Riverdale Mining Co. v. Wicks

112 P. 896, 14 Cal. App. 526, 1910 Cal. App. LEXIS 73
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 19, 1910
DocketCiv. No. 712.
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 112 P. 896 (Riverdale Mining Co. v. Wicks) 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
Riverdale Mining Co. v. Wicks, 112 P. 896, 14 Cal. App. 526, 1910 Cal. App. LEXIS 73 (Cal. Ct. App. 1910).

Opinion

HART, J.

This is a suit to quiet title to certain land situated in Plumas county.

Plaintiff obtained judgment, from which the defendant has taken this appeal.

*528 The evidence from which the court made its findings of fact is undisputed, 'and may he epitomized as follows:

On and prior to the fourth day of October, 1907, one W. W. Kellogg was the owner of the property in controversy. On said fourth day of October, 1907, Kellogg and wife, by deed, conveyed said property to one Lloyd P. Cornell. Said deed was delivered to said Cornell on the day of its execution, and was recorded on the same day in the office of the county recorder of Plumas county, at twenty minutes past 4 o’clock P. M. Immediately after the delivery of said deed to Cornell, and on the said fourth day of October, 1907, the latter executed a deed to one Augustin S. McDonald, conveying to the latter the property concerned here, and said deed so executed to said McDonald was filed for record in the office of the count;*- recorder of Plumas county at twenty-two minutes past 4 o’clock P. M., on the said fourth day of October, 1907. “On the seventh day of October, 1907, Augustin S. McDonald and wife conveyed the property to plaintiff, the deed having been recorded in the office of the county recorder of Plumas county, on October 9th, 1907, at thirty minutes past 9 o’clock A. M. ”

It appears that at the time of the happening of the several transactions so involving the property in dispute referred to in the foregoing statement, there existed against said Cornell and in favor of one O. E. Wright an unsatisfied judgment for the sum of $410.50, together with costs and interest, “said judgment having been recovered by Wright on the ninth day of December, 1903, and duly entered and docketed on that date.”

“On the second day of March, 1908, said judgment being still unsatisfied, an execution issued thereon was levied by the sheriff of Plumas county on the property described in the complaint, and on the twenty-fourth day of March, 1908, said property was sold at sheriff’s sale to appellant, who paid therefor the sum of $560, and on said date received from the sheriff a certificate of sale. ’ ’

The plaintiff is a.corporation, organized under the laws of California, and the first point urged against the validity of the judgment is that, having failed, before the commencement of this action, to file in the office of the county clerk of the county of Plumas a copy of the copy of its articles of incorporation, certified by the Secretary of State, as required *529 by section 299 of the Civil Code, the plaintiff is not entitled to maintain this action.

Said section reads, in part, as follows: “Any corporation failing to comply with the provisions of this section cannot maintain or defend any action or proceeding in relation to such property, its rents, issues, or profits, until such articles of incorporation and such certified copy of its articles of incorporation, and such certified copy of the copy of its articles of incorporation are filed at the places directed by the general law and this section.”

It appears from the record that the original answer contained nothing by way of averment with regard to the failure of the plaintiff to file a certified copy of the copy of its articles of incorporation in the office of the county clerk of Plumas county. On the day on which the cause was called for trial, however, the attorney for defendant applied to the court for permission to amend the answer so that he could interpose a special plea against plaintiff’s right to maintain the action, and in support of said application stated that he had learned for the first time only a half an hour prior to the hour at which court was opened that plaintiff had omitted to comply with the provisions of section 299 of the Civil Code. Counsel for plaintiff objected to the amendment and at the same time requested a continuance of the trial of the ease for a reasonable time within which to enable his client to file a certified copy of the copy of its articles of incorporation. He stated that he had up to that time supposed that such copy had been filed in the clerk’s office, and that the application of defendant for permission to amend the answer had taken him by surprise. Finally the court allowed the amendment, upon an understanding between the attorneys for both sides and the court that, preferably to a postponement of the trial for that purpose, the trial might be proceeded with, and that either during its progress the filing of the articles might be shown, or, if found necessary for that purpose, the case might be kept open fffter the conclusion of the taking of testimony addressed to the merits, so that proof, if available, might be introduced of plaintiff’s compliance with the terms of said section.

Defendant objected, at the times that it was offered, to all the testimony submitted in behalf of plaintiff on the ground that said plaintiff was not "entitled to maintain the action for *530 the reason stated, and the court overruled said objection, subject to a reversal of its rulings thereon should plaintiff, as it was agreed that it might do, fail to prove that a copy of the copy of its articles had been filed in the office of the county clerk.

Agreeably to the said understanding or stipulation, plaintiff, before the case was closed, offered, and, over the objection of defendant, was allowed by the court to prove that, subsequently to the beginning of the trial, it had complied with section 299 in the respect referred to.

The contention of the defendant is that the filing of the articles under the indicated circumstances could not have the effect of curing plaintiff’s incapacity to maintain the action at the time the court permitted the amendment to the answer so that it would include the plea challenging its right to do so.

The defense against the incapacity of a plaintiff to maintain an action involves a mere dilatory plea—in other words, a plea in abatement going only to the disability of plaintiff to maintain the action until such disability is removed. The disability having been removed before the close of the case, the plaintiff was properly allowed, under the stipulation to that effect, to show its capacity to maintain the action. If the court had, after allowing this plea to be added to the answer, and before plaintiff had complied with • the terms of the statute, sustained the plea, the effect of such ruling would have been to abate the action only, and even if a dismissal of the action necessarily followed from the mere allowance of such a plea, which we do not decide, we know of no reason why it would operate as a bar to another suit upon the merits after the removal of the disability. As 'is said in the case of California Savings and Loan Society v. Harris, 111 Cal. 133, [43 Pac. 525], “the failure to file this certified copy does not impose upon the corporation a loss or forfeiture of its property, or impair or deprive it of any cause of action or defense it may have in reference to such property. A previous filing of the certified copy is not a fact essential to the cause of action, or of an element constituting the plaintiff’s right of action; and the omission of such an averment in the complaint is not a ground of demurrer (South Yuba Water Co.

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Bluebook (online)
112 P. 896, 14 Cal. App. 526, 1910 Cal. App. LEXIS 73, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/riverdale-mining-co-v-wicks-calctapp-1910.