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80 Cal. 132

De Cazara v. Oreña

California Supreme Court

Decided August 5, 1889

California Supreme Court · decided 1889-08-05

<p>Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County.</p> <p>The facts are stated in the -opinion of the court.</p>

Relies on Booth v. Hoskins

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1889-08-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently December 1981

3 federal appellate · 14 state decisions

6018891890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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.

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Beatty, C. J.

¶1This is a suit to quiet title. The complaint is in the usual form, unverified. The answer is a general denial of all the allegations of the complaint, except that defendant claims an interest in the property adverse to the plaintiff, followed by a plea of the statute of limitations.

¶2The finding of the superior court was against 'the defendant as to his claim under the statute, but the court found as follows concerning the title:—

¶3On January 16, 1877, the lot in controversy was the property of Bernarda Rodriguez, who on that day mortgaged it to the defendant, Greña, to secure the payment of her promissory note of even date, payable in one year.

¶4*134On August 17, 1878, her note being unpaid, Bernarda Rodriguez executed, acknowledged, and delivered to Oreña a deed in the form of an absolute conveyance of said lot, but this was only intended as security, it being orally agreed at the time that Oreña might sell the lot, pay himself out of the proceeds, and that any balance over should be paid to the plaintiff in this action.

¶5Oreña has never sold the lot, and no part of the note has been paid. He has no title to the lot except such as he may have acquired by said deed of Bernarda Rodriguez, and the plaintiff has succeeded to all the title remaining in Bernarda after her deed to Oreña.

¶6Upon these findings, the superior court decreed a reconveyance of the lot upon payment by plaintiff to defendant of the amount due him on account of said note of Bernarda Rodriguez.

¶7The plaintiff appeals from the judgment, contending that she is entitled to a reconveyance, and to have her title quieted without payment. She asks us to direct a modification of the decree in accordance with this contention.

¶8We do not think this case can be distinguished, on the facts found, from that of Booth v. Hoskins, 75 Cal. 271, where it was held that the plaintiff could not have his title quieted except upon condition of payment of the debt, to secure which he had morfgaged the land, notwithstanding the debt was barred by the statute of limitations.

¶9The decree here follows that decision, the correctness of which we see no reason to question, but the facts found, and upon which this decree rests, are outside the issues made by the pleadings, and wholly unsupported by them.

¶10For this reason alone, and because the defendant, if he had been in possession of the lot or in reception of the rents and profits, is bound to account for them, or the . value of the use and occupation, to be credited *135upon the amount of his note, the judgment must be reversed.

¶11It is therefore ordered that the judgment be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings, with leave to the defendant to amend his answer or to file a cross-complaint, and with leave to plaintiff also to amend, if she be so advised.

¶12Works, J., Patebson, J., Shabpstein, J., and Thobnton, J., concurred.

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