Allen v. Chatfield

KERRIGAN, J.

The object of this action was to recover five thousand dollars paid by the plaintiff to the defendant on account of the purchase of certain real property according to the terms of a written contract.

The facts of the case and the controversy arising out of the transaction, with the exception of the points raised upon this appeal, were fully presented to the supreme court in a former appeal taken herein and determined by that court in a very

[786]

comprehensive opinion written by Mr. Justice Shaw

(Allen

v.

Chatfield,

172 Cal. 60, [156 Pac. 47]). A second trial being had, the defendant for the first time raised the point that plaintiff was not the real party in interest, and therefore not entitled to recover. Upon this issue the trial court, upon the evidence introduced, found against the contention of the defendant and gave judgment in favor of the plaintiff for the amount of his demand, from which judgment defendant prosecutes this appeal.

It appears from the evidence without conflict that plaintiff tool? the contract here involved in his own name but for the benefit of another person; and it is the defendant’s contention that such other person is the real party in interest and the one entitled to sue upon the contract and not the plaintiff.

Having taken the contract in his name for the benefit of another, plaintiff became a trustee of an express trust, and was therefore authorized to sue in his name alone. The Code of Civil Procedure, section 369, provides: “An executor or administrator, or trustee of an express trust, or a person expressly authorized by statute, may sue without joining with him the persons for whose benefit the action is prosecuted. A person with whom, or in whose name, a contract is made for the benefit of another, is a trustee of an express trust, within the meaning of this section.” The reason for the exception established by this section of the Code of Civil Procedure readily reaches also the case of an agent contracting in his own name for an undisclosed principal or group of principals.