Court Opinion

ID: 9660836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:22:14.215332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:22.739848
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
The opinion in this case came down on March 13, 1961. On March 28, 1961, appellants’ (defendants’) attorneys of record withdrew from further representation of them. On the same day, Messrs. Winger, Nugent and Rayburn entered their appearance as appellants’ attorneys of record and filed this motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, for transfer of the cause to court en banc. That motion states:
*129“In appellants’ motion for new trial (tr. 44-45) they asserted that they had been deprived and suffered the taking of their property without due process of law in violation of Section 10, Article I, Missouri Constitution, 1945, * * And that: “The court apparently has failed to consider the question whether the abandonment of condemnation proceedings without compensation for litigation expenses to the condemnee is a violation of Section 10, Article I, Constitution of Missouri, 1945, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”1
Actually, appellants did not invoke the provisions of the due process clause of the Federal Constitution either at trial or on appeal. The pleading filed by them in the trial court alleged that:
“Abandonment [of the condemnation proceedings] without judgment to the defendants for the foregoing necessary and reasonable interest, costs and expenses * * * is a deprivation, taking and loss of their property rights and interests without due process of law, in violation and contravention of Sec. 10, Art. I, Mo.Const.1945.”
In this court, “Point I” of their brief states:
“The trial court erred in refusing to require the respondent school district to pay the appellants’ necessary litigation expenses and interest after its abandonment of these condemnation proceedings because otherwise the appellants’ property rights have been unconstitutionally taken or damaged without just compensation or due process of law. Similar reimbursements for litigation expenses and interest have been freqttently allowed in Missouri both under Sec. 523.070, RSMo 1949 [y.A.M.S.], and general equitable principles, and thus the appellants’ present motion for expenses and interest should be remanded to the circuit court for specific findings upon the necessity and amount of the expenses and interest.”
Quite definitely, no federal question was presented to this court.
The assignment in appellants’ brief on appeal was considered primarily as an argument seeking to impress the court with the equity of appellants’ contention, to wit: that said Section 523.070 should be construed to justify taxation of certain expenses incurred by the defendants in this litigation as “costs” upon thes basis of equitable principles rather than construing said statute as, on its face, it purported to be, to wit: a statute declaring the basis upon which statutory costs were to be assessed in condemnation cases.
Appellants’ present counsel say that “their damage arises, not from the condemnation proceeding itself, but from the abandonment after the condemnation proceeding without compensation for the expenses which obviously must be incurred in any condemnation proceeding.” This, they contend, “is a violation of the due process clause of both the Missouri and the United States Constitutions even though the proceeding in the condemnation action itself may have followed the statutes in all details. It is the failure of the statutes and of the State of Missouri to provide appellants a remedy which deprives them of their property, that is, the money it cost appellant successfully to defend the action, without due process of law.” They cite no authority in support of the bald contentions now made.
Review of the opinion filed herein convinces us that it correctly disposes of the points made and presented by the appellants at trial and on appeal. Appellants’ motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, for transfer to court en banc is overruled.
All concur.

. All emphasis herein is that of this court.