Opinion
No. 27919.
June 19, 1951. Rehearing Denied July 6, 1951.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT. THE ST. LOUIS CIRCUIT COURT, JAMES F. NANGLE, J.
G. W. Marsalek, Moser, Marsalek, Carpenter, Cleary Carter, St. Louis, for appellant.
Morris A. Shenker, St. Louis, for respondent.
This is an action brought in the circuit court for a mandatory injunction. The plaintiff sought an order staying proceedings in a suit pending in the magistrate court and for a further order directing that the action pending there be certified to the circuit court. From a decree granting the prayer of the petition the defendant prosecutes this appeal.
The suit before the magistrate court, out of which the injunction suit in the circuit court arose, was brought by the Gary Steel Supply Company, a foreign corporation. The defendant in that suit was the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company. Plaintiff alleged that it sold and delivered merchandise of the value of $1,016.79, to the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, for which it refused to pay, and judgment was asked for that amount. The St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company filed an answer and counterclaim in which it denied having purchased any of the materials mentioned. It was alleged that the material that plaintiff delivered was steel which had been sent by the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company to the Gary Steel Supply Company for processing and that the processing had been improperly performed. The St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company alleged that it had been damaged by plaintiff's improper processing of the steel and asked for a judgment in the sum of $7,308.13 on its counterclaim.
After having filed its answer and counterclaim the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company brought this suit in the circuit court for a mandatory injunction. The petition contains the following allegations:
"2. That on the 25th day of February, 1949, the Gary Steel Supply Company, a foreign corporation, filed an action in the Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis, Missouri, and that said action is number 23606 in said Magistrate Court and is entitled Gary Steel Supply Company, a corporation, vs. St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, a corporation, and is based upon an account wherein it is alleged that plaintiff, Gary Steel Supply Company, sold and delivered to the defendant, St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, at the special instance and request of defendant, St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, goods, wares and merchandise between the dates of March 17, 1948 and April 7, 1948, in the reasonable value of One Thousand Sixteen Dollars and Seventy-nine Cents ($1016.79), and in which petition plaintiff, Gary Steel Supply Company, prays for judgment in that amount with interest. * * *
"4. That the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, has a meritorious defense and counterclaim in said action now pending in said Magistrate Court growing out of the same transaction in the sum of Seven Thousand Three Hundred Eight Dollars and Thirteen Cents, ($7308.13) actual damages, arising out of the condition in which said materials were delivered and freight charges paid by the said St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company. * * *
"5. That the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, has jurisdiction of this cause and supervisory powers over the Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis, Missouri.
"6. That the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, the plaintiff herein, is unable to file its counter-claim and assert its defense in said Magistrate Court and to have all the matters and things involved in said transaction properly and according to law terminated in the same action by reason of the limited jurisdiction of the Magistrate Court, and will be prejudiced and deprived of its defense and counter-claim by a hearing in the Magistrate Court.
"7. That the plaintiff herein, St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company, has no adequate or complete remedy at law and will be prejudiced by a hearing of this case in the Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis."
It concluded with a prayer to stay the proceedings in the magistrate court and to order the cause certified to the circuit court for further proceedings. Gary Steel Supply Company was ordered to show cause why an injunction should not issue, and, pursuant to the order, it filed a return in which it stated that the circuit court was without "jurisdiction, power, or authority to grant the relief sought".
The circuit court made the following findings and conclusions of law:
"1. The Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis has superintending control over the Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis.
"2. The petition of the plaintiff, Gary Steel Supply Company in the Magistrate Court and the counterclaim of the defendant, St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company in the Magistrate Court should properly be heard at the same time and in the same cause of action.
"3. The Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis has no jurisdiction to hear the said cause in view of the amount of the defendant's counterclaim.
"4. Plaintiff herein is without full, complete and adequate remedy at law to prosecute its counter-claim, and this Court sitting in equity is endowed with jurisdiction to remedy the plaintiff's position.
"5. The plaintiff is entitled to an injunction restraining the Magistrate Court of this City from all further proceedings in said cause of action now pending before the Magistrate Court and is further entitled to have said cause certified to the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis."
Upon these findings and conclusions reached, a decree was entered restraining the magistrate court from proceeding further with the case and directing that all papers and proceedings in the magistrate court be certified to the circuit court. After moving for a new trial the Gary Steel Supply Company duly appealed.
Section 482.230, Mo.R.S. 1949, limits the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Court of the City of St. Louis to actions where the sum demanded does not exceed $1500. Section 517.240, Mo.R.S. 1949, provides:
"1. A defendant may set-off any demand he has against the plaintiff; provided, such set-off existed at the commencement of the action and does not exceed the jurisdiction of a magistrate's court.
"2. Provided further, that all counterclaims, where the amount involved does not exceed the jurisdiction of such magistrates' courts, allowed in circuit courts, except equitable defenses, may be pleaded in all actions before magistrates."
The situation presented here is that the defendant in the action before the magistrate court filed a counterclaim greatly in excess of the court's jurisdiction, and by reason of having asserted this claim it seeks by injunction in the circuit court to oust the magistrate court of jurisdiction.
In discussing the effect of a set-off or counterclaim, it is stated in 21 Corpus Juris Secundum, Courts, § 66a, page 84: "If plaintiff sues in a court of limited jurisdiction, the amount of a set-off, counterclaim, or cross action asserted by defendant cannot be added to plaintiff's claim to oust the jurisdiction of the court, but each will be considered separately; nor will the assertion of a set-off or counterclaim in excess of the jurisdiction of the court oust the jurisdiction with respect to the claim asserted in the complaint, that being within the jurisdiction."
