Court Opinion

ID: 9866306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 03:34:58.997918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:19:53.170948
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Tn their motion for rehearing counsel for appellants say that we have failed to discuss certain vital questions properly before us on this appeal, and in their suggestions say that many suits on these tax bills are “being held in the Circuit Court of Platte County until this court determines the points involved in this case.” In the light of this information we have indulged the filing of supplemental suggestions in support of the motion for rehearing.
Counsel for appellants now say that point numbered IV under their head of Points and Authorities presented two points, namely, that ^16 alleged omission was a fatal error, and that in such case enforcement of the tax bills against lands that were listed is a violation of the federal and state constitutions. Point IV is as follows:
*600“The failure to list and assess, as the law requires, all the lands in the district is a fatal error, and tbe enforcement of the tax bills against the lands that were listed for that portion of the tax that the unlisted property should have borne, is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, as well as the similar provision of the State Constitution, and renders the tax bills void. ’ ’
If Point IY does in fact present two points it violates our Rule 15 which requires “a statement, in numerical order, of the points relied on,” etc.
Counsel concede that the constitutional question was not raised *n ^ie m0^0:a ^or a new trial, bud assert that the other alleged question was raised by the eleventh ground of the motion, which is as follows:
“Under the law and the evidence in this ease the finding and judgment should have been for plaintiffs.”
Counsel for appellants also say that the same question was raised by Points Y and XV which are-as follows:
“V. The order of the county court defining the boundaries of the district and the land list were parts of the record of tbe case. The list showed on its face when compared with the said order that four tracts of 40 acres each had been omitted — the Wingo & Herndon lands — hence the approval of the land list by the County Court must yield to the record, the list itself and said order. The approval was a ‘legal fraud.’
“XV. The statutes providing for the improvement and the issuance of tax bills therefor were not followed; therefore, both the assessment and tax bills are invalid.”
Point XY does not raise the question unless it is read in connection with and as a part of Point Y, and, despite appellants’ assertion to the contrary, we think this question is not presented in their brief and argument except by way of a repetition in substance of appellant’s Point IY appearing in paragraph numbered 3. However, though imperfectly presented, we think consideration of this question is not barred under a liberal interpretation of our Rule 15. But, was any such question presented by the eleventh ground of the motion for a new trial? In reviewing the record in an equity suit (Maplegreen Co. v. Trust Co., 237 Mo. 350, 363, 141 S. W. 621), Lam:m, J., speaking for this court in bane said that “the office of a motion for a new trial is to gather together those rulings complained of as erroneous and solemnly and formally present them, one by one, in black and white, to the judge, in order that he have a last chance to correct his own errors without the delay, expense or other hardships of an appeal. This, on the theory that even a judge is entitled to a last chance — a locus poemtentiae.” The eleventh ground of the
*601motion did not advise the chancellor of the particular issue now said to have been erroneously decided. Hence, he was given no opportunity to correct his own error, if such there was. If plaintiff’s counsel were unwilling or unable to specify the issue then why should they be permitted to convict, by ambuscade as it were, the chancellor of error on that issue now ? To hold that a ground of error couched in the most general terms is sufficient to keep alive every subsequently specified error that can be herded within its possible bounds is to ignore an important and well recognized “office” of a motion for a new trial. This situation is unlike that presented in Brook v. Barker, 287 Mo. 13, 17, 228 S. W. 805, where the sole assignment of error in the motion for a new trial that “the verdict rendered by the jury is unsupported by any evidence,” was held sufficient on appeal from order of court sustaining motion for a new trial. Neither does this situation come within the scope of our ruling in Wampler v. Railroad, 269 Mo. 464, 483, 190 S. W. 908, and similar decisions. We are constrained to hold that the above question which appellants would now have us consider was not raised by the motion for a new trial, and is not before us for consideration.
Other questions presented in the motion for a rehearing’ are adequately dealt with in our main opinion.
All concur.