Court Opinion

ID: 9668697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:22:39.047908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:47.343861
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING OR TO TRANSFER TO COURT EN BANC
PER CURIAM.
This opinion does not conflict with Bunch v. Wheeler, 210 Mo. 622, 109 S.W. 654, as *767charged. In Bunch a provision in a deed of conveyance reserved “the right of pass-way near the original road through said land for a passway.” The original road ran through a strip of land varying in width from 100 to 300 feet. At first plaintiff, owner of the right reserved, used the original road. Later the new owner of the land closed that passway and allowed plaintiff to use another route. Plaintiff thereupon traveled through the strip “just anywhere.” A subsequent purchaser refused to permit plaintiff to use the land as a passway. Plaintiff had his surveyor make a metes and bounds survey of a road 20 feet wide on what was pointed out to the surveyor as “the original road,” and brought suit for a mandatory injunction. The circuit court construed the reservation as the grant of a right of way over the specific strip of land 20 feet wide and 21.76 chains in length. On appeal this court held the reservation not susceptible to the construction that the specific twenty feet, particularly described, was reserved from the grant; construed the reservation as a grant of a right to pass over the land along a route near to the then well-known and long existing road; held that the grant was not void for uncertainty and that the grant was sufficiently definite; that the right of way or right to pass over the land was to be near the original road which was a fixed monument or well-defined course. The decree was reversed and the circuit court was directed to require the owner of the servient estate to erect a gate at each terminus of the right of way and to indicate to plaintiff the location of the passway near the line of the old road. The two cases differ in important particulars. The reservation in Bunch was general. The reservation in Bladdick is particular and specific (a right of ingress and egress and user restricted to a designated, existing, established roadway). Plaintiff in Bunch acquiesced in the closing of the road which plaintiff first used as a passway. There was no such acquiescence in Bladdick. The user in Bunch, following the closing of the original road, was not confined to a particular route; plaintiff traveled “just anywhere” through the strip. There was no such general user in Bladdick; Bladdicks’ use was confined to the well-defined course of the established roadway. The parties in Bunch did not construe the reservation as a grant of a particular route, whereas the parties in Bladdick for 13 years construed the grant to mean the route of the original connecting roadway. The two cases are to be distinguished on their differing factual situations and are not in direct conflict, as claimed.
Respondent makes the further charge that the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, to which the cause is remanded, will not have jurisdiction to hear the cause by reason of § 508.030, V.A.M.S., which provides that suits whereby the title to real estate may be affected shall be brought in the county where such real estate is situated. The real estate lies in St Francois County. The question which ordinarily arises in cases where jurisdiction is thus questioned is whether the judgment will directly affect or operate directly upon the title to real estate so as to involve title, or whether the suit is one primarily involving personal jurisdiction and only collaterally affecting the title to real estate. This was pointed out in Sisk v. Molinaro, Mo.Sup., 376 S.W.2d 175, a specific performance case involving a contract for the purchase of land in Cass County. Following many previous decisions in cases of specific performance Sisk held that title to real estate was involved and that the Circuit Court of Jackson County lacked jurisdiction. In an effort to provide a rule of action for future guidance the writer of the opinion listed several illustrative types of suits (376 S.W.2d, l. c. 180) having for their primary purpose and object a judgment directly affecting the title to real estate, including suits “to impose easements on realty.” The opinion recognized that in a personal action the pleadings and issues may be so developed as to properly require the entry *768of a judgment collaterally affecting real estate in another county in order to determine and adjudicate fully the rights of the parties. Turning to the instant petition, it is clear that its primary object and purpose is not to obtain a judgment, directly affecting the title to real estate, or to “impose” an easement on realty. Nor will judgment take, title put of one party, and Nestr it in. another, The judgment, whichever party prevails will have no effect on the title, to the ore company’s property. This is pot a proceeding in the nature of a proceeding in rem affecting land, The real estate is not the principal matter in issue. The object of thjs petition, is fo recover actual,and,punitive damages for an alleged wrongful, unlawful and malicious destruction, removal and, extinguishment of a roadway over which plaintiff claims a right of way, by the acts, of defendant in nipping, tearing, gouging, scqopinp; arid undercutting the roadway so as.to. completely and permanently demolish, and eliminate the roadway for a distance of several hundred feet. It is a personal action, for damages asking,for nq relief other, than an ordinary money judgment. The issue is whether respondent had the right to destroy the original connecting, roadway and thus to totally and permanently extinguish access to appellants’ property by means of a roadway over which appellants claim a right of way, and if not, the extent to which appellants have sustained damages .in terms of money. As in the case of a suit for trespass, the primary object is to recover damages not to try title to real estate. The question of title is merely incidental to the main controversy. While appellants must show their right of way over the demolished roadway in order to obtain judgment their proof of title. “is collateral, and a mere incident of the. real issue,” which is their right to damages. As in Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company v. Mahoney, 42 Mo. 467, a suit to recover treble damages for trespass in cutting and carrying away timber from plaintiff’s lands, “If the plaintiff shows title’ sufficient to enable him to maintain his cause of action, the judgment does not operate on the real estate or affect the title thereto. The prqof of title only amounts to a link in the chain, among others, of the evidence by which he supports his issue and recovers a general judgment for the wrong done him by the defendant. To come within the purview of the statute, it must be a case not merely where the title is drawn in question, but where the title is to be affected,” 42 Mo., l. c. 472. Section 508,030, supra, “applies only, to cases in which title to land is the subject of the controversy, and in which the judgment will operate directly upon the title, and not to those cases where the title to land may be merely a subject of collateral inquiry, or in which th,e judgment will only affect the title incidentally-or collaterally.” State ex rel. South Missouri Pine Lumber Co. v. Dearing, 180 Mo. 53, 79 S.W. 454 and cases cited l. c. 457; Hewitt v. Price, 204 Mo. 31, 102 S.W. 647. Accordingly, the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis has jurisdiction to try this cause on remand.
The motion for rehearing -or to transfer •to' the court en banc is overruled.