Court Opinion

ID: 9758939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:56:30.129359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:57.323751
License: Public Domain

RONNIE L. WHITE, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The principal opinion concludes that for purposes of venue a suit is “brought” both when an original petition is filed and “re-brought” anytime an additional defendant is added by amendment. The principal opinion sanctions this fluid concept of when a suit is “brought” to achieve its desired end of limiting the forum selection capacity granted to the attorneys of this State by our general assembly.
“Absent a statutory definition, the words used in the statute will be given their plain and ordinary meaning as derived from the dictionary.”1 The word “brought” is the past tense and past participle of “bring.” American Heritage’s multiple definitions of the word “bring” convey a temporal element that is best summarized by the definition “to give rise to,” and its past participle “brought” clearly indicates an event that is “no longer current” or “existed or occurred in an earlier time.”2
Other dictionaries define the word “bring” as meaning to “advance,” “cause,” *868“evoke,” “institute,” “cause to exist,” and “cause to be.”3 All of these definitions convey a point in time, an original point in time. Moreover, citing to the United States Supreme Court in Goldenberg v. Murphy,4 Black’s Law Dictionary definitively states, “A suit is ‘brought’ at the time it is commenced.”5
While the majority opinion concedes that the word “commenced” is “commonly deemed to be synonymous” with the word “brought,” it fails to examine the definition of this interchangeable word. The word “commence” means to “begin,” “start,” “come into existence,” or to “have a beginning.” 6 Black’s Law Dictionary articulates the legal definition of “commence” as being: “To initiate by performing the first act or step. To begin, institute or start. Civil action in most jurisdictions is commenced by filing a complaint with the court. Fed.R.Civil P.3.”7
Indeed, Missouri is just such a jurisdiction and recognizes that a civil action is “brought” at the moment of the first step of filing a petition. Rule 53 entitled “Commencement of Civil Action” states, “A civil action is commenced by filing a petition with the court.” There is no language in the Court’s rules indicating that a civil action is “re-commenced” or “re-brought” upon the filing of an amended petition.
The interpretation that the original filing of a lawsuit is the time in which suit is “brought” or “commenced” finds statutory support in section 506.110 entitled, “How suits may be instituted in courts of record.” Section 506.110.2 states, “The filing of a petition in a court of record, or a statement or account before a court not of record, and suing out of process therein, shall be taken and deemed the commencement of a suit.” Sections 508.010 and 506.110 are interrelated to the issue of venue, must be considered in “pari mate-ria,” and must be read consistently and harmoniously.8
The temporal limitation accompanying the word “brought” also finds repetitious support and expansion from this very Court. In State ex rel. DePaul Health Center v. Mummert, this Court stated that “venue is determined as the case stands when brought ...”9 The word “when,” means “at what time,” “at which time,” “as soon as,” “whenever,” and “during the time at which.”10 By adding the word “when” this Court reinforced the temporal limitation already imposed by the word “brought.” Thus, a suit is “brought” at which time it comes into existence with the first step of filing the initial petition with the court.
In DePaul, this Court was referring to the “original date” the suit was filed when it held that “venue is determined as the case stands when brought.”11 Reference to the original filing is not only articulated by the majority, but is plainly evidenced *869by the dissent, which states, “The statute [section 508.010] contains no provision, express or implied, that supports the majority’s conclusion that challenges to venue must be determined as of the date the suit is originally filed.”12 Despite the obvious contradiction between today’s decision and this Court’s ruling in DePaul, the principal opinion curiously breezes over its previous holding and further ignores DePaul’s progeny.
The progeny of DePaul have not only followed but have expanded this Court’s prior and correct reasoning that “brought” refers to the original date of filing the suit. In State ex rel. Bunker Resource, Recycling and Reclamation, Inc. v. Dierker,13 this Court found venue under section 508.070.1 to be analogous to the general venue statute, section 508.010, where venue is determined as the case stands when brought.14 The Court acknowledged that “brought” had a temporal element of time past when it stated, “The time to measure these three elements is when suit is ‘brought’ because the second alternative is in the present tense.”15
In State ex rel. Breckenridge v. Sweeney,16 citing DePaul, this Court distinguished venue in terms of the party’s residency from the sufficiency of the pleadings. The Court stated, “The statute [section 508.010] requires only that challenges to venue based upon a party’s residence must be determined as of the time suit was filed.”17 Again, the relevant time period is when a suit is originally filed, not when amended.
In State ex rel. Palmer by Palmer v. Goeke,18 the court of appeals, following De-Paul, also determined the original filing or commencement of the suit determined the appropriate venue regardless of the fact that the petitioner changed residence. The court held so even though transfer to a new forum after the change of residence could be more convenient for all of the parties.19
Another consideration noted by the Palmer court concerned the fact that a second identical action had been filed. The court stated in part:
Also significant to our decision is the fact that Relator’s paternity action was filed before Mother’s action. As noted earlier, the two actions are identical in substance and subject matter. When two suits are filed relating to a dispute involving the same subject matter between the same parties in two Missouri circuit courts of proper venue and concurrent jurisdiction, the court in which the first petition is filed becomes vested with exclusive jurisdiction over the matter to the exclusion of all other courts.20
Today’s holding plays legal havoc in this situation. Wfiiat if a new defendant from a different residence is added after multiple identical suits have been filed and jurisdiction and venue had already “vested” in one forum? Under the principal opinion the suit will have been “re-brought” yet anoth*870er time subjecting the parties to relocate to a new forum contrary to this bright-line rule.
Other decisions citing DePaul for determining venue at the time a suit was originally filed include:
Bellon Wrecking & Salvage Co. v. David Orf, Inc., 983 S.W.2d 541, 547 (Mo.App.1998) (venue for confirmation of arbitration award was proper in court where original action filed).
Threats v. General Motors Corp., 890 S.W.2d 327, 329 (Mo.App.1994) (venue remained proper for this action despite the dismissal of one defendant as venue was apparently proper under section 508.010(2) when the suit was brought).
State ex rel. Sims v. Sanders, 886 S.W.2d 718, 719, fn. 1 (Mo.App.1994) (citing DePaul, Relator concedes that residence for venue purposes is determined at the time suit is filed and not affected by a subsequent change in residence).
State ex rel. Santoya v. Edwards, 879 S.W.2d 775, 776-77 (Mo.App.1994) (venue remained proper despite the dismissal of one defendant as venue was proper under section 508.010 when the suit was brought).
Either the majority has overruled these cases sub silentio, or the opinion produces the incongruous result that the word “brought” is capable of two simultaneous meanings in its singular use in section 508.010. The word “brought,” with its fixed temporal element, can have only one meaning and interpretation as used in section 508.010 that must apply in all instances when determining the appropriate venue. In contradiction with our prior decisions, applying today’s holding redefining the word “brought” creates the situation where a court would have to grant a motion to change venue anytime a petition was amended reflecting any changes in relation to the parties as the suit will have been “re-brought.”
Besides the tenets of statutory construction, the Court’s rales, and Missouri case precedent, all of which support the interpretation that suit is “brought” at the time of original filing, there is additional support by way of analogy to the interpretation of federal venue law. The federal courts have consistently held that venue, under 28 U.S.C. section 1391, “is determined at the time the complaint is filed and is not affected by a subsequent change of parties.”21 It is not unreasonable to assume that our legislature wished to mirror federal venue law when drafting section 508.010. While 28 U.S.C. section 1391(a) uses the word “commence” as opposed to “brought,” as previously noted the majority concedes these two words are synonymous, and the federal courts consistently equate these two terms.22
Even disavowing this comparison and overruling all of the existing Missouri ease precedent interpreting section 508.010 would be insufficient to justify the principal opinion’s revised interpretation of Missouri’s venue statute, because in reaching *871this decision the opinion violates the basic tenets of statutory construction. “Where the language of the statute is unambiguous, courts must give effect to the language used by the legislature.”23 Courts may not “read into a statute a legislative intent contrary to the intent made evident by the plain language.”24 “There is no room for construction even when the court may prefer a policy different from that enunciated by the legislature.”25 While the principal opinion acknowledges its duty to consider the plain and ordinary meaning of the statute’s words, it then denies the existence of the temporal component of the word “brought” which appears in each definition, connotation, and usage of this word.
The majority opinion is contrary to the rules of statutory construction, the rules of the court, and the prior case precedent set by this very Court. The principal opinion’s holding today eliminates the bright line rule concerning venue and offers in replacement a never-ending and unpredictable tide leaving the parties only to guess as to which courthouse door they ultimately will be washed ashore.

