Court Opinion

ID: 9584532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:49:36.134934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:20.216909
License: Public Domain

VALLÉE, J.
I dissent. The motion of plaintiff was for “judgment on the pleadings herein and the stipulation on file herein and on the ground that no issue of fact remains herein and that the sole issue is one of law clearly entitling plaintiff to judgment herein. ’ ’ It was this motion which was granted. The stipulation reads: “It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the plaintiff and the defendants, above entitled, as to the issues of fact herein and the Los Angeles City Ordinances herein concerned, as follows . . . .” It was then agreed that plaintiff is an electrical contractor licensed by the state and by the county of Los Angeles and that the ordinances attached thereto are ordinances of the city of Los Angeles. Various ordinances and provisions of others are set forth. I construe the stipulation to mean that all ordinance provisions necessary to a determination of the ease were set forth in the stipulation and that the only question before the court was one of law. Defendants appeared on the hearing of the motion and argued on the theory that all of the facts were before the court and that only a question of law was involved. Plaintiff says in his brief that defendants “appeared on the motion for judgment and earnestly argued only the validity of their ordinance; the question of the propriety of *109the motion for judgment was not raised by the appellants in the lower court. ’ ’ This statement is not denied by defendants. We must accept it as asserting the fact correctly. (DeMirjian v. Lutinsky, 77 Cal.App.2d 915, 916 [177 P.2d 50]; Standard Iron Wks. v. Maryland C. Co., 56 Cal.App. 600, 601 [206 P. 136].) Under these circumstances defendants should not now be permitted to say “that neither the trial court in the first instance, nor this Court upon review, may go outside the pleadings themselves in deciding whether the motion was properly granted.” The appeal should be decided on its merits.
A petition for a rehearing was denied August 31, 1950. Vallée, J., voted for a rehearing.