Jones v. World Life Research Institute

• Decision Date: 06 August 1976
• Citation: 60 Cal.App.3d 836,131 Cal.Rptr. 674
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Charles E. JONES and M. R. Crossman, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. WORLD LIFE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, a California Corporation, and Bruce W. Halstead, Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 47497.

Page 674

131 Cal.Rptr. 674

60 Cal.App.3d 836

Charles E. JONES and M. R. Crossman, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. WORLD LIFE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, a California Corporation, and Bruce W. Halstead, Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 47497.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, California.

Aug. 6, 1976.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Aug. 19, 1976.

Arthur J. Aune, Santa Ana, and Richard A. Daily, Anaheim, for defendants and appellants.

Julius A. Dix, Encino, for plaintiffs and respondents.

JEFFERSON, Associate Justice.

This is an appeal by defendants from the trial court's order, made after judgment, denying defendant's motion to quash execution, to vacate the levy of execution and to declare the judgment void. On December 21, 1971, plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendants seeking damages for breach of contract. Thereafter, to wit, on June 8, 1972, the parties entered into a written stipulation providing that plaintiffs should have judgment against defendants in the principal sum of $34,506.56, together with interest at the rate of 7 percent per annum from January 1, 1969, to the date of the stipulation, in the sum of $9,178.66, and for costs of suit. The stipulation also provided that there would be a stay of execution on the judgment for a period of 12 months from the date of the stipulation.

On August 23, 1973, a judgment was entered in favor of plaintiffs and against defendants. The judgment recited that it was a judgment pursuant to stipulation and set forth some of the terms of the stipulation between the parties. The judgment granted recovery to plaintiffs against defendants in the sum of $34,506.56, together with interest in the sum of $9,178.66. The judgment provided that this interest was for the period from January 1, 1969, to April 18, 1972. The judgment further provided for additional interest in the amount of $3,205.84 through the use of the following language: '(T)ogether with interest on said judgment as provided by law from April 19, 1972 in the sum of $3,205.84.'

Plaintiffs filed with us a motion to dismiss defendants' appeal. We denied the motion without prejudice.

On this appeal defendants contend that the judgment entered by the trial court was beyond the jurisdiction of the court, and was a void judgment because, contrary to the stipulation of the parties, (1) it included interest in the amount of $3,205.84, and (2) it failed to include the provision for stay of execution. As a void judgment, defendants argue that the judgment became subject to collateral attack through defendants' motion to quash and vacate the levy of execution and to declare the judgment void. Plaintiffs assert that the defendants are seeking to appeal from a valid judgment based upon stipulation of the parties; that such a judgment is not appealable and, furthermore, that the judgment had become final and not subject to appeal or to a motion to vacate as of the date defendants filed their motion in the trial court, to wit, June 26, 1975. But defendants' appeal is not from the judgment in either form or substance. Defendants' appeal is from a post-judgment order.

We start with the principle that a postjudgment order which affects the judgment in some manner or in its enforcement is an appealable order. (Lovret v. Seyfarth (1972) 22 Cal.App.3d 841, 101 Cal.Rptr. 143.) 'Orders made to enforce a judgment or to prevent its enforcement are appealable. The principle is that an order which affects enforcement of the judgment is appealable whether it favors the judgment creditor or the judgment debtor. " (Lovret, supra, 22 Cal.App.3d 841, at p. 852, 101 Cal.Rptr. 143, at p. 150.)

It seems clear that a trial court's order denying a motion, made after judgment, to vacate and quash a levy of execution and to vacate the judgment as being void is an appealable order. (Code Civ.Proc. § 904.1, subs. (b); Macario v. Macario (1929) 208 Cal. 601, 283 P. 291; Ford v. Superior Court (1973) 34 Cal.App.3d 338, 109 Cal.Rptr. 844.)

The basic issue involved in the instant case is that of the status of a judgment that granted relief to plaintiffs beyond that provided by the written stipulation of the parties. Plaintiffs, however, take the position that the judgment as entered was in compliance with the stipulation of the parties on the theory that the parties intended for prejudgment interest to be allowed from the date of January 1, 1969 to the date of judgment, at which time interest on the judgment would automatically follow from the date of entry.

But in our view, the stipulation is quite clear that the judgment was to contain only prejudgment interest in the sum specified of $9,178.66. The stipulation provides for no other interest. Any additional interest contemplated by the parties could only be that which attaches as a matter of law to a judgment once it is entered. The trial court's award in the judgment of the additional sum of interest of $3,205.84 was clearly beyond the stipulation of the parties.

