Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

35 Cal. 184

Moore v. Besse

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1868

California Supreme Court · decided 1868-07-01

The defendant appealed. The notice of appeal was served by one Pew, who acted as the agent of appellant and his attorneys. In this Court the respondent moved to dismiss the appeal, upon the ground (among others) that there was no proof of service of the notice of appeal. The other facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.

Relies on People v. Alameda Turnpike Road Co. · Schenck v. McKie · Doll v. Smith

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently August 1961

9 state decisions

4018681870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

By the Court, Rhodes, J.:

¶1The respondent moves to dismiss the appeal. Only a part of the grounds will be noticed.

¶2The statute does not expressly provide how proof of service of the notice of appeal must be made. It is not doubted that the certificate of the Sheriff, or the admission of the respondent’s attorney, is competent proof of service, but it is insisted that service cannot be proved by the affidavit of a third person. The practice of proving service by affidavit has prevailed for many years, and, so far as we are apprised, without objection until the present time. Service of the notice, if not shown by an official certificate, or by the admission of the party served, must be proven by the affidavit of some competent person. ¡No reason is suggested, and none occurs to us, why less value should be assigned to the affidavit of a third person than to that of the appellant or his attorney.

¶3The affidavit on which the appellant relies for proof of service is defective. The affiant, acting on behalf of the appellant and his attorneys, mailed a copy of the notice at Santa Cruz, directed to the respondent’s attorneys at San Francisco, but he does not state that he, or those for whom *187he acted, resided at Santa Cruz. The Practice Act (Sec. 521) provides, that “ service by mail may be made when the person making the service, and the person on whom it is to be made, reside in different places, between which there is a regular communication by mail.” The notice of appeal is signed by appellant’s attorney, and he, and not his agent, must be regarded as “ the person making the service.” (Schenck v. McKie, 4 How. Pr. 246.) Ho presumption arises that he resided at Santa Cruz from the circumstance that the action was tried at that place. The fact that he resided there should have been shown by the affidavit, under the rule that a party relying upon substituted service, must show a strict compliance with the requirements of the statute. (People v. Alameda Turnpike Road Company, 30 Cal. 182; Doll v. Smith, 32 Cal. 475.)

¶4Counsel did not offer to supply the facts omitted from the affidavit. We have heretofore indicated the course to be pursued in this respect. When the notice of appeal has been properly served, whether by personal or substituted service, the appellant, upon the hearing of the respondent’s motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that there is no proof of service, or that the proof is defective, may move for leave to supply the omitted proof. Hpon leave being granted, the appellant may file in the Court below the requisite affidavit, or official certificate of service, and a certified copy thereof may be annexed to the record in this Court. This proof may be made and the certified copy procured before the hearing of the respondent’s motion, when there is sufficient time after the defect is discovered.

¶5Appeal dismissed.

¶6Mr. Justice Sanderson expressed no opinion.

/35/cal/184 · .json · Public domain