Knowles v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 31 December 1963
• Citation: 60 Cal.2d 620,387 P.2d 833,36 Cal.Rptr. 33
• Parties: , 387 P.2d 833 Elma Mattie KNOWLES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James E. ROBINSON et al., Defendants, Cross-Complainants and Appellants; R. B. Shane et al., Cross-defendants and Respondents. L. A. 26821, 26977.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 33

36 Cal.Rptr. 33

60 Cal.2d 620, 387 P.2d 833

Elma Mattie KNOWLES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James E. ROBINSON et al., Defendants, Cross-Complainants and Appellants R. B. Shane et al., Cross-defendants and Respondents.

L. A. 26821, 26977.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Dec. 31, 1963.

Vizzard, Baker, Sullivan & McFarland and Allan H. McFarland, Bakersfield, for defendants, cross-complainants and for appellants.

Borton, Petrini, Conron, Brown & Condley and George A. Brown, Bakersfield, for plaintiff, cross-defendants and, for respondent.

PEEK, Justice.

Consolidated appeals have been taken by defendants James E. and Ruby Robinson in this unlawful detainer action, the first from an order striking their cross-complaint, and the second from the judgment for plaintiff on the merits.

For many years plaintiff's deceased husband and James Robinson, as partners, engaged in farming on property located in Kern County. During these years the Robinsons resided on the premises and operated and managed the partnership farming activities. Plaintiff's husband either owned or leased from others the lands so utilized. After her husband's death plaintiff entered into a similar partnership agreement with Robinson. Subsequently this arrangement was discarded and plaintiff leased the farmlands, including the dwelling, to Robinson. Thereafter, and proceeding in accordance with the lease, plaintiff notified Robinson of the termination of the lease as of December 31, 1961. Robinson refused to vacate the premises and the present proceedings in unlawful detainer were instituted by plaintiff on January 8, 1962.

In order to better understand and resolve the various contentions made by defendants we have set forth at length the proceedings taken by the parties prior to trial.

On January 22 defendants' demurrer to plaintiff's complaint was overruled.

On January 25, within the time allowed by the order overruling the demurrer, defendants filed their answer and a cross-complaint. By their answer defendants denied generally all of the allegations of plaintiff's complaint. By their cross-complaint they sought to bring in new parties who were alleged to have conspired with plaintiff to deprive defendants of certain alleged rights under the partnership agreement and thus to fraudulently induce defendants to enter into the lease.

On the following day, January 26, plaintiff filed a notice of motion to strike defendants' cross-complaint and the matter was set for hearing on Monday, February 5.

On Friday, February 2, defendants filed a document entitled 'first amended cross-complaint' alleging substantially the same matters as were set forth in their original cross-complaint.

On February 5 plaintiff filed a notice of motion to strike defendants' amended cross-complaint and requested an order shortening time for hearing the motion.

On February 9 plaintiff's motion to strike defendants' original cross-complaint was granted.

On February 19 plaintiff's motion to advance the case and for special setting for trial was granted. It was further ordered that no pretrial conference was required.

On February 21 plaintiff's motion to strike defendants' amended cross-complaint was granted and judgment was entered for the cross-defendant as to the cross-complaint.

On February 23 defendants' counsel requested a pretrial conference. In his affidavit he stated that two days were necessary for trial and requested that the matter be heard before a jury.

On February 26 defendants' appeal from the judgment on the cross-complaint was filed.

On March 2 the matter was set for pretrial on April 19 at 9:30 a. m. and for trial on the merits at 10:00 a. m. on the same day. Defendants' application for supersedeas was denied by the District Court of Appeal and the matter proceeded to pretrial.

