Potlatch Lumber Co. v. Runkel

101 P. 396, 16 Idaho 192, 1909 Ida. LEXIS 38
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedApril 8, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 101 P. 396 (Potlatch Lumber Co. v. Runkel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Potlatch Lumber Co. v. Runkel, 101 P. 396, 16 Idaho 192, 1909 Ida. LEXIS 38 (Idaho 1909).

Opinion

AILSHIE, J.

This is an appeal from a final order made by the district judge denying appellant’s application and petition to intervene in an action entitled, Potlatch Lumber Co., Plaintiff, v. George Runkel, Defendant. The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendant, George Runkel, for the recovery of a money judgment in the sum of $739.65 as the purchase price of a lot of fruit boxes. The defendant answered admitting the purchase of the boxes, and pleading a separate defense and counterclaim. Subsequent to the issuance of the summons in the action, the plaintiff procured the issuance of a writ of attachment against the defendant’s property, and thereupon had a tract of 160 acres of land attached as the property of the defendant but standing on the records in the name of Eliza J. Runkel, the wife of the defendant. After the levying of attachment, Mrs. Runkel, the appellant in this ease, filed her petition and application, praying that she be allowed to intervene in the action and establish her right to the real estate attached, and have the cloud cast upon the same by the attachment removed. Appellant alleged in her petition that she was the wife of the defendant, George Runkel, and the absolute and sole owner of the tract [195]*195of land attached, in her separate and individual right, and that her husband had no interest, right or claim whatever in or to the premises. She also alleged that she purchased the property wholly with her own money, received by her inheritance from her father’s estate. It was further alleged that the attachment cast a cloud upon her title and would necessitate her maintaining a separate and independent action to remove such cloud if she were not allowed to intervene to show her right, title and interest to the attached premises. The district court denied her application and this appeal is prosecuted from that order.

The only question confronting us on this appeal is to determine whether or not the appellant has shown such “an interest in the matter in litigation, in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both,” as to entitle her to intervene and become a party to the further proceedings in the action.

Upon first impression, we were strongly inclined to believe that there was no merit in appellant’s contention, but the more we have examined into the matter and considered the statute, as well as the nature of appellant’s claim, the more we are convinced that appellant should have been permitted to intervene in this action for the purpose of having the cloud cast by the attachment removed from her property, provided she could establish the allegations of her complaint to the effect that she is the sole and absolute owner of the property in her own right. Our statute authorizing intervention is section 4111 of the Revised Codes, and is as follows:

“Any person may, before the trial, intervene in an action or proceeding, who has an interest in the matter in litigation, in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both. An intervention tabes place when a third person is permitted to become a party to an action or proceeding between other persons, either by joining the plaintiff in claiming what is sought by the complaint, or by uniting with the defendant in resisting the claims of the plaintiff, or by demanding anything adversely to both the plaintiff and the defendant, and is made by complaint, setting forth the [196]*196¿round upon which the intervention rests, filed by leave of the court, and served upon the parties to the action or proceeding who have not appeared and upon the attorneys of the parties who have appeared, who may answer or demur to it as if it were an original complaint. ’ ’

This provision of our statute was copied from the California statute and is identical with section 387 of the California Code of Civil Procedure. (3 Kerr’s Code, p. 431.) The California statute, in turn, was copied from Louisiana, and this is true with practically all the statutes of the middle and western states authorizing intervention. This remedy was not known at common law, but seems to be a product of the civil law, and had its origin in this country in Louisiana. (Hyman v. Cameron, 46 Miss. 725; note to Brown v. Saul, 16 Am. Dec. 177.)

The leading California case dealing with this statute is that of Horn v. Volcano Water Co., 13 Cal. 62, 73 Am. Dec. 569. The opinion in that case was written by Justice Field, and the right which will authorize an intervention is there defined as follows: “To authorize an intervention, therefore, the interest must be that created by a claim to the demand, or some part thereof, in suit, or claim to, or lien upon, the property, or some part thereof, which is the subject of litigation.” In support of this holding, Louisiana cases are cited. In the Horn case, the California court permitted judgment creditors having judgment lien against the property involved in the litigation to intervene and set up their respective rights.

The rights of third parties to intervene seem to have been frequent subjects of consideration before the supreme court of California immediately succeeding the adoption of this statute in 1854. In Speyer v. Ihmels, 21 Cal. 280, 81 Am. Dec. 157, and while Justice Field was still a member of the California supreme court, the question arose over the right of a subsequent attaching creditor to intervene in the suit of a senior attaching creditor and there to urge the fraudulent character of the senior attachment. The court in passing [197]*197upon the interest, or, rather, the character of the interest, asserted by the intervenor, said:

“Although the intervenors have not a claim to or lien upon any property which is the direct subject of litigation in' this action, they have a lien upon property which is held subject to the results of the litigation, and which would be lost to the intervenors, if the original action should proceed to judgment and execution. If the case does not fall within the precise definition of the cases in which intervention takes place, as given in section 659, and as explained in the case of Horn v. Volcano Waterworks, 18 Cal. 62, 73 Am. Dec. 569, it is substantially within the object provided for by that section, and as that is a law only regulating modes of procedure, and not affecting rights of property, we think the interpretation given to it in the case of Davis v. Eppinger, 18 Cal. 378, 79 Am. Dec. 184, should not be changed.”

Since the decision in the Speyer-Ihmels case, the California court has repeatedly held that a junior attaching creditor may intervene in the action of a senior attaching creditor for the purpose of testing the validity of the first attachment. (McComb v. Reed, 28 Cal. 281, 87 Am. Dec. 115; Coghill v. Marks, 29 Cal. 673; Kimball v. Richardson-Kimball Co., 111 Cal. 386, 43 Pac. 1111; McEldowney v. Madden, 124 Cal. 108, 56 Pac. 783. See, also, Stick v. Dickinson, 38 Cal. 608.) It has also been held by the same court that a wife might intervene in a foreclosure suit against her husband and set up her homestead right to the mortgaged premises. (Mabury v. Ruiz, 58 Cal. 11; Sargent v. Wilson, 5 Cal. 504.)

In Louisiana (Cobb v. Depue, 22 La. Ann. 244) the court held that a third party might intervene for the purpose of claiming money that had been collected by the sheriff upon execution that had issued on a judgment of the plaintiff in the main case.

Field v. Harrison, 20 La.

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Bluebook (online)
101 P. 396, 16 Idaho 192, 1909 Ida. LEXIS 38, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/potlatch-lumber-co-v-runkel-idaho-1909.