Hill v. Dominquez

138 Cal.App.2d Supp. 891 (1955) ROBERT D. HILL, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

ED. S. DOMINQUEZ, Appellant; H. J. CARUSO, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

California Court of Appeals.

Dec. 13, 1955. K. Wallace McKnight for Appellant.

Roger J. Pryor, Block, Toler, Bulloch & Biggerstaff and Elizabeth D. Murphy for Defendants and Respondents.

PATROSSO, J.

Plaintiff, as assignee of H. J. Caruso, Incorporated, instituted this action to recover the balance alleged to be due upon a conditional sales contract for the purchase of an automobile, following a resale of the vehicle after its repossession by the vendor for default of the defendant purchaser. The defendant filed an answer, putting in issue the material allegations of the complaint and in addition thereto filed a cross-complaint to recover the money paid under the contract upon the ground that the same did not comply with the requirements of Civil Code, section 2982. (See Carter v. Seaboard Finance Co. (1949), 33 Cal.2d 564 [203 P.2d 758].) The trial court made findings adverse to the defendant upon all issues and rendered judgment in favor of plaintiff, from which defendant appeals.

The discussion in the briefs takes a wide range but inasmuch as a reversal is required by reason of the error in the rejection of evidence offered by the defendant, we restrict our discussion to this one point.

The contract in question was executed between the defendant and H. J. Caruso, Inc., and after giving credit for a trade-in allowance and a cash down payment of $500, called for an unpaid balance of $2,310.31, payable in monthly installments. H. J. Caruso, Inc., thereupon assigned all of its right, title and interest in and to the contract and the vehicle to Caruso Discount Corporation, which in turn assigned to Commercial Credit Corporation, which repossessed the car on October 19, 1953. Thereafter the finance company delivered the car to Caruso Discount Corporation, which in turn, on November 8, [138 Cal.App.2d Supp. 893] 1953, purported to sell the same to Caruso Enterprises Corporation, for the sum of $1,400. It appears that all of the Caruso corporations previously mentioned do business at the same location, and that H. J. Caruso is president of two of them and one A. J. Caruso the president of the other, and one Kenneth George Barnett is secretary of all. The latter testified that the business of these various corporations was "all basic around one corporation."