Alison v. Goldtree

Henshaw, J. This action is in equity, and is brought by the plaintiffs as beneficiaries under a trust created by the will of Jonathan Thompson, deceased, against [546]defendant Isaac Goldtree, as trustee of the trust, to compel an accounting from and after the second day of October, 1892, and for the removal of the trustee. The defendants other than Isaac Goldtree were brought in as claiming some beneficial interest under the trust. Proper allegations were made showing that in another action against this trustee for an accounting it was adjudged and decreed that there was due to the trust from him the sum of twelve thousand one hundred and fifty-four dollars and sixty-eight cents. By this earlier action the transactions of the trustee were passed upon by the court from the inception of his duties to the second day of October, 1892. It is pleaded that this judgment is a final determination of the trustee’s responsibility down to the date last mentioned, and for that reason the accounting is asked only for the period of time that has since elapsed.

From the judgment obtained against him in the former action Goldtree took his appeal, and the decision of the matter, with many of the facts pertinent to this consideration, will be found set forth in Estate of Thompson, 101 Cal. 349.

Defendant Goldtree for answer denied the validity of the former judgment pleaded against him, and undertook to set forth all of his transactions and dealings with the trust, from the beginning of his connection with it to the present time. Such portions of his answer as contain these matters were upon motion stricken out. Upon trial the judgment was admitted in evidence against him, and was treated by the court as determinative of all matters pertaining to his relations with the trust down to the date of the judgment. Goldtree, therefore, was not allowed to make proof of any of these antecedent transactions. The court found that there was due from Goldtree to the trust the sum of twelve thousand one hundred and ninety-four dollars and twenty-one cents, and ordered his removal from office. From this judgment and from the order denying him a new trial he appeals.

[547]It is urged as a fundamental error pervading the whole case that the judgment in Estate of Thompson, supra, was treated by the court as valid, subsisting, and a finality between these parties litigant, when in law it was absolutely void; that, therefore, the court erred in striking out the portions of defendant’s answer, erred in allowing the judgment to be admitted in evidence against him, and erred in forbidding him to treat his dealings with the trust as open to complete hearing and settlement in this action. This is predicated upon the very familiar principles of equity procedure that it will not permit litigation by piecemeal, and that in an accounting upon a trust all of the beneficiaries of the trust are necessary parties, coupled with the facts that in the former case not all of the beneficiaries under the testamentary trust were before the court, and that the absence of the others was not accounted for or explained. Therefore, it is urged, the judgment could not operate by way of bar or estoppel to the rights of defendant Goldtree to make a full showing of his dealings with the trust property.