Court Opinion

ID: 9778237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:56:35.3397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:05.484561
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The question in this case is whether appellants must seek a trial de novo or have the right to appellate review where an associate circuit judge enters judgment against them in an amount less than five thousand dollars where the original petition is open-ended in its claim for damages. Section 512.180.1, RSMo 1994, controls. That statute provides in relevant part:
Any person aggrieved by a judgment in a civil ease tried without a jury before an associate circuit judge ... shall have the right of a trial de novo in all cases where the petition claims damages not to exceed five thousand dollars.
(Emphasis added.)
The majority assumes that the amount of the judgment actually entered by an associate circuit judge determines whether appeal or trial de novo is available to an aggrieved party seeking to overturn the judgment. There is nothing in section 512.180.1 to support that assumption. Instead, the statute says that the petition determines whether trial de novo or appellate review follows.
The majority’s reasoning and its willingness to read other statutes in pari materia depend on the premise that section 512.180 “is silent as to the time at which the court ascertains the amount of damages claimed.” (Op. at 756).
First, the statute is not silent. It says that the petition determines the amount claimed. It places on the party filing the pleadings an affirmative duty to state whether the amount of the claim exceeds five thousand dollars. By stating the jurisdictional amount in the negative, section 512.180.1 creates an exception to the general rule that “[i]f a recovery of money be demanded, no dollar amount or figure shall be included in the demand except to determine the proper jurisdictional authority....” § 509.050.1(2), RSMo 1994. Reading section 509.050.1(2) together with section 512.180.1, one must necessarily conclude that when a petition filed in the associate circuit division fails to state a dollar amount, the prayer anticipates the possibility that the amount of damages to which the plaintiff is entitled exceeds five thousand dollars.
Second, the majority assumes that the claim must state an exact dollar amount and that such an amount is not accurately knowable at the time the landlord files the rent- and-possession action. I do not read section 512.180.1 to require such specificity. The statute requires only that the party seeking damages say whether the amount claimed is greater or less than five thousand dollars. By making that statement, the party seeking damages determines what sort of discovery is available prior to the hearing, whether the trial that follows will be on or off the record and the course an aggrieved party must pursue to set aside a judgment rendered against him or her. The statute is flexible. The first petition is not the plaintiffs final word; the rules permit amendment of petitions at any time a plaintiff finds the judicial process too slow to keep the amount due under five thousand dollars.
It makes great sense to me to establish the rules early in litigation, rather than wait until the last moment—the time of the hearing— to make a judgment as to what kind of ease is pending. I think that is what the legislature intended when it placed its emphasis on the time of pleading.
Given the state of the pleadings, I believe the Court of Appeals, Eastern District, had *759appellate jurisdiction in this case. As that court transferred the case to this Court, I believe we have jurisdiction pursuant to article Y, section 10 of the constitution. I would not dismiss the appeal. Instead, I would decide that these pleadings did not expressly limit the damages to less than five thousand dollars, that section 512.180.2, RSMo 1994, determines the course of review of the judgment, and retransfer the case to the court of appeals for appellate review of the remaining issues in the case.
For the reasons expressed, I respectfully dissent.