Coubrough v. Adams

California Supreme Court Aug 2, 1886 No. No. 9450Published

Before: Belcher

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that while the trial court properly admitted evidence of a prior pending action and a stipulation regarding the subject matter, the final judgment should have been for abatement of the action rather than a judgment on the merits.

Issues

Whether a stipulation regarding the subject matter of a pending action was admissible without being specially pleaded.
Whether the trial court abused its discretion in allowing an amendment to the answer to plead a prior lis pendens.
Whether the proper judgment in a case of prior lis pendens is abatement or a judgment on the merits.

Disposition. reversed and remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“It was not necessary to plead the stipulation specially, and it seems to us that it was clearly admissible for the purposes for which it was introduced.”

“The allowance of amendments to pleadings is a matter within the discretion of the trial court, and this court can only interfere with the exercise of that discretion when it appears to have been abused.”

Synopsis

Pleading—Stipulation to Aside Prior Action—Evidence—Plea in Bar.—In an action on a promissory note, where the answer pleads a prior judgment in favor of the defendant in bar, a stipulation signed by the parties and filed in the case, wherein the plaintiff admits that the indebtedness in controversy was involved in the prior action, and agrees that the subsequent action shall be determined by the prior one, is admissible in support of the plea in bar without being specially pleaded.

Id.—Amendment to Answer—Pendency of Prior Action—Discretion. — Permitting the defendant at the close of the trial to amend his answer by setting up the pendency of another action involving the same cause of action, held, not an abuse of discretion under the circumstances of the case.

Id. — Prior Action for Accounting—Subsequent Action on Certain Items. — The pendency of an action for an accounting may be pleaded in abatement of a subsequent action between the same parties founded on one or more items involved in the prior action.

Id. — Sustaining Plea—Proper Judgment—Abatement.—Where a plea of the pendency of a former action is sustained, the proper judgment to he entered is one abating the subsequent action, and not a judgment that the plaintiff take nothing thereby.

Belcher, C. C. This is an action to recover the amount alleged to be due on a promissory note executed by the defendant’s testator to the order of McFarlane, Blair & Co., and by them indorsed to the plaintiff.

The complaint is in the usual form, setting forth a copy of the note, and was filed in the District Court of the third judicial district for Alameda County on the twenty-eighth day of June, 1876.

The defendant answered to the complaint, setting up the circumstances under which the note was given, and alleging that it was indorsed to plaintiff after its maturity, and had been fully, paid.

At the time this action was commenced, there was pending in the District Court of the nineteenth judicial district another action, which was commenced by James Oliver, administrator of the estate of Jonas Collycott, deceased, and John Shoenbar, as plaintiffs, against David B. Blair, McFarlane, Blair & Co., James Adams, the defendant’s testator, and Henry Coubrough, the plaintiff herein, as defendants.

The last-named action was commenced to dissolve a' partnership alleged to have existed between the plaintiffs, Collycott and Shoenbar, and the defendant Blair, and for an accounting, and to compel Blair to surrender to the plaintiffs certain shares of stock alleged to belong to the plaintiffs. In the complaint it was alleged that Cou[376]brough was the agent and employee of Blair and Mc-Farlane, Blair & Co. Coubrough failed to answer to the complaint, and his default was entered. The defendant’s testator answered, and among other things set up that he was induced by Blair to make the note in suit here as an accommodation, and that it had been fully paid. He also pleaded the commencement and pendency of this action.

Afterward, on the tenth day of December, 1878, the parties to this action entered into a stipulation as follows:—

“Inasmuch as the amount in controversy in this action is also involved in the suit in the Nineteenth District Court of San Francisco, in the action No. 2465, in which James Oliver (administrator ■ of the estate of Jonas Collycott) and John Shoenbar are plaintiffs, and David B. Blair and others are defendants, in which said last-named suits an accounting is being had between said parties. It is therefore agreed that the matters in this action, and the claim of plaintiff therein, enter into and abide the event of said suit in the Nineteenth District Court. And it is further agreed that in the event of a judgment being given against Adams in said action in the Nineteenth District Court, he shall, upon satisfaction of the same, receive a clear receipt from said Coubrough against the judgment given in the Third District Court of Alameda in said suit,—Coubrough v. Adams. All proceedings in said action in the Third District Court shall be stayed until after final decision- in the case in the Nineteenth District Court, provided said case in the Nineteenth District Court be settled within three months from date hereof.”

Coubrough v. Adams

AI Brief

Synopsis

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief