INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT CO., INC. v. Chagnon

O’DONNELL, J. pro tem.

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This is an appeal from an order granting defendant’s motion for a change of venue from the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco to the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Since the appeal in this case was perfected, the defendant and respondent Gladyce C. Merola has died. Helen King Chagnon, as executrix of her estate, has been substituted as respondent in the place of Gladyce C. Merola. When we speak herein of the defendant we are referring to the decedent Gladyce C. Merola.

The complaint alleges the execution by the individual plaintiffs, on the one hand, and defendant on the other, of a written contract whereunder the individual plaintiffs, who are attorneys-at-law, promised to perform certain legal services on behalf of defendant, and defendant promised to pay them a stipulated fee therefor. The complaint further alleges that the contract was executed in the City and County of San Francisco. Paragraph VIII of the Complaint reads:

“In addition to those services rendered by plaintiffs Hatch and Athearn under the terms of said agreement, defendant has become indebted to them in the additional sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000.00) as and for the reasonable value of other legal services rendered by said plaintiffs to

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and at the special instance and request of said defendant and for her use and benefit.”

Plaintiffs pray for judgment against defendants for the amount allegedly due them for attorneys’ services.

Defendant’s motion for an order changing the place of trial was made and granted on the ground that defendant was a resident of Los Angeles County. Section 395, subdivision 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that “the county in which the defendants, or some of them, reside at the commencement of the action, shall be a proper county for the trial of the action.” The same subparagraph further provides that, “. . . When a defendant has contracted to perform an obligation in a particular county, either the county where such obligation is to be performed, or in which the contract in fact was entered into, or the county in which the defendant, or any such defendant, resides at the commencement of the action, shall be a proper county for the trial of an action founded on such obligation, and the county in which such obligation is incurred shall be deemed to be the county in which it is to be performed unless there is a special contract in writing to the contrary.” It is plaintiffs’ contention that the complaint in this action shows on its face that the contract was executed in the City and County of San Francisco, and that the lower court therefore erred in transferring the action to Los Angeles County for trial.