Lawler v. Gleason

279 P.2d 70, 130 Cal. App. 2d 390, 1955 Cal. App. LEXIS 1910
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 26, 1955
DocketCiv. 15933
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 279 P.2d 70 (Lawler v. Gleason) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lawler v. Gleason, 279 P.2d 70, 130 Cal. App. 2d 390, 1955 Cal. App. LEXIS 1910 (Cal. Ct. App. 1955).

Opinion

*392 PETERS, P. J.

H. Glenn Lawler filed a complaint containing three counts. The first count is directed against Max and Ernest Manig and Sheriff Gleason. It is an action for declaratory relief seeking a declaration of the rights of the parties under various certificates of redemption issued by the sheriff, to determine whether a tender by Max Manig of $3,660.93 was sufficient to redeem rather than $10,469.05 demanded by plaintiff, and to determine whether Max Manig was legally capable of redeeming. The second cause of action names Max, Ernest and Paul Manig as defendants and seeks to quiet Lawler’s title to the real property against the claims of the named defendants. The third cause of action seeks a writ of mandate to compel the sheriff to make and record a sheriff’s deed to the property and to deliver it to Lawler.

Max Manig demurred to the complaint, but his demurrer was overruled. The propriety of this ruling is not involved on this appeal. Sheriff Gleason filed a general demurrer and also specially demurred on the ground of a “misjoinder of parties defendant.” The trial court, by general order, sustained the sheriff’s demurrer without leave to amend. From the judgment entered on this order plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.

The real property involved in this litigation, and some of the parties, have been before this court on a prior occasion. In Manig v. Bachman, 127 Cal.App.2d 216 [273 P.2d 596], the trial court, subject to redemption rights, quieted title to the property in Lawler against the claims of Max Manig. This judgment was reversed and the cause returned to the trial court for further proceedings. The history of the property is set forth in that opinion and need not again be related in detail. Suffice it to say that recorded title to the property was in Ernest Manig from October 21, 1949, until February 15, 1952. All during this period actual title was in Max Manig who, since May 1, 1947, had an unrecorded deed to the property from Ernest, which he did not record until February 15, 1952.

Lawler’s claim to the property is based on the following facts: In 1951 various creditors of Ernest Manig levied on the property. These creditors all secured judgments against Ernest Manig. One Bachman had the first lien, followed in order by Pritchett, Lamondo and then Lawler. Lawler came into the picture on August 9, 1951, when he sued Ernest and attached the property. He secured his judgment for over $6,000 against Ernest on January 4, 1952. All during these *393 periods the real property stood of record in the name of Ernest.

Pritchett instituted an execution sale to collect on his judgment, and purchased the property on December 11, 1951, at that sale, which was conducted by Gleason, the sheriff. Shortly thereafter Lawler purchased the Lamondo judgment. Then on February 8, 1952, Lawler, as a junior encumbrancer, redeemed the property from Pritchett, who also owned the Bachman judgment. Lawler paid $3,362.30 to redeem, which included the amounts of the Bachman and Pritchett judgments.

Pritchett had purchased the property at the execution sale held on December 11, 1951. Thus, the statutory period for redemption by a judgment debtor would have expired December 11, 1952. On December 9, 1952, Lawler transmitted to the sheriff a written statement indicating that he contended that a judgment debtor would have to pay $10,469.05 to redeem the property. This demand included the total of the amounts of the Bachman, Pritchett, Lamondo and Lawler judgments, plus the statutory interest and other statutory charges.

On February 15, 1952, Max Manig had recorded his deed from Ernest by which, on May 1, 1947, Ernest had conveyed to Max the property. On December 10, 1952, one day before the period for redemption by a judgment debtor would have expired, Max Manig purported to redeem the property by paying to the sheriff $3,660.93, and received from the sheriff a certificate of redemption. Lawler refused to accept the $3,660.93, and then brought this present action.

The parties argue several points. The sheriff, as respondent, among other things, argues that the demurrer was properly sustained on the ground that the sheriff was improperly joined as a defendant. One of the grounds of the demurrer was misjoinder of parties. In trying to support the argument that there was a misjoinder of parties, respondent seems to argue that there was an improper uniting of several causes of action. But respondent did not specially demur on the ground that several causes of action were improperly united as he had the legal right to do (Code Civ. Proc., § 430, subd. 5), but specially demurred on the ground of misjoinder of parties, which is a separate ground for demurrer (Code Civ. Proc., § 430, subd. 4).

Respondent’s argument seems to be that there is a misjoinder unless each named defendant is made a party to each *394 pleaded cause of action. Whatever the law may have been prior to 1927, it is now certain that since the amendments of that year to the sections on joinder of defendants (see Code Civ. Proc., §§ 379, 379a, 379b, and 379c), it is not necessary that the named defendants be interested or affected by all of the relief requested or in every cause of action set forth in the complaint. In fact, even before the amendments of 1927, this was held to be the law in a situation parallel to that presented in the instant case. (See Morris v. Judkins, 36 Cal.App. 413 [172 P. 163].) It is too clear to require further comment that, under the sections as amended, the Manigs and the sheriff are either necessary or proper parties in the declaratory relief action, that the sheriff makes no claim to the property and so is not directly interested in the quiet title action, but that the determinations as to that cause of action will directly affect the mandamus action. Therefore, the sheriff was not improperly joined as a defendant.

Moreover, even if there had been a demurrer to the uniting of the three causes of action, based on the failure to name all the defendants in each cause of action (there was no such demurrer filed), such demurrer would have been without merit. There is a long line of cases holding that: “Moreover, it has been held that the liberal amended statutes on joinder of parties referred to above enlarged the old rules of joinder of causes of action, so that causes now may be joined when they meet the tests of the sections on joinder of parties, and that all such causes do not have to affect all parties to the action.” (Shotwell v. Bloom, 60 Cal.App.2d 303, 308 [140 P.2d 728], and cases there cited.)

The next contention of appellant is that Max Manig had no legal right to redeem, and that, therefore, regardless of how much Max offered to the sheriff for redemption purposes, such sum ought not to have been accepted. Accepting the allegations of the complaint as true, as we must on this appeal, it seems clear that Max Manig had no legal right to redeem. The complaint, therefore, states a cause of action against the sheriff for a declaration that the sheriff had no legal right to accept Max Manig as a redemptioner.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
279 P.2d 70, 130 Cal. App. 2d 390, 1955 Cal. App. LEXIS 1910, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lawler-v-gleason-calctapp-1955.