Court Opinion

ID: 9855888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:33:23.023835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:16.321651
License: Public Domain

HOUSER, P. J., Dissenting.
I dissent. It is well-established law that before a sound discretion may be exercised, it is necessary that sufficient and material facts be presented upon which the judgment of the court may operate. With *66that principle of law in mind, a careful reading of the affidavit of the judgment debtor would seem to disclose the existence of no material fact that properly might be used as a basis for the denial of the motion. It should be apparent that the fact that the judgment debtor was a continuous resident of Los Angeles County furnished no sufficient reason for the exercise of discretion in denying the motion; neither did the circumstance that the judgment debtor at some time had received certain inheritances, and that by the timely use of supplementary proceedings the judgment creditor might have discovered that fact. In addition thereto, for aught that appears herein, those inheritances may have been received in some foreign state; of which fact the judgment creditor probably knew nothing. At any rate, if ever received by the judgment creditor within this state, the date of such receipt was long after that within which execution could have been levied as a matter of right within the terms of the statute. Moreover, in his application to the trial court for an order of examination of the judgment debtor supplementary to the execution of the judgment, unless the judgment creditor could have made affidavit to some facts which were both new and material, and consequently which were not contained within his affidavit that presumably was used on his former application for such an order, nor at that time reasonably available to the judgment creditor, ordinarily he would have been unable to obtain a new order for a second examination of the judgment debtor. Certainly the remaining facts contained in the affidavit made by the judgment debtor and which were submitted as a reason why the motion should be denied, had no materiality whatsoever to the exercise of discretion by the trial court in acting upon the motion. It would seem to be self-evident that because “that up until the year 1929 he was an able-bodied man in good health and capable of following a gainful occupation; that in the year 1929 respondent became afflicted with diabetes fyom which he had been a constant sufferer; that in May, 1934, and in September, 1935, he suffered strokes and as a result thereof, respondent at the time he made the affidavit here involved was not capable of following any gainful occupation, but was then entirely dependent for his living upon such few *67assets as he then possessed”, presented not the slightest legal reason for depriving the judgment creditor of that which rightfully belonged to him.
The correct principle for the exercise of sound discretion is set forth in the case of Bailey v. Taaffe, 29 Cal. 422, and thereafter quoted with approval in the case of Demens v. Huene, 89 Cal. App. 748, 753 [265 Pac. 389]. In the former case it was said:
“The discretion intended, however, is not a capricious or arbitrary discretion, but an impartial discretion, guided and controlled in its exercise by fixed legal principles. It is not a mental discretion, to be exercised ex gratia, but a legal discretion, to be exercised in conformity with the spirit of the law and in a manner to subserve and not to impede or defeat the ends of substantial justice. In a plain case this discretion has no office to perform, and its exercise is limited to doubtful cases, where an impartial mind hesitates.”
According to the record herein, appellant made a showing to the trial court that in all respects complied, not only with the plain terms of statutory demands, but also with all requirements that from time to time have been suggested in the several judicial constructions of the pertinent statute by the appellate courts of this state. To my mind, no sound reason existed for the denial to the judgment creditor of the rights which were intended to be secured to him by the statute.
With reference to the point suggested in the last paragraph of the prevailing opinion herein, to wit, that the motion properly might not have been granted because of the provisions of the statute (reenacted in 1933) to the effect that there may be no revivor of a money judgment that has been barred by limitations “at the time of the passage of this act”,—the authorities clearly are to the effect that when a revising or amending statute is intended as a substitute for an original statute, the effect is simply to continue in force that which is reenacted. Consequently, since the identical language with reference to revivor of the judgment appears in the original statute, clearly the point is not available to the judgment debtor in the instant matter. (23 Cal. Jur. 683, sec. 73; vol. 10, p. 384, Cal. *68Jur. Supp.; and authorities respectively cited; Pierce v. County of Solano, 62 Cal. App. 465, 468 [217 Pac. 545]; Shearer v. Flannery, 68 Cal. App. 91 [228 Pac. 549].)