. State v. Eisenhouer, 40 S.W.3d 916, 2001 WL 350659 *3 (Mo. banc 2001).

. American Heritage Dictionary 209, 905, and 908 (2nd Col. Ed.1991).

. See Webster’s Third International Dictionary 278 (1961); and Black’s Law Dictionary 192 (Sixth Ed. 1990).

. 108 U.S. 162, 163, 2 S.Ct. 388, 27 L.Ed. 686 (1883).

. Black's Law Dictionary 192 (Sixth Ed. 1990).

. American Heritage Dictionary 297 (2nd Col. Ed.1991).

. Black’s Law Dictionary 268 (Sixth Ed. 1990).

. State ex rel. Rothermich v. Gallagher, 816 S.W.2d 194, 200 (Mo. banc 1991).

. State ex rel. DePaul Health Center v. Mummert, 870 S.W.2d 820, 823 (Mo. banc 1994).

. American Heritage Dictionary 1375 (2nd Col. Ed.1991).

. DePaul, 870 S.W.2d at 823.

. Id. Note: Judge Robertson was the author of the majority opinion with judges Coving-ton, Holstein, Benton, and Thomas concurring that the original date of filing defined when a suit was "brought." Judges Limbaugh and Price dissenting.

. 955 S.W.2d 931 (Mo. banc 1997).

. Id. at 933.

.Id. at 932.

. 920 S.W.2d 901, 903 (Mo. banc 1996).

. Id.

. 8 S.W.3d 193, 195 (Mo.App.1999).

. Id.

. Id.

. Horihan v. Hartford Ins. Co. of the Midwest, et al., 979 F.Supp. 1073, 1076 (E.D.Tex.1997) (citing to Sidco Indus., Inc. v. Wimar Tahoe Corp., 768 F.Supp. 1343, 1346 (D.Or.1991)); Exxon Corp. v. F.T.C., 588 F.2d 895, 899 (3rd Cir.1978); Concord Labs, Inc., v. Ballard Medical Products, 701 F.Supp. 272, 277 (D.N.H.1988); Proler Steel Corp. v. Luria Bros. Co., 225 F.Supp. 412, 413 (S.D.Tex. 1964). See also Nutrition Physiology Corp. v. Enviros Ltd., 87 F.Supp.2d 648 (N.D.Tex. 2000); 28 U.S.C. section 1391(a)(1).

. Goldenberg, 108 U.S. at 163, 2 S.Ct. 388; most currently cited in Harris v. Garner, 216 F.3d 970, 974 (11th Cir.2000).

.State v. Burns, 978 S.W.2d 759, 761 (Mo. banc 1998). See also Keeney v. Hereford Concrete Prods., Inc., 911 S.W.2d 622, 624 (Mo. banc 1995).

. Keeney v. Hereford Concrete Prods., Inc., 911 S.W.2d 622, 624 (Mo. banc 1995).

. Id.