Riordan v. Zube
Riordan v. Zube
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff and appellant commenced an action in the superior court to set aside a judgment of the justice’s court and to restrain its enforcement. He named as defendants the justice of the peace who had tried the case in the justice’s court and the plaintiff in that action. Their demurrers to plaintiff’s complaint were sustained. Plaintiff was given ten days to amend and the defendants were given five days thereafter to plead to the amended complaint. Within due time plaintiff filed his amended complaint. The defendants failed to plead within the five days allowed, and upon application of the plaintiff the clerk of the court entered their default. Within three days thereafter the defendants moved to set aside the default upon a showing of inadvertence and misconception of the order, and after a full hearing the court granted the motion. Thereafter defendants’ demurrers to the amended complaint were sustained without leave to amend. Plaintiff appeals from these two orders, the one setting aside the default of the defendants and the other sustaining defendants’ demurrers without leave to amend.
The justice’s court, therefore, had jurisdiction to render the judgment, and it was not void upon its face. The execution was stayed for three months, which was the maximum period of leniency authorized by the Moratorium Act. (Sec. 300, subd. 2.) Appellant was thus given the full protection of the law. The justice’s court having had jurisdiction of both the person and subject matter of the *25 action, its judgment was valid upon its face. Defendant in that case having been given all the protection provided by the Moratorium Act, he had no cause in equity to prevent the execution of that judgment. On the other hand, if aggrieved by the judgment in the justice’s court, the statute gave him an adequate remedy by appeal to the superior court. His failure to pursue that remedy does not warrant an equitable action to set aside the judgment, which is valid on its face.
For the reasons first given the appeal from both orders is dismissed.
Langdon, P. J., and Brittain, 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 January 13, 1921, and the following opinion then rendered thereon:
THE COURT.—The application for a hearing in this court after decision by the district court of appeal of the first appellate district, division two, is denied, without regard to what is said in the opinion as to the merits of the case. The orders appealed from were not appealable orders and the appeal was therefore properly dismissed. It should be added that the record does not show that any judgment was ever entered in the action, and further, that an appeal will lie from a void judgment. (See Ewing v. Richvale Land Co., 176 Cal. 152, [167 Pac. 876], and cases therein cited.)
All the Justices concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- DANIEL RIORDAN, Appellant, v. E. R. ZUBE Et Al., Respondents
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published