The question we must decide, therefore, is whether a judgment which awards greater relief than that to which the parties have agreed by their written stipulation, renders the judgment void as being beyond the jurisdiction of the court, or simply erroneous but not beyond the jurisdiction of the court. If a judgment is void on its face, it is subject to the kind of collateral attack such as defendants sought to make in the case at bench. If, however, a judgment is simply erroneous, even though the error appears on the face of the judgment or record, it is not subject to collateral attack. Defendants argue here that a judgment which is not in complete conformity with the parties' stipulation upon which it is based is beyond the jurisdiction of the court, is void, and will not support the issuance of a writ of execution.

Certainly a trial court has the power, and it is the trial court's duty, to vacate or recall a writ of execution which has been improvidently issued. (Evans v. Superior Court (1942) 20 Cal.2d 186, 124 P.2d 820.) If a writ of execution is issued to enforce a void judgment, obviously it has been improvidently issued. 'It is a fundamental rule that a writ of execution must be founded upon a Valid and subsisting judgment which has not been satisfied.' (Salveter v. Salveter (1936) 11 Cal.App.2d 335, 337 (53 P.2d 381).) (Emphasis added.)

Defendants are correct in asserting that the trial court is under a duty to render a judgment that is in exact conformity with an agreement or stipulation of the parties. 'If interpretation of a stipulation is in order the rules applied are those applied to the interpretation of contracts. (Citations.) It is not the province of the court to add to the provisions thereof (citations); to insert a term not found therein (citations); or to make a new stipulation for the parties. (Citations.)' (Harris v. Spinali Auto Sales, Inc. (1962) 202 Cal.App.2d 215, 219, 20 Cal.Rptr. 586, 589; accord, Bookstein v. Bookstein (1970) 7 Cal.App.3d 219, 223, 86 Cal.Rptr. 495.)

Harris was an appeal from a judgment in which the appellant claimed that the judgment was not entered pursuant to Any stipulation or agreement of the parties. Although the record indicated that the parties announced in open court that they were stipulating to an 'agreed settlement,' the oral stipulation did not provide that any judgment should be entered pursuant thereto. The Harris court set aside the judgment because '(i)n the stipulation at hand there is no showing of an intent that a judgment should be entered to effect the 'agreed settlement' which the parties, through their counsel, related they had 'reached'; the judgment entered in purported reliance thereon is without any basis . . ..' (Harris, supra, 202 Cal.App.2d 215, at p. 220, 20 Cal.Rptr. 586, at p. 589.)

Although the statements contained in Harris set forth correct principles of law, they do not shed light on the question presented in the case at bench, of the effect of a trial court's judgment which is in conformity with portions of a stipulation for judgment but not in conformity with other portions, and which grants additional relief not provided for in the stipulation. The failure of the judgment to contain the provision for a year's stay of execution is without meaning since the year's period had expired as of the date of entry of the judgment.

As authority for their position that a judgment which varies in any degree from the stipulation of the parties upon which it is based is a void judgment because rendered in excess of the court's jurisdiction, defendants cite People's Ditch Co. v. Fresno etc. Co. (1907), 152 Cal. 87, 92 P. 77; Vasquez v. Vasquez (1952), 109 Cal.App.2d 280, 240 P.2d 319, and People v. Wilshire Ins. Co. (1975), 46 Cal.App.3d 216, 119 Cal.Rptr. 917. In People's Ditch Co., the parties had entered into a stipulation for judgment settling conflicting claims to river water rights. In the trial court, before the judge had signed the judgment, plaintiffs requested that an additional term be included in the judgment. The trial court refused, signed the judgment in conformity with the stipulation, and plaintiffs appealed from the judgment. In affirming the judgment below it was said that '(t)he court was empowered to do nothing more than to frame a decree in accordance with the agreement.' (People's Ditch Co., supra, 152 Cal. 87, at p. 89, 92 P. 77, at p. 78.) People's Ditch Co., however, does not tell us what would have been the effect on the judgment if the trial court had inserted the additional term requested by plaintiffs in the case over the objection of the defendants. Neither by way of dictum, or otherwise, does the People's Ditch Co. court express a view that the insertion of an additional term in the judgment would render the judgment void as being beyond the jurisdiction of the trial court.

The Vasquez case was a divorce action in which the husband obtained a divorce from his wife on the ground of desertion and the...