Court Opinion

ID: 9530048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:56:48.521431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:59.205315
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, J.
I concur.  The appellant may not complain of the defendant’s dismissal of its cross-complaint before the trial began, for the reason that no affirmative relief was sought by the answer thereto, and because all of the issues involved therein were tried and determined in the suit which was founded on the original complaint.
The appellant, who was administrator of his father’s estate, brought suit under section 703 of the Probate Code to cancel a note which he had executed, on the ground that it was fully satisfied by services rendered under an alleged agreement to that effect. An attorney was appointed to represent the estate, as authorized by that section. The estate answered the complaint, admitting the execution of the note, but denying the agreement to cancel the instrument and denying the alleged performance of services. It asserted that an unpaid balance of the note, in the sum of $1,866.44, remained due and owing to the estate. At the same time a cross-complaint was filed, alleging the execution of the note and that said balance remained unpaid and due to the estate. The plaintiff answered the cross-complaint, admitting the execution of the note, but alleging that it was fully paid. The answer contained no demand for affirmative relief. In effect, it contained no more than a denial of the essential allega*91tions of the cross-complaint. The prayer asked that the cross-complainant take nothing by that pleading.
The answer to the cross-complaint raised no issues which were not contained in the cause which was founded on the original complaint. Before the trial of the cause, the cross-complaint was voluntarily dismissed under the provisions of section 581 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
I am of the opinion that the cross-complaint was properly dismissed for the reason that affirmative relief was not sought by the answer thereto. But even though it be deemed that the answer did seek affirmative relief, which I do not concede, the dismissal was harmless because all of the issues which were raised by the answer were included in the cause which was founded on the original complaint and determined by the court on the merits of the case. In the case of Hanson v. Goldsmith, 170 Cal. 512 [150 Pac. 364], which was a suit to quiet title to real property, the cross-complaint of the defendant, which demanded affirmative relief quieting title in him as the alleged owner thereof, was dismissed over his objection. The court held that dismissal was harmless since the same issues were contained in his answer to the original complaint, and determined the merits adversely to him. The same relative situation exists in the present case.
The appellant complains of the dismissal of the cross-complaint because that procedure deprived him of the opportunity of testifying regarding his father’s alleged agreement to cancel the note in consideration of services performed, since the cross-complaint was not founded on a claim against the estate, and his evidence would therefore have been competent, while that testimony was excluded in the action based on the original complaint, under the provisions of section 1880 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
There is no merit in that contention. It is not error to dismiss a cross-complaint, to which dismissal a pleader would otherwise be entitled, merely because the cross-defendant may thereby lose his right to testify against a dead man, contrary to the provisions of section 1880. That is particularly true when the answer to the cross-complaint raises no new issues which are not contained in the pleadings upon which the original action is founded. To so hold would result in circumventing the application of the wholesome provisions of section 1880, which were wisely adopted in the interest of jus*92tice. Rules of procedure should not be employed as a game of strategy to avoid the effect of sound principles of evidence.
Adams, P. J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing was denied September 16, 1942, and appellant's petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 15,1942.