Patterson v. Blackburn
Patterson v. Blackburn
Opinion of the Court
One of the defendants only appeals from the judgment, by which it was decreed that the p1a.i-nt.iff owned two pieces of property in Los Angeles, with a direction that conveyance should be executed by each of the two defendants of the properties to the plaintiff. Judgment followed the trial in which an advisory jury was impaneled to try the principal issues presented by the pleadings.
The plaintiff sued her husband and the appellant, alleging that she was the owner of the properties designated, respectively, “the apartment house” and “the bungalow” properties, which, by the fraudulent practices of her husband, she had been induced to convey to him and which, he in turn conveyed to the appellant, who, it was alleged, was. not a
bona fide
purchaser without notice.
On behalf of the respondent it is urged that because the first entry by the clerk was premature and without authority, the notice of appeal was ineffectual. (Vallejo & Northern R. R. Co. v. Reed Orchard Co., 169 Cal. 545, [147 Pac. 238].) The clerk’s minute entry of March 26th, entered on March 30th, was not a judgment. The only judgment was that rendered on March 28th and entered on April 4, 1918. The addition of the date in the notice of appeal in describing the only judgment in the case must be disregarded in view of the notice of entry of judgment served by the attorney for the respondent. A highly technical contention, based. on an erroneous statement made in the first instance by counsel making the technical contention, should not be made the basis of a refusal to consider an appeal otherwise properly presented on the merits.
'The plaintiff and her husband, at the time of the trial, had been married eighteen years. There was one child, a daughter aged four. They came to California from their former home in 1915. The plaintiff was a woman of considerable means with which she purchased property in southern California, including the two properties in suit, and, confiding in the rectitude of her husband, she caused the
*365
deeds to be taken in Ms name. Some time in 1916 they became acquainted with the appellant and shortly thereafter a meretricious relationship arose between the husband and Monnie Blackburn. In the latter part of January, 1917, because of this condition of affairs, the plaintiff sued her husband to recover her separate property. Upon the promise that he would sever his relationship with the appellant and comport himself as he should as the husband of the plaintiff and the father of their child, he induced his wife to dismiss the suit, and to evidence his good faith he deeded to her all her property. Shortly thereafter he represented to her that he had severed his connection with the appellant, and promising her that he would have no more to do with the appellant, he importuned the plaintiff to place in his name some of her property, stating that he thought he was entitled to something and did not want to feel like a beggar. • Relying upon his representations, which the plaintiff alleged were made without any intention on his part to fulfill them, she reconveyed, to him the two parcels involved in this suit. The meretricious relationship between himself and Monnie Blackburn was either continued or immediately resumed.
About November 1, 1917, the plaintiff sued her husband for divorce. In her complaint she described the properties standing in her own name and did not describe the properties involved in this action. It is claimed that this also amounted to a ratification of the deed fraudulently procured from her by her husband. As against a party to the fraud this was not a ratification, and while an argument is made in the appellant’s opening brief on the ground of’estoppel, counsel for the appellant abandoned that ground in their closing brief, and it need not be considered. During Christmas week of 1917, the plaintiff and her husband had a conversation in which she told him that if she thought he was going .to lose the properties, she would step in and save them, presumably by buying the encumbrances, because he had promised that their child should have the property and that he would make a will in favor of the child. He then told her he would do everything he could to make the property a success and that their child was to get it. Almost *367 coincidentally with this conversation the two defendants went to Venice, near Los Angeles, and took up their residence in an apartment house, where the husband adopted an assumed name and the appellant passed as his wife. On January 4, 1918, they were arrested, and the husband was confined in- the city jail in Venice. On January 7, 1918, while he was still in jail the husband executed a. deed of the apartment house property to the appellant. The present suit was commenced on January 9, 1918, and lis pendens was filed. On January 10, 1918, the husband conveyed to the appellant the bungalow property. At the time of the transfer of the properties the apartment house was encumbered by a first mortgage of over $17,000, a second deed of trust of nearly $4,000, with interest and lienable claims for materials of about $1,100, and the bungalow property was encumbered by a first mortgage for $2,400 and other indebtedness of $240. The appellant claims that she had advanced the husband certain small sums of money, that she had actually paid to him ten dollars at the time of the transfer of the apartment house property, and as a further consideration she undertook to procure bail to have him released from the jail. It is practically conceded that she had actual, as well as constructive, notice of the claims of the plaintiff before the execution of the deed of the bungalow property, and the evidence is conflicting as to her knowledge of the various transactions which have been recited. It is claimed by the appellant that there is no evidence of her knowledge, but there is sufficient evidence of facts to warrant the deduction drawn by the jury and adopted by the trial court that the appellant was very fully informed in regard to the dealings between the plaintiff and her husband.
From the frank, if not bold, statement of facts contained in the appellant’s brief, which for the most part furnishes the basis for the recitals made above, it clearly appears that the fraud of the husband was the cause of the original deeds being made to him. When he repeatedly importuned his wife to forego her legal remedies and made renewed promises, which he as repeatedly violated, it would amount to a judicial sanction of gross fraud on the part of the husband to hold that because his wife loved and trusted him more than he deserved to be trusted, she should be held to have ratified his wrong when in his final disregard of every *368 rule of honorable living he so publicly comported himself with the beneficiary of his fraud as to bring about the arrest of himself and his paramour and his own incarceration.
Upon an examination of the entire record, this court is of the opinion that there was no reversible error committed by the trial court, and that there was sufficient evidence to support the judgment. There was no miscarriage of justice within the meaning of section 4% of article VI of the constitution.
The judgment is affirmed.
Langdon, P. ‘J., and Nourse, J., concurred.
A petition to have the cause heard in the supreme court, after judgment in the district court of appeal, was denied by the supreme court on July 1, 1920.
All the Justices concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- ETHEL KEEPERS PATTERSON, Respondent, v. MONNIE BLACKBURN, Appellant
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published