At the outset of the pretrial conference on April 19 (serven weeks after the setting for pretrial) defendants filed their pretrial statement. In that statement it was contended in part as follows: 'The defendants, by way of affirmative defense in this matter and to deny the title of the plaintiff in said land, filed a document entitled 'cross-complaint' * * *.' It is the defendants' contention that this cross-complaint can equally be called a cross-complaint, counterclaim or affirmative defense, but is properly before the Court, and the defendants wish to reamend their answer and incorporate an affirmative defense therein showing that plaintiff has no right, title, and interest in and to the premises on which the house is situated and which is the subject of litigation herein. Defendants at the pretrial hearing ask leave of court to amend their answer and insert said affirmative defense which is, in substance, the same cross-complaint which has been dismissed herein by the Court.' (Emphasis added.) It was further stated that 'Defendants did not complete the deposition of the defendant James E. Robinson in this case until April 3, 1962 and said depositions were not completed and typed until April 10, 1962 * * * in the taking of said deposition of the defendant, it developed, that there are various written documents consisting of either contracts or codicils with reference to the property in question which have been prepared by and under the direction of plaintiff, and defendants desire leave to take depositions of several other parties who, it developed, had considerable knowledge about the facts of this case in question * * * defendants ask continuance of this matter for sufficient time to complete discovery proceedings in said matter.'

Defendants further demanded a jury trial, and stated again that the trial would take two days. Demand was also made for strict compliance with all pretrial rules. Finally it was requested that the matter be continued until defendants' appeal from the order striking their cross-complaint could be concluded.

In answer to defendants' statement counsel for plaintiff replied 'Now, let me say this: He has asked for leave; one of the things, he comes in with a pretrial motion, and he has known about this for six weeks. He could have made a motion and got to file this amended answer and I wouldn't have objected to it. It is a statutory rule that at the pretrial conference the court without prior notice of motion to amend an answer doesn't have the authority ipso facto to amend the thing. However, I am anxious to get this thing to trial, your Honor, and if the court wants to consider the allegations of his cross-complaint as an affirmative defense to this complaint I am willing to stipulate that the court may so consider them today, waiving any requirement that a notice of motion be filed or anything else, so that as to the cross-complaint from which he has appealed, if he wants to say, 'Well, we will consider that to be in this case an affirmative defense,' I am willing to stipulate it may be so considered, your Honor.' (Emphasis added.)

The record of the pretrial conference reveals that the court in attempting to resolve the issues was laboring vainly in a climate not at all conducive to the results desired. The difficulties are well illustrated by the resigned but hopeful expression of the court that some portion of counsels' statements might 'refer to our issues here.' Finally, after discussions extending over nearly 40 pages of transcript and during which the trial court attempted as best it could to define the issues to be tried, it concluded the conference with the comment: 'I think any person consulting this record would be inclined to consider that we have engaged in pretrial in that we have been over the position of both sides, and the court sees nothing that would be gained by any further delay in getting to an issue on this original lawsuit.'

The same atmosphere was carried over into the trial on the merits, which immediately followed the conference. Here again an examination of the transcript of the two days of trial more than confirms the trial court's observation that this was a case that could have been tried in twenty minutes. The transcript is replete with constant bickering and attempts by defendants' counsel to inject matters wholly outside the issues involved and which were more properly matters to be determined in an action for an accounting of the partnership, previously instituted by defendants against plaintiff.

At the conclusion of the trial during which evidence was offered and received on all issues framed by the complaint, the answer, the cross-complaint and the answer thereto, the court made findings that 'defendants waived a trial by jury upon their failure to post a fee within the time required by law * * *. The parties suffered no prejudice by reason of failure to prepare a formal pretrial order or failure to comply with other requirements of the pretrial rules, if there was any such failure; that this cause in fact should have taken two hours or less to try * * *.' Based on these and other findings going to the merits and supported by substantial evidence the court concluded that the lease under which the defendants were in possession of the premises was lawfully terminated on the 31st day of December 1961; that no misrepresentations were made to, nor fraud practiced upon the defendants in procuring the lease or otherwise; and that the defendants were guilty of unlawful detainer of the premises described in the complaint. Judgment was entered for plaintiff, restoring possession of the premises to her, and awarding the sum of $325 for unlawful detention of the premises at the rate of $2.50 per day since the 31st day of December 1961.

Defendants' appeal from the order striking their cross-complaint must be determined pursuant to the well established rule that where an objection is interposed in an action for unlawful detainer, no cross-complaint or counterclaim may survive. The remedy of unlawful detainer is designed to provide means by which the timely possession of premises which...