Zenker-Felt Imports v. Malloy

• Decision Date: 04 February 1981
• Docket Number: ZENKER-FELT
• Citation: 115 Cal.App.3d 713,171 Cal.Rptr. 482
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: IMPORTS, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Terry MALLOY, Defendant and Appellant. Civ. 49917.

Page 482

171 Cal.Rptr. 482

115 Cal.App.3d 713

ZENKER-FELT IMPORTS, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Terry MALLOY, Defendant and Appellant.

Civ. 49917.

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

Feb. 4, 1981.

As Modified March 2, 1981.

Michael F. Malloy, Janssen, Malloy & Marchi, Eureka, for defendant and appellant.

John L. Quinn, Eureka, for plaintiff and respondent.

RATTIGAN, Acting Presiding Justice.

This appeal is from a judgment of the Municipal Court for the Eureka Judicial District (hereinafter "municipal court"). The appeal was initially taken to the Appellate Department of the Humboldt County Superior Court ("superior court"). The sole question presented to the superior court was whether appellant Terry Malloy had made a timely request for findings in the municipal court action. The superior court held that the request had not been timely, and affirmed the judgment, but certified to this court that transfer here was "necessary to secure uniformity of decision" on the issue. (See Code Civ.Proc., § 911; Rule 61 et seq., Cal.Rules of Court.) ¹ This court ordered the transfer pursuant to Rule 62. We consequently reexamine the question of timeliness.

Procedural Sequence

The municipal court judgment emerged from a complicated factual and procedural background which involved three actions brought in that court. One of them may be disregarded because it is not directly pertinent to the appeal. The other two may be summarized as a single "action" because they were consolidated in the municipal court.

The action was tried by the municipal court in two separate phases conducted on April 23 and June 26, 1979. ² Written findings of fact and conclusions of law were not requested before or during either phase. Pursuant to an order made at the conclusion of the second phase, the action was submitted on June 28.

On July 26, the court filed a memorandum decision ("Notice Of Intended Decision ...") in which it reviewed the complicated evidence and the procedural history of the action; set out some equally complicated arithmetical calculations; and ordered in effect that respondent Zenker-Felt Imports was entitled to recover a money judgment against appellant in the amount of $3,545.54. Written findings of fact and conclusions of law were not mentioned.

On August 2, appellant served and filed a formal request that written "findings of fact and conclusions of law be made in this action." On August 22, the court filed a "Ruling ..." in which the request was effectively denied as "untimely." ³ The court thereupon made no findings, but entered a judgment in respondent's favor pursuant to the memorandum decision filed on July 26.

Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal to the superior court. He contended on the ensuing appeal that his request for findings had been timely; that he was accordingly entitled to findings; and that the municipal court had committed reversible error in denying the request and entering the judgment without them. In a detailed opinion filed on June 24, 1980, the superior court held that the request had not been timely; affirmed the judgment; and certified the cause to this court as described above.

Review

Whether written findings of fact and conclusions of law are required in a superior or municipal court, and the timeliness of a request for them in either court, are controlled by section 632 of the Code of Civil Procedure. ⁴ The statute provides in its third paragraph that findings are "deemed waived" (i. e., that they are not required) in a municipal court action "unless expressly requested by one or more of the parties at the time of the trial ...." (See fn. 4, ante.) Appellant having "expressly requested" findings five weeks after the conclusion of the "trial" as such, and several days after the municipal court had announced its intended decision, the question is whether his request was made "at the time of the trial" within the meaning of the language just quoted.

Commencing with Engleman v. Green (1954) 125 Cal.App.2d Supp. 882, 270 P.2d 127, the appellate departments of other superior courts have interpreted the language to mean that findings are required in a municipal court action if they are requested at any time before judgment is entered: i. e., that a request for them is timely if it is made before judgment. (Engleman v. Green, supra, at pp. 884-886, 270 P.2d 127; Haupt v. La Brea Heating etc. Co. (1954) 125 Cal.App.2d Supp. 888, 889, 270 P.2d 125; Hardy v. Foster (1954) 125 Cal.App.2d Supp. 890, 891, 270 P.2d 130; Cannon v. Goble (1954) 127 Cal.App.2d Supp. 833, 273 P.2d 44; see Diesel Constr. Equip. Co. v. Neveils (1963) 214 Cal.App.2d Supp. 877, 879-880, 30 Cal.Rptr. 163.) These courts have followed the reasoning, first expressed in Engleman, that a request made before judgment is made "at the time of the trial" because "until the judgment is entered the trial is not over." (Engleman v. Green, supra, at pp. 884-885, 270 P.2d 127.)

