding. Under these circumstances we refrained from expressing ah
It results from the foregoing that the only disposition we can make of the case is to transfer it to the supreme court as being o.ne within its exclusive appellate jurisdiction.
Ordered that the clerk do at once transmit all the papers in this cause to the supreme court, accompanied by a copy of this order of transfer.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.