Court Opinion

ID: 9566851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:43:58.165161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:56.016529
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I concur in the judgment of reversal, and ■ generally in the opinion prepared by Mr. Justice Curtis, but subject to the following qualifications:
1. I am not in accord with the discussion relative to the discretion of the trial court to either grant or deny, upon the record in this case, defendant’s request for permission to , amend the form of his pleading of the statute of limitations *256as a defense. His fifth separate defense alleges “That the said amended complaint, and each of the causes of action therein, is barred by the provisions of the Statute of Limitations as found in Sections 337 and 361 of the Code of Civil Procedure.” This plea does not state the applicable subdivision of section 337 as required by section 458 of the same code. (Section 361 is not here involved.) But the latter section (§458) is merely permissive and directory in form. Recognizing the strict construction and application accorded that section in Wolters v. Thomas (1893), 3 Cal.Unrep. 843 [32 P. 565], Overton v. White (1937), 18 Cal.App.2d 567 [64 P.2d 758, 65 P.2d 99], and Hart v. Slayman (1939), 30 Cal.App.2d 556 [86 P.2d 861], it still does not follow that the pleading of the section by number without specification of the pertinent subdivision is a complete nullity. In Churchill v. Woodworth (1906), 148 Cal. 669, 676 [84 P. 155, 113 Am.St.Rep. 324], section 339, which contains two subdivisions, was pleaded without specification of the subdivision relied on. No objection to the pleading, by demurrer or otherwise, was urged in the trial court. It was held that objection to the form or sufficiency of such pleading could not be raised for the first time upon appeal and that such pleading “should not be treated as a nullity.” In Universal Sales Corp. v. Cal. etc. Mfg. Co. (1942), 20 Cal.2d 751, 773 [128 P.2d 665], Mr. Justice Curtis, speaking for this court, cited the Churchill case and declared, “The rule as to the proper plea of the statute of limitations is not self-operating but depends for its enforcement on the diligence of the plaintiff in objecting to the insufficiency of the plea either by demurrer to the answer or by timely objection at the trial.”
In the case at bar plaintiff demurred to the answer, attacking specifically the first, second, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth separate defenses. No objection by demurrer was taken to the form or substance of the fifth separate defense above quoted. After the trial was entered upon, plaintiff objected orally to consideration of that defense. Under the circumstances, since the pleading of the statute was not a nullity, the objection necessarily went to the form of the pleading rather than, strictly, to its substance. In response to such objection defendant asked leave to amend the pleading by inserting the subdivision he relied upon. This was not a request for leave to amend to initially *257plead the statute as a defense—it had already been pleaded sufficiently in the absence of objection—but was a mere request, as timely as was the objection, to amend the form to cure the defect pointed out by the objection. The trial court refused to permit the amendment and refused to submit to the jury the issues raised by the plea. Both rulings were in my opinion erroneous.
In making such rulings the court disavowed the defect in the pleading as a ground thereof and declared that it so ruled because “the statute of limitations has no bearing upon this case.” That position is untenable. The statute pleaded appears to be a meritorious defense to at least a part of the cause of action sued upon. The court should have considered defendant’s request for leave to amend upon its merits, and, in the circumstances shown, it was an abuse of discretion not to grant such request and thereupon submit the issues to the jury.
2. By concurring generally in the opinion otherwise than as stated above I intend no implication that the contract sued upon gives to the plaintiff an option to await the end of the term of the lease and then to sue for damages for breach of the lease. The cause of action pleaded, as stated by Mr. Justice Curtis, admits of “no other conclusion than that the plaintiff by her present action seeks to enforce the obligation of the tenant [and of the guarantor], after the landlord repossessed the leased premises, to pay at the times fixed by the lease the several instalments of rent called for by the terms of the lease.” Therefore the claim of the plaintiff, urged in her briefs, that she had such an option, and the contrary contention of the defendant that under the provisions of paragraph twenty-first of the lease the several installments of rental, insofar as they were delinquent, became due absolutely and in any event ‘ ‘ at the times herein fixed for the payment of the several installments of rent,” are not necessarily before us for decision on this appeal, and for that reason we make no determination of such conflicting claims.
Gibson, C. J., and Traynor, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied May 29, 1944.