Hupp v. Superior Court

JAMES, J.

Certiorari

to review the action of the superior court in adjudging petitioner guilty of contempt.

Petitioner is an attorney at law and as such appeared as counsel for defendants in an action brought by one W. C. McEvilly against J. J. Haggarty, J. C. Haggarty, and Frank C. Hill in the superior court of Los Angeles County. The action was commenced on or about the twentieth day of February, 1912. The plaintiff in that action sought to secure an injunction to restrain defendants from interfering with his management of a mercantile institution in the city of Los Angeles, and to restrain them from refusing to accept merchandise purchased by him for the business conducted under his management, and to restrain them from carrying out an alleged threat to close the doors of such mercantile establishment and destroy the credit and business thereof. It was set out in the complaint that the plaintiff purchased from defendant J. J. Haggarty an interest in a certain cloak, suit, and millinery business, for which he agreed to pay a large sum of money; that this business was managed as a corporation, and that after making the purchase referred to McEvilly was appointed president and general manager of the corporation and entered upon the discharge of his duties as such, which included the purchasing of merchandise from time to time for the purpose of keeping up the stock of the establishment. It was further alleged in the complaint filed in the injunction suit that while J. J. Haggarty was conducting a business similar to that in which McEvilly was engaged he became jealous of the success attained by McEvilly, and thereupon entered into a conspiracy with a majority of the members of the board of directors of the corporation of which McEvilly was the president and general manager, which conspiracy had for its object the destruction of the business of that corporation; that the conspirators slandered the credit

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of the corporation and refused to accept merchandise purchased by McEvilly as manager and refused and threatened to refuse to pay for any merchandise ordered by McEvilly, and threatened to close the doors of the business house of the corporation and destroy its credit. An answer being filed, the action came on for trial, and' for the purpose of proving the facts alleged as to the conspiracy, plaintiff called one Silk as a witness.. Silk was the local representative of a San Francisco house which had theretofore supplied merchandise to the corporation hereinbefore referred to and which had extended to the corporation credit. This witness was asked as to statements made to him by J. J. Haggarty, and he testified that Mr. Haggarty had asked him if he was selling goods to McEvilly’s house, and receiving a reply in the affirmative Haggarty said: “Well, go right on if you want to; go right ahead.” The witness then stated that he had stopped selling goods to McEvilly, and that early in February, 1912, he told McEvilly that owing to the unsettled condition of his (McEvilly’s) store he would not sell them goods for a while; that this conversation with McEvilly took place a few days after he had had the conversation with Haggarty. He was then asked this question: “And then you thereupon wrote to Lezinsky Brothers (they being his employers) about the Paris Cloak, Suit