Solari v. Show
Before: Fitzgebald
Synopsis
Evidence—Admission— Unverified Complaint—Harmless Error,—An unverified complaint signed alone by the attorney of plaintiff without proof that the plaintiff had any notice of its contents, is not admissible against the plaintiff as evidence of his admission of facts stated therein, or to contradict his testimony to the contrary on the trial of another case; but where it affirmatively appears from the record upon appeal that defendant could not have been injured by its admission, a judgment against him will not be reversed for such error.
Id.—Deed by Assumed Attorney in Fact—Notice to Purchaser.— Where a deed purporting to be from the plaintiff to the defendant of the property in question, was signed by one of the grantors as the assumed attorney in fact of the plaintiff, he having no authority to execute it for the plaintiff, such deed is of itself sufficient to charge the defendant with notice of the character and extent of plaintiff’s interest in the property, and of such pretended relation of agency, at and prior to the purchase of the property by the defendant, and he takes it subject to plaintiff’s interest therein.
Fitzgebald, J. Action to quiet plaintiff's title to the land described in the complaint against the claims of defendant; and for the recovery of the possession thereof; also to cancel a tax deed issued to defendant therefor as a cloud on plaintiff’s title; and for rents and profits, and damages for withholding.
Plaintiff had judgment, and defendant appeals from the judgment and the order denying his motion for a new trial.
The evidence shows that plaintiff was the owner of the property described in the complaint at the date of its purchase by the defendant. This being so, it is only necessary to consider but two of the questions discussed by counsel in their briefs, as their decision necessarily disposes of the others raised by the record on this appeal.
These questions are:
1. Did Domingo Grondoma who joined—individually and as attorney in fact of plaintiff—with his wife and son in the execution of the deed to defendant of the premises in controversy sustain or claim to sustain at and prior to the execution' thereof the relation of attorney in fact to plaintiff?
2. If so, did defendant purchase said property with notice, either actual or constructive, of such relation, and of plaintiff’s owfiership thereof?
On these questions the court in its decision found adversely to appellant, and as the findings thereon, as well as the other findings attacked by the specifications, are fully justified by the evidence, they will not, under the [389]well-established rule of this court, be disturbed, unless the rulings of the court complained of in relation to the admission and rejection of evidence bearing upon these questions were erroneous.
There are thirty assignments of error claimed to have been committed by the court during the trial of the cause, but the only one necessary to be noticed, the others being immaterial or unimportant, is the one relating to the admission, against defendant’s objection, of an unverified complaint signed by the attorney alone, the contents of which were not shown to have been known to the plaintiff therein, filed September 1, 1887, in a certain action brought in the superior court of Santa Barbara county, notice of which was thereafter duly recorded and filed, wherein the said Domingo Grondoma was plaintiff, and his son, Jose H., and Encarnación, the wife of the said Domingo, were defendants.
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