State ex rel. Taylor v. McQuillin
State ex rel. Taylor v. McQuillin
Opinion of the Court
Some time in January, 1912, relator presented her petition in this court, setting up certain facts touching proceedings in the probate court in the city of St. Louis which had been instituted there to determine the question of sanity or insanity of relator. It is set out in the petition that those proceedings resulted in a verdict finding her mentally unsound. Belator here thereupon and at the same term of that court, filed a motion for new trial and the judge of that court, taking it under advisement, continued it to the succeeding term, and at that term granted a new trial. An appeal was granted from this by the clerk of the probate court in vacation of that court, to the St. Louis Circuit Court. There the relator appeared and moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that that court had no jurisdiction. The motion appears to have been sustained by the circuit court, although resisted by Louis Nolte, the then sheriff of the city of St. Louis, who had instituted the proceedings in the probate court to have relator declared insane. After the motion to dismiss had been sustained by the circuit court the sheriff tendered a bill of exceptions and prayed an appeal to the Supreme Court, injecting into his motion for an appeal or motion against the sustaining of the motion to dismiss, various provi
On the hearing of this case before the Supreme Court, as will be seen in the report of the case as above referred to, the Supreme Court vacated the alternative writ it had issued, and dismissed the case. Prior to the issue of the alternative writ of mandamus by the Supreme Court, the respondent judge made a return before us to which relators filed a reply, whereupon respondent filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. As this motion is based entirely upon” the claim that the case pending in the circuit court was beyond our jurisdiction on account of the constitutional questions which it was claimed had there been raised, while we allowed counsel to argue this case, which was done and the case finally submitted to us in February, 1912, we refused to pass upon it or take any further action in it until the determination of the case then pending before the Supreme Court. That decision, rendered
Following the decision of the Supreme Court In the Matter of Marquis, 85 Mo. 615, and of our own court In the Matter of Crouse, 140 Mo. App. 545, 120 S. W. 656, approved in State ex rel. Nolte, supra, we hold that the circuit court was without any jurisdiction in this matter.
When the character of the case before it was called to the attention of the circuit court, it should have at once dismissed the appeal and refused to take any further steps in it.
The alternative writ of prohibition heretofore issued is made absolute.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.