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92 Mo. App. 369

Lucas v. Huff

Missouri Court of Appeals

Decided February 10, 1902

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1902-02-10

<p>1. Appellate Practice: BILL OP EXCEPTIONS: -PILING. A bill of exceptions can not prove itself nor its filing, but the filing must be shown by an entry in the'record proper or the appellate court will disregard it.</p> <p>2. -: -: INSTRUCTIONS. A so-called bill of exceptions fails to show that a demurrer to the evidence was sustained and consequently such alleged action of the trial court can not be noticed by the appellate court even if the bill was allowed.</p>

Relies on Danforth v. Lindell Railway Co. · Hill v. Combs · Walser v. Wear

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Aefibmed · Decided 1902-02-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently May 1925

5 state decisions

20190219101920decided

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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SMITH, P. J.

¶1This is an action to recover one hundred dollars, but whether it was commenced before a justice of the peace or in the circuit court, the abstract nowhere informs us. It might have been brought in either of these courts.

¶2The abstract of the record proper consists of the petition or statement of the cause of action alone. It contains no answer, nor does it show that any such pleading was or was not filed in the cause. Nor is any mention therein made of any judgment, though we may infer from what purports to be a bill of exceptions that there was a judgment in the cause for the defendant. Nor does it therein appear that a motion for a new trial was filed and overruled, nor, that a bill of exceptions was filed at any time. St. Louis v. Boyce, 130 Mo. 572; Danforth v. Railroad, 123 Mo. 198; Jackson v. Ferguson, 76 Mo. App. 270; Hill v. Coombs, 92 Mo. App. 242. It is trae the so-called bill of exceptions itself recites that it was filed within the time allowed by the order of the court, but there is, as has been stated, no' entry on the record proper showing that fact. The case is that where the bill of exceptions is left to prove itself or to prove that it was filed and thus become such bill. This will not suffice, as has been repeatedly decided by all the appellate courts' of this State. Such a bill is no bill at all, and will be disregarded.

¶3But if the bill of exceptions had been filed and had thereby become a part of the record, it does not appear therefrom that the court gave an instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence, although it appears from the plaintiff’s “statement of the case” that such was the fact. The *371so-called bill of exceptions shows that before tbe evidence bad been concluded tbe defendant presented an instruction, in its nature a demurrer to tbe evidence, but at tbe instance of tbe plaintiff it was withdrawn for tbe purpose of allowing tbe latter to introduce further evidence, and accordingly be did introduce such further evidence; but it does not appear that tbe defendant again presented bis said instruction. It does not, therefore, appear that tbe court gave any such instruction or that tbe case was disposed of on a demurrer to the evidence. So far as appears, tbe verdict of tbe jury was for tbe defendant on tbe evidence without instructions. Tbe assignment of error to tbe effect that tbe court erred in giving an instruction in tbe nature of a demurrer to the evidence, can not, in any view of tbe case, be noticed by us.

¶4And as there is no bill of exceptions presenting tbe evidence there is nothing before us for review and consequently tbe judgment must be affirmed. Lawson v. Mills 150 Mo. 428; Walser v. Wear, 128 Mo. 652; Butler v. Graddy, 152 Mo. 441; Benedict v. Ass’n., — Mo. App. —; Shoenberg v. Heyer, 91 Mo. App. 389.

All concur.
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