State ex rel. Mount v. Smith
State ex rel. Mount v. Smith
Opinion of the Court
The contention out of which this case grows has been before the Supreme Court a number of times, one branch of it before us. This is the second appeal of this case to our court. On the former appeal we reversed and remanded it for error of the trial court in not confining the testimony as to the costs and expenses incurred and’ for which the curator and his sureties were said to be liable
We have examined the abstract of the record in this case and considered it in connection with the brief and argument of the learned counsel for appellants and have concluded that there is no reversible error now presented. For the main facts in the case it is sufficient to refer to the statement made by Judge Goode when the case was here on the former appeal, as reported State ex rel. Mount v. Smith, 139 Mo. App. 101, 120 S. W. 614.
At the present trial the evidence was confined to the services and their value so far as concerned the effort to establish the claim of the minor to the land in which his own money had been invested by the curator.
In instructions given at the instance of plaintiff the jury were specifically confined to the issues as laid down by this court when the case was formerly here.
At the instance of appellants, defendants below, the court specifically instructed the jury that plaintiff was not entitled to any damages for any attorney’s services or expenses paid by him in litigating* his right to the money which went into the purchase of the land and was derived from his mother. •
Our former decision (139 Mo. App. 101, 120 S. W. 614) is the law of the case. [Metropolitan Bank
The point in the case now presented, that the circuit court of Schuyler county had no jurisdiction of the proceedings in which the appellant Smith was removed as curator and John C. Mills appointed in his place, now sought to be brought into this case, was disposed of by our court in In re Estate of Padgett, 114 Mo. App. 307, 89 S. W. 886. This appellant, the curator, was a party to that. Other points in the ease have been disposed of adversely to the contention of appellant in one or more of the several appeals and writs of error which one of the present appellants, James H. F. Smith, prosecuted in the Su-' preme Court. [See Padgett v. Smith, 206 Mo. 303, 103 S. W. 943.] The last occasion that the matters in great part here involved were before our Supreme Court is Padgett v. Smith, 207 Mo. 235, 105 S. W. 742. Counsel for appellants seem to misunderstand this last decision. What is there held is that the services of the attorney for the minor for that part of the litigation pertaining to partition suit must be settled and determined by the circuit court in which the decree of partition was entered, that is to say, the circuit court of Schuyler county. That opinion does not hold that resort must be had to the Schuyler circuit court to tax and allow for the services of attorneys rendered outside of the partition branch of the case.
The appellant Smith, after having sought to sustain himself throughout all this long litigation as curator, now claims that he was chargeable, if at all, as administrator of the estate of his wife. That suggestion comes too late.
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.