Court Opinion

ID: 9643942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:44:10.398678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:05.613971
License: Public Domain

SOMERVILLE, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority opinion in all respects except as to the amount of damages awarded. With respect to the amount of damages awarded, I respectfully dissent for the following reasons.
Plaintiff prayed for damages against defendant in the sum and amount of $200,-000.00. The damages sought by plaintiff were unliquidated. The trial court entered judgment in favor of plaintiff and against defendant in the sum and amount of $214,-167.45,.an amount which the majority opinion concedes exceeded plaintiff’s prayer for relief.
The majority opinion purports to justify the $214,167.45 judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff, even though exceeding the prayer for relief, on the ground that under Rule 55.33(b) the prayer for relief was amended by the evidence. It should be noted that plaintiff never requested leave of court to amend his prayer for relief.
I respectfully disagree that a prayer for relief in a suit for unliquidated damages is subject to being amended solely by the evidence under the auspices of Rule 55.33(b). Such a construction raises the specter of an amended prayer silently creeping into a case unbeknown to a defendant. The end result is that defendants in suits seeking unliquidated damages are put to their peril as to the limits of exposure which they are called to defend against and their only recourse would be to object to every item of evidence offered with respect to damages. The chaos and confusion necessarily injected during trial is self-evident.
*185It has long been an established principle that a judgment exceeding the prayer for relief in a suit seeking unliquidated damages cannot stand. Madget v. Jenkins, 461 S.W.2d 768, 775 (Mo.1970); Fletcher v. North British and Mercantile Ins. Co., 425 S.W.2d 159, 164 (Mo. banc 1968); Edmonds v. Stratton, 457 S.W.2d 228, 234 (Mo.App.1970); and Zweifel v. Lee-Schermen Realty Co., 173 S.W.2d 690, 701 (Mo.App.1943). Emasculation of this principle under the authoritative guise of Rule 55.33(b) strains the intent and resiliency of said rule vis-a-vis the basic unfairness, chaos and confusion which would inexorably follow.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court in all respects except as to the amount of damages awarded, but would remand the case to the trial court with directions to enter judgment for the plaintiff and against the defendant in the sum and amount of $200,000.00, in accordance with the prayer for relief.