Court Opinion

ID: 9558565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:12:42.40557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:24.795255
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(dissenting) — I concede the power of the court to dispose of the appeal as has been done in the per curiam opinion, but I am not persuaded that we should do so. In State ex rel. Kubel v. Plummer, 130 Wash. 135, 226 Pac. 273, the court said:
“When a complete determination of a controversy cannot be had without the presence of other parties, the court not only has inherent power to cause such other parties to be brought in, but it is a power especially conferred upon it by statute (Rem. Comp. Stat., § 196) [P. C. § 8277]. Ordinarily, perhaps, where purely private interests are involved the court will not exercise this prerogative, but will try the issues as the parties frame them, be the subsequent conse*442quences what they may. But the present proceeding involves more than a private interest. It involves a public fund, and a determination of the controversy as the issues are now framed may cause a loss to the fund. In such instances the courts would be derelict in their duties did they not exercise all of the powers they have for the fund’s protection.” (Italics mine.)
The beneficiaries under the supplementary contract would not be bound by any judgment that may be entered herein. The life insurance company has taken the calculated risk of being ordered by one court to pay the executor and by another court to pay the beneficiaries under the supplementary contract, and I feel that we should try the issues as the parties have framed them, “be the subsequent consequences what they may.”