Crandall v. Title Guarantee and Trust Co.

BARNARD, P. J.

The plaintiff executed and delivered a promissory note and a trust deed securing the same which

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covered two separate parcels of real property, one situated in the city of Newport Beach and the other in the city of Laguna Beach. After default, the property was sold under the terms of the trust deed. The plaintiff brought this action to set aside the sale and to quiet title to the property in himself. The defendants answered and filed a cross-complaint asking that title be quieted in them. The matter was submitted to the court' on a stipulation as to the facts, from which it appears that a notice of sale of the property was published in a newspaper in the city of Newport Beach, and .that no such notice was ever published in any newspaper printed and published in the city of Laguna Beach. From a judgment denying relief to the plaintiff and quieting title in the defendants and cross-complainants, this appeal is taken.

It is conceded that this sale was regular in all other respects and the only question here presented is whether the publication of the notice of sale was insufficient since the same was not published in a newspaper printed and circulated in each of the cities named. This depends upon the meaning of that portion of subdivision 3 of section 692 of the Code of Civil Procedure, reading as follows: “ ... and publishing a copy thereof once a week for the same period, [in] some newspaper of general circulation printed and published in the city in which the property or some part thereof is situated, if any part thereof is situated in a city, . . . ”

The appellant argues that the meaning of “the property” in the quoted portion of the statute is in doubt and calls for interpretation; that the words “the property or some part thereof” should be interpreted to mean “the parcel or some part thereof”; that the purpose of the statute is to give the best possible notice of the sale; that the interpretation contended for would contribute to that result; and that with this purpose in mind it must be held that the legislature intended to provide for the publication of such a notice in each city in which any parcel or part of a parcel of the real property is situated.

The argument, that publication in both of these cities would tend to give a better notice of the intended sale, could be more appropriately made in a legislative forum than here. As adopted, the statute provides for such publication in the