Kenney v. Wolff

DOOLING, J. This is an appeal from an order of the trial court striking from the files appellants’ complaint in intervention. The action in which appellants sought to intervene was commenced by plaintiffs, former employees of the Market Street Railway Company, to determine their rights as employees of the city and county of San Francisco under section 125 of the charter. The questions involved in counts four [164]and five of the complaint have to do with the relative seniority rights of employees already in the employ of the Municipal Railway system at the time the Market Street system was acquired by the city and county of San Francisco and the plaintiff employees who entered the employment of the city and county at the time of such acquisition. It is as to these counts only that appellants sought to intervene.

It is admitted that the plaintiffs are none of them conductors or motormen and that the appellants are all either conductors or motormen who were employed on the Municipal Railway prior to the acquisition of the Market Street system by the city and county. For this reason no adjudication of the seniority rights of the plaintiffs will directly affect the seniority rights of any of the appellants. Their only interest in the litigation is that the judgment may establish a rule of law in the interpretation of the seniority rights of plaintiffs as former employees of the Market Street Railway which might affect appellants’ rights in future litigation. That this is not a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the action to entitle appellants to intervene is settled by the decision in Jersey Maid Milk Products Co. v. Brock, 13 Cal.2d 661 [91 P.2d 599], We quote from the opinion in that case, pages 662-664:

“Interveners are distributors of milk within the Los Angeles County area, and like the plaintiffs in this action are interested in the validity of said chapter of the Agricultural Code, and also like the plaintiffs, they are opposed to the enforcement of the provisions of said chapter and the stabilization plan formulated thereunder. They contend, therefore, that they have such ‘an interest in the matter in litigation,’ and in the success of the plaintiffs in said action that entitles them to intervene in the action under the terms of section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The sole question for decision, therefore, is whether the interveners have any interest in the proceeding that will entitle them to intervene as parties therein.

“Section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides in part that, ‘At any time before trial, any person, who has an interest in the matter in litigation, or in the success of either of the parties, or an interest against both, may intervene in the action or proceeding.’ We find no direct authority upon the precise question before us under facts similar to those in the present action. Section 387 of the Code of Civil Procedure has been the subject of frequent discussion in numerout decisions of the appellate courts of the state.