Court Opinion

ID: 9549432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:18:30.948759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:19.228362
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent. The record in this ease shows that plaintiffs commenced an action to impress a trust on real property and to quiet title thereto. Defendant in her answer to that complaint raised the general issue by denials and by way of affirmative defenses asserted title to the property. Hence, the entire issue of the interest in the property of both plaintiffs and defendant was raised by the complaint and answer. Defendant also filed a cross-complaint to quiet title in herself to the same property. Plaintiffs in their answer to the cross-complaint made general denials but did not again plead the matter set forth in their complaint. Nevertheless, the issues raised by the cross-complaint were no different from more extensive than those already raised by the complaint and the answer thereto. Under those circumstances the cross-complaint was mere surplusage and served no useful purpose. Under those circumstances it was not necessary for plaintiffs to answer the cross-complaint in order to introduce evidence establishing their claim. It is said in 22 California Jurisprudence 160:
“In an action to determine adverse claims a defendant may in his answer set up his title and ask that he be adjudged owner of the land described in the complaint; or if he does not ask for such relief in his answer, he may file a cross-complaint demanding it. The principal reason for so doing is to prevent the plaintiff from dismissing his action without the consent of the defendant. But such practice is, ordinarily, not essential to the protection of the defendant, since a conclusion against the plaintiff upon the issues raised fully determines title as between the parties, and protects the defendant against any claim of the plaintiff as fully as would an affirmative decree in his favor. And so it has been held that the cross-complaint may in such ease be treated as an answer containing affirmative matter. It has even been held that it was not error in such case to strike out the cross-complaint, or at least that any error in so doing is harmless where judgment is given for the plaintiff. On the other hand, a refusal to strike out is harmless if no judgment is rendered on the cross-complaint. There are, of course, cases in which a cross-complaint is necessary to the defendant’s protection. But where *383an answer denies plaintiff’s ownership and avers ownership and right to possession in defendant, a cross-complaint which in terms is hut a repetition thereof, and presents no new issues, is unnecessary; the plaintiff need not plead to it, and the court need not make findings with respect thereto.” (Italics added.)
In the instant ease after the plaintiffs rested on their introduction of evidence on their complaint the court granted defendant’s motion for a nonsuit. Thereafter defendant introduced evidence on her cross-complaint. Thereafter plaintiffs’ offer of proof in answer to the cross-complaint consisting of the evidence they had introduced on their complaint was denied upon defendants’ objection. While the court probably based its denial on the proposition that the evidence was unavailing because of its previous order of nonsuit, the denial was erroneous on any other ground. It cannot be said that the proof offered was not embraced within plaintiffs’ answer to the cross-complaint for under the rule above stated plaintiffs were not required to plead to the cross-complaint. It follows therefore that unless the presence of the judgment of nonsuit and the judgment on the cross-complaint is an insuperable obstacle, this court should determine the appeal on the merits considering all of the evidence introduced. That those purported two judgments are not an obstacle is clear. As stated in the majority opinion, the issues in this action involve the title to property claimed by the two parties and no new issues were presented by the cross-complaint. It must follow therefore that the two purported judgments should he treated as one, that the judgment of nonsuit is merged into the judgment on the cross-complaint. For all practical purposes both judgments determined the same thing. It is not like the case of Greenfield v. Mather, 14 Cal.2d 228 [93 P.2d 100], where different issues were determined by each of the two judgments. It is recognized that two judgments in an action may be treated as one, although only one judgment in an action is proper (Stone v. Perkins, 217 Mo. 586 [117 S.W. 717]; Mann v. Doerr, 222 Mo. 1 [121 S.W. 86]; Williamson v. Mann, 134 Ky. 63 [119 S.W. 232]), and the party who has two judgments entered in an action, as defendant did in the case at bar, cannot complain of that circumstance. (Mann v. Doerr, supra; Jemo v. Tourist Hotel Co., 55 Wash. 595 [104 P. 820, 19 Ann.Cas. 1199, 30 L.R.A.N.S. 926].) If we adopt the theory of Greenfield v. Mather, supra, the same result follows. Under *384the theory of that case the judgment of nonsuit in the case at bar would be void but the judgment on the cross-complaint would embrace all the issues. The defendant here is not in a position to complain of a piecemeal adjudication of the litigation because if such exists she brought it about herself. It is said in Greenfield v. Mather, supra, 233:
‘ ‘ To permit a litigant to deprive his adversary of an opportunity for full appeal by erroneously procuring the entry of successive purported partial judgment, and then having appeals from all save the last of said judgments dismissed on the ground that the cause should not have been split, would he unfair.” (Italics added.)
In a concurring opinion in the case of Mather v. Mather, 22 Cal.2d 713 at 720 [140 P.2d 808], I pointed out the error of this court in its decision in the case of Greenfield v. Mather, supra, and while the precise situation involved in that case is not involved in the case at bar, it is obvious that this court may reasonably and logically hold in this case that the two judgments are in effect one judgment which became effective when the last judgment was entered.
Taking this as a basis for our decision, we might well review the entire case on its merits and render a decision determining the rights of the parties without sending the case back to the trial court for the mere formality of having another judgment entered.