Case Name: Spaulding and others vs. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway Company
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1883-04-04
Citations: 57 Wis. 304
Docket Number: 
Parties: Spaulding and others vs. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 57
Pages: 304–311

Head Matter:
Spaulding and others vs. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway Company.
November 25, 1882
April 4, 1883.
(1J Railroads: appeal from award on talcing of land. (2) Jurisdiction on appeal. (3) Reversal of void judgment.
1. Where commissioners of appraisal have fixed the compensation to be made to the owner or owners of a tract of land to be taken by a railway company, at a certain sum in gross, and have also awarded specified portions of that sum to several parties for their respective interests in the land, the railway company has no interest in the partition of the sum among the owners of the separate interests and can appeal only from the gross award.
2. Where the statute gives a court jurisdiction to try an action upon appeal, such court does not obtain jurisdiction of the subject matter unless the appeal be taken in a proper ease and in the manner prescribed by law.
8. But where, because it obtained no jurisdiction of an appeal, the judgment of a circuit court is void, this court has jurisdiction of an appeal from, and may reverse, such void judgment.
APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Outagamie County.
The defendant company petitioned the circuit court to appoint commissioners to appraise the damages to the owners by reason of the taking by the company of a certain-parcel of land in the city of Appleton for the uses and purposes of its railway. The petition stated that the plaintiff George W. Spaulding and one Peter E. Dane claimed a leasehold interest in a portion of the premises sought to be condemned. Pending the proceedings Dane died, and his administrator, widow, and heirs were afterwards made parties, and are the other plaintiffs herein. In due time the commissioners appointed pursuant to the petition filed their report, in which they assessed the damages to the owner or owners of the whole tract at $5,010. The report then proceeds as follows: “ And we further certify and report that of the above-mentioned sum we have awarded, and do hereby award, for the respective separate interests and estates in said piece of land of the following-named parties the sums hereinafter stated, to wit: To the G-reen Bay & Mississippi Canal Company the sum of $3,750; to Seneca M. Dorr and William H. Steele the sum of $305; to the Champion Steel Horse-nail Company the sum of $305; and to G. W. Spaulding and Peter E. Dane the sum of $650.” In due time the railway company appealed from the award to Spaulding and Dane, and from that alone. Such appeal was afterwards tried in the circuit court. The question chiefly litigated was whether the plaintiffs, Spaulding and Dane, had any interest in the lands condemned, and most of the evidence was directed to that issue. Spaulding and Dane claimed under a lease for ninety-nine years, theretofore executed by the Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Company to Dunn and Brewster, and by them assigned to the plaintiff Spcmlding. The description of the land thereby leased is somewhat ambiguous. The plaintiffs claimed that the lease covered a portion of the condemned lands, the fee of which was in the canal company. The railway company claimed that it did not. The trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiffs for a larger sum than was awarded by the commissioners. The jury found specially all the facts essential to establish a leasehold interest in the plaintiffs as claimed by them. The defendant appealed from the judgment.
A. L. Gary, for the appellant.
Moses Hooper, for the respondent.

Opinion:
The following opinion was filed December 12, 1882:
LyoN, J.
The defendant, the railway company, has no interest whatever in the award of the commissioners to Spauld-ing and Dane. It was content with the commissioners' appraisal of the value of the whole parcel of land condemned to its use, and did not appeal therefrom. All it had to do was to pay into court the amount of the appraisal, and the condemnation was complete. To whom the money was dis tributed by the commissioners or the court did not concern the railway companjr in the least. The statute (R. S., 541, sec. 1849) gives the right to appeal from an award by commissioners to any party thereto. But the railway company is not a party to any proceedings which may be had in respect to the distribution of the money which it has paid into court pursuant to an award of commissioners. In this case the only parties to an issue upon the right of Spaulding and Dane to share in the award are Spaulding and Dane and the canal company, which is entitled to the award if Spaxdding and Dane are not. In a litigation to determine whether the lease under which the plaintiffs claim an interest in the condemned premises in fact includes any portion thereof, the canal company is an indispensable party. Yet this issue has been tried and determined on the appeal of the railway com-paiiy, without the presence of the canal company as a party to the litigation. Of course, the judgment does not bind the canal company, and hence has not determined the controversy. The railway company seems to stand in the same position in respect to the money which presumably it has paid into court pursuant to the award of the commissioners, as that occupied by a mortgagee in respect to surplus money arising upon a sale of the mortgaged premises pursuant to a foreclosure judgment, after the mortgage debt is fully paid. Of course, no one will claim for a moment that the plaintiff in the foreclosure action can appeal from an order of the court distributing such surplus money, in which he has no interest. The claimants of the money are the sole parties to such proceeding, and they alone can appeal from the order of distribution.
It is entirely clear to our minds that the railway company had no right of appeal from the award of a portion of the value of the condemned land to Spaulding and Dane, and that the appeal of the company therefrom was ineffectual to give the circuit court jurisdiction to review the award of the commissioners in that behalf. It must be held that the appeal and all proceedings therein, including the judgment, are null and void. Ordinarily this conclusion would work a reversal of the void judgment. A reversal W'ould charge the plaintiffs with the costs in this court. This would be most unjust, for the railway company instituted and prosecuted these .void proceedings and is responsible for them. It, and not the plaintiffs, ought to be charged with the costs. For these reasons, and to accomplish what is so manifestly just and right, we shall dismiss this appeal, and leave the circuit court to clear its records of the void judgment in its own way.