Savings & Trust Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, v. Bear Valley Irr. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 March 1899
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: SAVINGS & TRUST CO. OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, v. BEAR VALLEY IRR. CO. et al. (SPRECKELS BROS. COMMERCIAL CO., Intervener).

93 F. 339

SAVINGS & TRUST CO. OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, v. BEAR VALLEY IRR. CO. et al. (SPRECKELS BROS. COMMERCIAL CO., Intervener).

United States Circuit Court, S.D. California.

March 20, 1899

Wm. J Hunsaker, for complainant.

H. L Titus, for intervener.

ROSS Circuit Judge.

This is an application on the part of the Spreckels Bros. Commercial Company for leave to file a petition in intervention. The suit in which the intervention is thus sought was brought for the foreclosure of a certain mortgage executed by the Bear Valley Irrigation Company to the Savings & Trust Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and also for the foreclosure of certain receivers' certificates issued by the authority and direction of this court in a former suit brought herein by one James Gilbert Foster against the Bear Valley Irrigation Company and others, in which suit that company, under and pursuant to an order therein made by this court, conveyed all of its property to certain receivers therein appointed including the property covered by the mortgage sought to be foreclosed in the present suit. From those receivers the title to the property passed, under the orders of this court to, and is now held by, the receiver appointed in the present suit. The validity of neither the mortgage nor the receivers' certificates, to which title is asserted by the complainant, is questioned by the petition now sought to be filed. The latter is based upon certain indebtedness due from the Bear Valley Irrigation Company to the Spreckels Bros. Commercial Company, which arose and exists, according to the averments of the petition in intervention, in this wise: Subsequent to the execution of the mortgage mentioned, the Spreckels Bros. Commercial Company furnished to the Bear Valley Irrigation Company certain cement, to be, and which was, used by the irrigation company in the construction of a certain irrigating ditch. This was prior to the litigation in which the irrigation company afterwards became involved, and while it was carrying on its ordinary business. As collateral security for the amount due it for the cement, the Spreckles Bros. Commercial Company took from the Bear Valley Irrigation Company certain bonds of the Perris irrigation district, which bonds were afterwards sold by the pledgee, and the proceeds thereof applied on the indebtedness; leaving, however, such the larger part of the indebtedness still due. For this balance the Spreckels Bros. Commercial Company, subsequent to the institution of the present suit, brought an action against the Bear Valley Irrigation Company in the superior court of the county of San Diego, Cal., in which action it recovered a judgment, certified copies of which were recorded in the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, where the property covered by the mortgage and receivers' certificates is situated. That judgment in favor of the Spreckels Bros. Commercial Company remains unpaid.

In respect to judgment liens, a statute of California provides:

'A transcript of the original docket, certified by the clerk, may be filed with the recorder of any other county, and from the time of the filing the judgment becomes a lien upon all the real property of the judgment debtor not exempt from execution in such county, owned by him at the time, or which he may afterwards, and before the lien expires, acquire. The lien continues for two years unless the judgment be previously satisfied. ' Code Civ. Proc. Cal. Sec. 674.

Assuming that the effect of the filing of a certified copy of the judgment is the same as the filing of 'a transcript of the...