Zurich General Accident & Liability Insurance v. Metropolitan Casualty Insurance
Zurich General Accident & Liability Insurance v. Metropolitan Casualty Insurance
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff had judgment in the court below upon an undertaking given by defendant to release an attachment, and defendant appeals.
Appellant’s sole point upon appeal is that the writ of attachment to release which the undertaking was given was a nullity because, it is claimed, the clerk who issued the writ did not receive an affidavit prior to the issuance of the writ of attachment as required by section 538 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
. Appellant contends, and we think correctly, that the provision of section 538 that “the clerk of the court must issue the writ of attachment upon receiving an affidavit” is equivalent to a provision for filing the affidavit with the clerk. This construction is in accordance with the long-settled practice and comports with common sense.
The original affidavit, according to the testimony, was never marked with the file stamp by the clerk or placed by him in the file of papers in the case. Instead a carbon copy of the affidavit, unexecuted, was found regularly stamped, among the papers in the clerk’s office. An original affidavit was produced in court without the filing stamp of the clerk. As to this affidavit Mr. Mayo Thomas, called as a witness for respondent, testified that he was the attorney who procured the issuance of the writ of attachment and that before the writ was issued he presented to the clerk for filing this original affidavit together with the other necessary papers, and that the clerk “looked it over and the other papers in the ease and kept what papers he decided to file. He issued the writ and gave the writ with the others papers back to me.”
The court found that prior to the issuance of the writ of attachment “the said plaintiff delivered to and filed with the clerk of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles . . . and the aforesaid clerk . . . received from the said plaintiff an affidavit for attachment ...”
Appellant complains of a finding that the clerk “through mistake and inadvertence, and without the knowledge of the plaintiff herein, returned and handed back to the plaintiff the original affidavit.” While there is no direct evidence to support this finding, we think that it was an inference that might properly be drawn from the evidence before the court. In any event, this finding is not necessary to support the judgment and hence, even if erroneous, would not justify a reversal.
Judgment affirmed.
Nourse, Acting P. J., and Sturtevant, J., concurred.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.