Routh v. Palm Oil Co.

VALLEE, J.

Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment for defendants in an action for money.

The complaint alleges three separate transactions entered into by defendants with plaintiff: the first, the sale by plaintiff to defendants of an oil lease for which $7,000 was unpaid; the second, the obtaining by plaintiff for defendants of another oil lease for which defendants agreed to pay plaintiff a commission of $2,500, which was unpaid; the third, for the reasonable value of pipe and tubing sold to defendants. The court found plaintiff had been paid in full, and he appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial. The order denying a new trial is not appeal-able and the appeal therefrom must be dismissed.

Plaintiff asserts a finding that defendants were not general partners is unsupported by the evidence. The point is of no consequence. Since the court found plaintiff had been paid in full, it is immaterial whether defendants were partners.

Plaintiff obliquely challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings that he was paid in full. Such contention requires plaintiff to demonstrate that there is no substantial evidence to support the challenged findings.

(Nichols

v.

Mitchell,

32 Cal.2d 598, 600 [197 P.2d 550].) Plaintiff, however, recites only evidence favorable to him. It is well established that a reviewing court starts with the presumption that the record contains evidence to sustain every finding of fact. It is not the province of a reviewing court to search the record in order to ascertain whether it contains evidence that will sustain a contention made by either party to the appeal.

(Fuschi

v.

Vir Den,

107 Cal.App.2d 280, 283-284 [236 P.2d 829];

Marson

v.

Rand,

107 Cal.App.2d 466, 468 [237 P.2d 18].) Where an appellant claims that

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