Patapoff v. Reliable Escrow Service Corp.
| Decision Date | 16 March 1962 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Nick W. PATAPOFF and June Patapoff, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. RELIABLE ESCROW SERVICE CORPORATION, a corporation et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 25396. |
Shulman & Shulman, Adley M. Shulman, Beverly Hills, for appellants.
Barker & Miller, Edmund F. Barker, Montebello, for respondents.
Plaintiffs appealed from a judgment of nonsuit granted at the conclusion of the opening statement of their counsel.
The action is for damages for fraud against Reliable Escrow Service Corporation, O. W. Nelson, Helen Spilker, M. Spilker, E. L. Winn, Samuel D. Burgeson, Charles Uhrig and Land Title Insurance Company. All the defendants who were served with process filed answers, denying the charges of fraud and asserting special defenses. The material allegations of the complaint, as amended, were that plaintiffs owned a residential lot worth $4,000; defendants arranged for the construction of a home on the lot and represented that it would cost $11,000; in order to obtain a maximum loan it would have to be made to appear that the house would cost $13,450; the loan papers must show that amount as the cost; plaintiffs executed two trust deeds, one representing the amount of the first loan and a second trust deed for $2,450, being the difference between the actual cost and the fictitious cost of $13,450; defendants represented that the amount of the second note and trust deed would be returned to them upon completion of the transaction; plaintiffs did not understand that they were signing the second trust deed; the transaction occurred in October 1951 and plaintiffs did not learn of the existence of the trust deed until May 4, 1954; it was not placed of record until January 8, 1953; the trust deed was foreclosed without any notice to plaintiffs and they thereby lost title to their property. It was alleged that all the representations of defendants and all their promises were false and fraudulent and part of a design to cheat and defraud the plaintiffs of their property. Compensatory and punitive damages were claimed.
Demurrers having been sustained, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint which omitted the previous allegations of the representations as to the cost of the house and the reasons for the deposit of second trust deed money and the promises of defendants with respect to the same. Instead it was alleged that defendants 'pretended' to assist plaintiffs in the erection of a home and in obtaining for plaintiffs the necessary financing; that they concealed the nature of the second trust deed, representing that it was just another document, and persuaded plaintiffs to sign it without reading it or knowing that it was a trust deed. It was alleged that all the acts and representations of defendants were pursuant to a fraudulent conspiracy to deceive and cheat plaintiffs and that as a result of the same plaintiffs lost their home through foreclosure of the second trust deed, and were ousted through an action of unlawful detainer. Demurrers to the amended complaint were overruled.
When the case came on for trial a colloquy occurred between the court and plaintiffs' counsel, which occupies 46 pages of the reporter's transcript. All this discussion was pursuant to the court's directing plaintiff's attorney to make an opening statement of what he proposed to prove, the announced reason given therefor being that if the ruling of the court should be adverse to plaintiffs it could be presented for review on appeal by means of a trief and inexpensive record, rather than an extensive record that would be required if the case should be tried on the merits and a judgment rendered adverse to plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs' attorney made a statement of what he...
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Downie v. The Rama Fund, LLC
...(1974) 10 Cal.3d 616, 633, fn. 19.); Haase v. Lamia (1964) 229 Cal.App.2d 654, 658; Patapoff v. Reliable Escrow Service Corp. (1962) 201 Cal.App.2d 484.) Thus, matters affecting the validity of the trust deed or primary obligation itself, or other basic defects in the plaintiff's title, are......
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Goodwin v. Pagano
...they were caused by the same surgery." For the reasons explained ante, these contentions lack merit. Citing Patapoff v. Reliable Escrow Service Corp. (1962) 201 Cal.App.2d 484, Goodwin appears to argue that res judicata principles do not apply to a subsequent suit for damages based on fraud......
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Vella v. Hudgins
...4 Cal.App.3d 716, 84 Cal.Rptr. 756; Haase v. Lamia (1964) 229 Cal.App.2d 654, 658, 40 Cal.Rptr. 518; Patapoff v. Reliable Escrow Service Corp. (1962) 201 Cal.App.2d 484, 19 Cal.Rptr. 886; cf. Staudigl v. Harper (1946) 76 Cal.App.2d 439, 449, 173 P.2d A qualified exception to the rule that t......
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Gonzales v. Gem Properties, Inc.
...that appellant (defendant) may have may be determined in the quiet title action now pending.' And, an Patapoff v. Reliable Escrow Service Corp., 201 Cal.App.2d 484, 19 Cal.Rptr. 886, res judicata was no applied to bar a subsequent suit for damages, based upon fraud. Specific performance of ......