This seems to have been recognized by the courts of Missouri in the following cases: Western Oil Gas Co. v. O'Dell, Mo.App., 115 S.W.2d 134; Strong v. Frerichs, Mo.App., 116 S.W.2d 533; Robinett v. Nunn, 9 Mo. 246; Almeida v. Sigerson, 20 Mo. 497. These cases, while not passing directly upon the point, dealt with situations wherein the counterclaim exceeded the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace. In all of them recovery was allowed upon the plaintiff's demand and they all held that a counterclaim is confined to the statutory jurisdictional limits. The plaintiff's demand in these cases could not have been adjudicated, of course, if the trial court lacked jurisdiction for any reason. It would therefore follow that the cases cited indirectly cover the point that jurisdiction was not lost by the filing of the counterclaim.
There is no suggestion that the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company does not consider its claim meritorious, but, if the filing of such counterclaim should serve to oust the magistrate court from jurisdiction, a field would be opened for the frivolous use of such a device and a very necessary court could thereby be rendered powerless to proceed when such a claim was asserted. When such a counterclaim is filed, the magistrate court does not lose jurisdiction of the plaintiff's action, even though it is without jurisdiction to award a judgment for the amount sought by the defendant. United States Fidelity Guaranty Co. v. McGuire Co., 164 Misc. 120, 298 N.Y.S. 455; Dupre v. Gilland, 156 S.C. 109, 152 S.E. 873; Kittrell v. Conanico, Tex.Civ. App., 56 S.W.2d 272; Nelson v. Meyer, 66 Colo. 164, 180 P. 86. We have been cited to no cases holding to the contrary where the statutes under consideration are similar to ours.
The respondent argues that Article V, Section 4, of the Constitution of Missouri, 1945, gives the circuit court superintending control over courts inferior to it, and that by reason of this authority the decree is proper. We discussed the question of superintending control of the circuit court at considerable length in State ex rel. Auto Finance Co. v. Landwehr, 229 Mo.App. 1221, 71 S.W.2d 144, loc. cit. 145, wherein it is said: "So it is apparent that in its truest sense the exercise of the power of superintending control has to do with the matter of keeping an inferior tribunal within the bounds of its jurisdiction by the issuance of the old extraordinary common-law writs of prohibition, mandamus, certiorari, and the like, yet it must also be conceded that in the development of our scheme of jurisprudence the power has been held to include the authority to issue other writs, processes, and orders essential to the complete exercise of the power, and relating to matters quite outside any question of jurisdiction. However, in the exercise of the power of superintending control by the superior courts of this state, as in most states, when it is to be resorted to for an authority over and above that comprehended by the ordinary common-law writs, it would seem that it extends only to the matter of compelling the proper performance of purely ministerial duties, and not to matters involving discretion or the exercise of a judicial power. Carter v. Louisiana Purchase Exposition Co., 124 Mo.App. 530, 537, 102 S.W. 6; State ex rel. [Gardiner] v. Wurdeman, 192 Mo.App. 657, 662, 179 S.W. 964; Tyree v. Midwest Envelope Co., 215 Mo.App. 630, 639, 258 S.W. 717."
Since the magistrate court had jurisdiction of the plaintiff's case and the jurisdiction was not lost by the defendant filing his counterclaim, the circuit court was without authority to order the cause transferred to it by reason of its supervisory control, for such control is subject to the restrictions and limitations stated above.
Another contention of the respondent is that it will be precluded by the suit before the magistrate court from recovering on its claim unless the cause can be removed to a court having jurisdiction of the amount in controversy. It is argued that since it is obliged to interpose such defenses as it may have to the plaintiff's action before the magistrate court, the judgment there would be res judicata as to the counterclaim, which it is not permitted to assert. We are cited to Consolidated School District v. Day, 328 Mo. 1105, 43 S.W.2d 428, and Cordia v. Matthes, 344 Mo. 1059, 130 S.W.2d 597. Both of these cases have to do with defenses that could have been interposed before the court that tried the plaintiff's action. Res judicata will not operate to bar a claim that could not be asserted as a counterclaim, but a trial before a magistrate court is conclusive as to issues which are properly the subject matter of the controversy. In the case before us, the St. Louis Boiler and Equipment Company claims that it did not buy, but in fact owned, the steel for which it is sued. If the defendant before the magistrate court prevails in this defense, the plaintiff cannot recover on its suit and the defendant will not be barred from bringing an action for damages arising from the alleged improper processing of the steel. If, on the other hand, the plaintiff prevails then the issue of ownership of the steel and its sale to the defendant will be res judicata. The defendant in either event will have suffered no greater hardship than the inconvenience of being required to bring a separate suit upon his claim if the issues determined by the magistrate court do not preclude him from doing so.
For the reasons stated, it is the recommendation of the Commissioner that the decree of the circuit court be reversed and that the injunction and restraining order be dissolved.
The foregoing opinion of WOLFE, C., is adopted as the opinion of the court.
The decree of the circuit court is accordingly reversed and the injunction and restraining order dissolved.
ANDERSON, P. J., and McCULLEN and BENNICK, JJ., concur.