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203 Mo. App. 162

219 S.W 395

Williams v. Van Deusen

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided January 26, 1920

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1920-01-26

<p>1. TAX BILLS: Work not Competed Within Time Prescribed by Ordinance: Delay Caused by Injunction: Collusive Injunction Proceedings. In a proceeding to cancel tax bills issued for work done under a contract alleged not to have been completed within the time prescribed by the ordinance authorizing the work, the defense that the work was delayed by an injunction suit against the contractor which ground for delay the ordinance sanctioned, will not avail where it is shown that the contractor, after the contract had been entered into and the work commenced, procured a property owner to institute tlie injunction suit, making the contractor and the city defendants in order to ascertain the validity of the ordinance in question, as the delay caused by the injunction is attributable to the act of the contractor.</p> <p>2. -: Injunction: Moot Case. Although there is an apparent conflict of interests in a suit brought by a property owner against a contractor and a city to enjoin further work on the ground that the ordinance authorizing the improvement is invalid, where it is shown that the contractor himself, who was desirous of testing ■ the validity of the ordinance, procured the property owner to bring the suit, there is no real controversy between the plaintiff and the defendants in the injunction suit, the contractor in ■ reality being plaintiff and defendant.</p> <p>3. -: Eeal Party in Interest. In the absence oí a showing that the grantor of the plaintiff would have been estopped from questioning the effect of the injunction proceedings against the contractor the fact that such grantor made an outright gift of the property to plaintiff so that as a property owner he might bring the present suit is no defense, as the plaintiff, being the actual property owner, is the real party in interest.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1920-01-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1965

4 state decisions

2019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1 On Motion For Rehearing.

TRIMBLE, J.

¶2 Appellants’ point that the judgment rendered by the chancellor herein cannot be upheld because it is a collateral attack upon' the judgment in the McQueen case, was considered and regarded as not available or applicable, but through inadvertence no mention of it was made in the opinion.

¶3 We do not regard this case as making any attack upon the McQueen judgment. Hence no question of collateral attack is involved. No relief against that judgment is sought or granted. The McQueen ease decided one thing, the present case determines an entirely different thing; the former involved only the legality of the city’s authorization of the improvement, the latter passes upon the legality of the contractor’s performance of the work. This last was not in issue in the McQueen case and could not have been made an issue since at the time it was tried performance of the work was not accomplished, nor had the time therefor expired. If it be said that, in so far as the decree herein finds that the McQueen case was a sham, it is a collateral attack therein, then it can be said in answer that the plaintiff herein was not a party to the McQueen case nor in privity with anyone who was or should have been a party. Hence his right to show, in this case, that the McQueen case was in law collusive, is not impaired.

¶4 The motion for rehearing is overruled.

All concur.
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