Court Opinion

ID: 9668662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:21:02.48415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:46.810846
License: Public Domain

LEEDY, Judge
(dissenting).
Appellant, by his third-party petition (from the dismissal of which he appeals), sought indemnification against what was then, and is now, an indefinite and contingent liability, the amount of which is not only unknown, but presently incapable of being known, that is to say he sought to be indemnified for such damages, costs, etc., if any, as might be rendered in favor of the wife of the third-party defendant, Mayma, in her action against appellant. The only possible reference in the record to any sum within the monetary jurisdiction of this court is in the prayer of Mayma’s petition wherein she asks damages in the sum of $25,000. It is quite true that if that petition alleging $25,000 damages had been adjudged insufficient for failure to state a claim (or had judgment been rendered against her on the merits), then, for appellate jurisdictional purposes, the amount sought in her petition would be regarded as the “amount in dispute.” But if (as in the instance now at bar) Mayma’s petition had failed to pray judgment for a sum which could be definitely determined to be within the monetary jurisdiction of this court, then it inevitably and plainly follows that her appeal would not be cognizable in this court. So it is a non sequitur to say that the present appeal comes here because of the fact that the main case, in the circumstances first above hypothesized, would have come here. It seems to me it would be the other way around, i. e., that the present appeal should go to the Court of Appeals, just as Mayma’s appeal would have gone there in the absence of an allegation or showing that the amount claimed by her was in excess of $15,000 — not that perchance it might exceed that sum. That the amount claimed by Mayma in her own petition does not constitute the “amount in dispute” in appellant’s third-party petition against Mayma’s husband readily appears from the prayer of the latter which is strictly limited to a demand for “judgment against the third-party defendant for all sums of money that may be adjudged against him in favor of the plaintiff, together with the expense of defending this action and his costs.” (Italics ours.)
*809In any ^vent, the “amount in dispute” or the value of the relief sought can he no more than the amount which may be awarded against appellant in Mayma’s action, and the mere chance or possibility that such sum, if and when rendered, may exceed $15,000 is insufficient to give this court jurisdiction of the appeal. In this connection, there is a striking analogy to be found in Cotton v. Iowa Mut. Liability Ins. Co., 363 Mo. 400, 251 S.W.2d 246, 249, which the principal opinion cites approvingly. That was a declaratory judgment action to determine the insurance company’s liability under its $100,000 automobile liability policy in the event that judgment was entered against its insured in an action brought by the plaintiff (in the declaratory judgment action) for certain personal injuries sustained by him in an automobile accident which allegedly resulted through the insured’s negligence. The amount sued for in such personal injury action did not appear in the declaratory judgment action. In holding in the declaratory judgment action that this court was without jurisdiction, it was said, “The instant plaintiff may never recover a judgment or secure a settlement and, if not, he will acquire no right under the policy provisions. This is relevant to the rule that the mere chance of a judgment or settlement exceeding $7,500 [$15,000] does not establish appellate jurisdiction here.” It is familiar doctrine “that the appellate jurisdiction of this court, on the ground of the amount in dispute, attaches when, and only when, the record of the trial court affirmatively shows there is involved in the controversy, independent of all contingencies, an amount exceeding $7,500 [$15,000], exclusive of costs.” (Italics ours.) National Surety Corp. v. Burger’s Estate, Mo., 183 S.W.2d 93, 95. A mere chance that the amount in dispute may exceed $7,500 [$15,-000] does not give this court jurisdiction. Platies v. Theodorow Baking Co., 334 Mo. 508, 511, 66 S.W.2d 147, 148; Grant v. Bremen Bank & Trust Co., Mo., 108 S.W.2d 347, 348; Higgins v. Smith, 346 Mo. 1044, 144 S.W.2d 149, 150.
I submit that it does not affirmatively appear from the record that, “independent-, of all contingencies,” the amount in dispute- or the monetary value of the relief sought is in excess of $15,000, as expressly required by the cases cited in the principal opinion to vest jurisdiction of this appeal in this court. I therefore dissent to the contrary holding of the principal opinion on the jurisdictional question.