Court Opinion

ID: 9669041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:38:02.887529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:51.744332
License: Public Domain

WESTHUES, J.
(concurring). — I concur in the result reached in this ease. However, I do not think it was necessary to discuss the question of whether the judgment entered was final and appealable.
Counts 1, 2, and 5 constituted a distinct and separate cause of action having no connection with issues presented in counts 3 and 4. In fact, the parties are not the same. The court, as the opinion states, tried the case made up of counts 1, 2, and 5 separately. That was proper procedure. The court made a final disposition of the case and nothing was left to be done except to partition the property. The result of a trial on either count 3 or on count 4 could in no way affect the judgment appealed from in this case.
When the trial court tried this case separately, the result was a complete severance of it from the other cases which were joined in the same petition. I do not believe that Supreme Court Rule 3.29 has any application to this kind of a situation. That rule, which provides that a court may enter a separate interlocutory judgment and order it held in abeyance until the other claim, counterclaims, or third party claims in the case are determined, has application to those claims of Which the resulting judgment may affect the judgment held in abeyance. If the rule were applied to a situation as now before us and the judgment were held in abeyance awaiting the outcome of the two other cases, the result would be utter confusion. Suppose that were done and a final judgment entered after the trial of the other cases, that is, counts 3 and 4, and suppose plaintiff obtained a judgment in each for $2,000, appellate jurisdiction of which would be in the Court of Appeals. Would those two cases ride on the coattail of. the suit to try title to this court which has appellate jurisdiction iff title *1238cases? Would not three distinct and separate cases be presented on one appeal? I do not find any case previously decided that even suggests that Rule 3.29 has any application to this kind of a situation. In all the cases where the question was discussed, the judgment entered on one count had some connection with the counts not tried. Lightfoot v. Jennings, 363 Mo. 878, 254 S.W.(2d) 596, l.c. 597 (1-4); Deeds v. Foster, Mo., 235 S.W.(2d) 262; Bennett v. Wood, Mo., 239 S.W.(2d) 325, l.c. 327 (1, 2); Hammonds v. Hammonds, 364 Mo. 517, 263 S.W. (2d) 348, l.c. 350 (2).
It is my opinion that where two or more separate and distinct causes of action are joined in one petition and where, as in this ease, the one cannot have any effect on the judgment in the other, then a separate trial of one case, as ordered by the trial court, separates that case from the others for all purposes including appeal. It is my opinion that our Rule 3.29! would not have authorized the trial court to have entered an order holding the judgment appealed from in abeyance.
I, therefore, concur in the result.