Patterson v. Blackburn

BRITTAIN, J.

One of the defendants only appeals from the judgment, by which it was decreed that the p1a.i-nt.iff owned two pieces of property in Los Angeles, with a direction that conveyance should be executed by each of the two defendants of the properties to the plaintiff. Judgment followed the trial in which an advisory jury was impaneled to try the principal issues presented by the pleadings.

The plaintiff sued her husband and the appellant, alleging that she was the owner of the properties designated, respectively, “the apartment house” and “the bungalow” properties, which, by the fraudulent practices of her husband, she had been induced to convey to him and which, he in turn conveyed to the appellant, who, it was alleged, was. not a

bona fide

purchaser without notice.

[1]

The complaint was verified. The husband’s answer was hot verified, and, therefore, under the law, it constituted an admission on his part of the fraud practiced by him upon his wife. His co-defendant, the appellant, answered, setting up ownership of the properties in herself and denying substantially all the facts upon which the plaintiff relied for recovery. As to each of the properties specific interrogatories were submitted to the advisory jury, which returned a verdict in

[364]

favor of the plaintiff and determined, in the first instance as a matter of fact, that the appellant was not a

bona fide

purchaser for value.

[2]

On return of the verdict, on March 26, 1918, the clerk made a minute entry of what purported to be a -judgment, such as would have been entered had the case been one at common law. This purported judgment was formally entered March 30, 1918. On March 28, 1918, judgment and decree was signed by the judge who presided at the trial, reciting that he adopted the findings of the jury. It was formally entered April 4, 1918. On April 5, 1918, the attorney for the plaintiff served upon the attorneys for the appellant a notice that “on March 30, 1918, the verdict of the jury and judgment thereon and judgment and decree in favor of the plaintiff was entered by the clerk of the court.” Motion for new trial on the part of Monnie Blackburn was denied, and notice of appeal was filed. The notice of appeal, entitled in the cause, stated that Monnie Blackburn appealed “from the judgment heretofore entered herein on the thirtieth day of March, 1918, and the whole thereof.”