Holm v. Davis

ROTH, J.,

pro

tem.

In this action instituted in the Superior Court of this State in and for the County of Santa Barbara, respondents as plaintiffs sued appellant for the possession of a silver-mounted and trimmed saddle, bridle, collar, reins, romal and tie-down which had previously been sold to appellant by respondents’ assignor on a conditional sales contract (hereinafter referred to as contract) for an agreed price of $850; appellant having defaulted in payment in violation of the terms of the contract. The complaint alleges the reasonable value of the property to be $750; that the reasonable value of the use from the alleged date of unlawful detention is $40 per month for a period of ten months, or a total of $400, and alleges further that plaintiffs are entitled to a reasonable attorney^ fee in accordance with the purported provision of the contract providing therefor.

Appellant first urges that the cause of action was one of which a justice’s court, class A, had original and exclusive jurisdiction. Section 112 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as it was at the time the action was brought and as it is now, substantially, so far as it is applicable to the facts here, provided and provides that “justices’ courts of class A shall have original jurisdiction: In all eases at law in which . . . the value of the property in controversy amounts to one thousand dollars or less, ...” It is settled that in such eases the jurisdiction of such justice court would be original and exclusive.

(Shipp

v.

Superior Court,

209 Cal. 671 [289 Pac. 825];

Larson

v.

Du Bain,

135 Cal. App. 433 [27 Pac. (2d) 393].)

Since the reasonable value of the property is alleged to be the sum of $750, the remaining question is to determine what effect, if any, the allegations of the complaint with respect to

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