Appellant cited some of these decisions on his appeal to the superior court. The court acknowledged them in its opinion (citing Engleman, Haupt, and Hardy ), but expressly declined to follow them; cited and discussed section 632 and the pertinent Rules; held that appellant's request for findings was not timely according to "our interpretation of the applicable law"; and affirmed the judgment on that ground. The superior court's departure from the Engleman line of decisions prompted its certification that transfer was "necessary to secure uniformity of decision."

We agree with the superior court. We therefore hold that a request for findings in a municipal court action is untimely and ineffective unless it is made "at the time of the trial" in the literal and conventional sense of that term.

This result is based on our interpretation of section 632 itself. It provides in its first paragraph that findings are not "required" in any trial court "except as ... provided" in the statute. (See fn. 4, ante.) The second paragraph provides in effect that findings are required in a superior court action only if a party requests them when the court has announced its intended decision and "(w)ithin the time after such announcement permitted by rules of the Judicial Council." (See ibid.) The Legislature has thus prescribed in the second paragraph that whether findings are "required" in a superior court action may not be determined until after the court's announcement of its intended decision, and that they may neither be requested nor waived before that.

The third paragraph of the statute commands precisely the opposite interpretation as to an action in a municipal court. It provides in effect that findings are required in that court only if they have been "expressly requested by one or more of the parties at the time of the trial." The paragraph does not refer to the municipal court's announcement of its intended decision. Read in contrast to the second paragraph of the statute addressed to superior courts, the third paragraph unmistakably imports that findings are required in a municipal court only if they are "expressly requested" before its announcement of intended decision. Because the words "at the time of the trial" necessarily refer to a "time" before the announcement, we perceive that the Legislature intended them to mean the "trial" in the literal sense of that term: i. e., the proceeding at which evidence is received and the action is submitted for decision.

The pertinent distinction between the second and third paragraphs of section 632 has been recognized by the Judicial Council in the rules it has adopted for the respective trial courts pursuant to the seventh paragraph of the statute. (See fn. 4, ante.) Rule 232, which applies in superior courts only, provides in effect that findings may not be requested or waived until after the court has announced its intended decision as required by the second paragraph of section 632. ⁵ Rule 520, which applies only in the municipal courts, effectively provides the converse: i. e., that findings must be requested before the announcement and may not be requested afterward. ⁶ Rule 520 thus demonstrates that the Judicial Council has similarly interpreted the third paragraph of section 632 as providing that findings in a municipal court action must be requested at the "trial" in the literal sense of that term.

The Judicial Council is established by a section of the Constitution which further provides that "(t)o improve the administration of justice the council shall ... adopt rules for court administration, practice and procedure, not inconsistent with statute, and perform other functions prescribed by statute." (Cal.Const., art. VI, § 6.) The Council has adopted Rule 520 in the performance of a "function" prescribed by section 632, which it is obligated to effectuate and enforce in the "administration of justice." The Council's interpretation of the statutory term "the time of the trial" is consequently to be accorded the benefit of the familiar rule that the contemporaneous construction of a statute by an administrative agency charged with its enforcement is entitled to "great weight" unless it is "clearly erroneous or unauthorized." (Rivera v. City of Fresno (1971) 6 Cal.3d 132, 140, 98 Cal.Rptr. 281, 490 P.2d 793; Judson Steel Corp. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 658, 668-669, 150 Cal.Rptr. 250, 586 P.2d 564; State Compensation Ins. Fund v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 43, 53, 152 Cal.Rptr. 153.)

The last-quoted qualification invokes the opposing rules that administrative construction of a statute is not conclusive, and that the final responsibility for its interpretation rests with the courts alone. (Mooney v. Pickett (1971) 4 Cal.3d 669, 681, 94 Cal.Rptr. 279, 483 P.2d 1231; State Compensation Ins. Fund v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd., supra, 88 Cal.App.3d 43 at p. 54, 152 Cal.Rptr. 153.) As we have seen, however, the Judicial Council's...