California Canning Peach Growers v. Corcoran

STURTEVANT, J. This is an appeal from an order denying defendants’ motion for a change of venue from Alameda County to Butte County. The record presents no question of fact and but one question of law. The plaintiff’s action against the defendants was one brought in Alameda County for declaratory relief. The defendants contend that D. P. Corcoran and John Doe Miller, copartners doing business under the name of Corcoran & Miller, and residents of Butte [265]County, were the only defendants against whom a cause of action was pleaded and that B. H. Body Co., a corporation, having its principal place of business in Alameda County, was improperly named as a defendant, and that as against it no cause of action was alleged and therefore the demand of Corcoran & Miller to change the place of trial should have been granted. We find no merit in the contention. The complaint was drawn with meticulous care. It sets forth, among other things, the following facts: The plaintiff is a nonprofit, cooperative association and has been since December 1, 1921. Its articles of incorporation are pleaded in haec verba. Its by-laws, in so far as the same are pertinent to this litigation, are pleaded in the same manner. In conducting its business each of its members is required to execute a marketing agreement. The form of that agreement in use by the plaintiff is pleaded in haec verba. On January 5, 1933, Corcoran & Miller were the owners of 130 acres of land located about two and one-half miles south from Gridley on the east side of old Marysville Road in Manzanita School district, bounded generally on the north by Dick Griddle, on the south by W. P. Harkey, on the east by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and on the west by the county road, and the said land being known as Corcoran & Miller orchard. On said date the owners executed a marketing agreement with the plaintiff. Among other covenants it. contained the following: “That the buyer does hereby purchase and the grower does hereby sell all of the canning peaches to be produced during the years 1922 to 1936 inclusive, on the following described land, ’ ’ etc. It also contained a covenant: “This instrument is intended by the parties to pass to and vest in the buyer a present title to all of the peaches covered hereby, and to give the buyer the right to the possession of said peaches when they are fit to be picked, and immediately thereafter the buyer shall have the right to enter upon said premises and remove the said peaches,” etc. And it contained another covenant: “ . . . failure or refusal to deliver to the buyer the peaches purchased hereunder, the grower will pay to the buyer a sum equal to fifty per cent, of the market price at San Francisco of said peaches at the time of such breach. ...” B. H. Body Co., a corporation, is engaged in the business of canning cling peaches at its place of business in Alameda County and it is the “canners”