STRATTON v. SUPERIOR COURT OF COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES (1934)

An action and counterclaim pending in the municipal court of the city of Los Angeles were transferred to the Superior Court on motion of the defendants, on the ground that the latter had subsequently filed in the Superior Court a suit against the plaintiff for damages and praying annulment of the contract upon which the first action was based. When called for trial in the Superior Court the cause was ordered retransferred to the municipal court, and defendants pray a review of said proceedings.

The respective demands in the municipal court were less than $2,000, whereas fraud and damages in a larger amount were alleged in the subsequent action in the Superior Court. It does not appear that the pleadings in either case revealed any relationship between the two or that both arose from the same transaction. The order of transfer recited, however, that the second action constituted “a counterclaim to this action and involves the determination of questions not within the jurisdiction of this court.” By the statute under which such order was entered it is provided, in part: “If an action or proceeding is commenced in a court which has jurisdiction of the subject matter thereof as determined by the complaint, and it thereafter appears from the verified pleadings, or at the trial, that the determination of the action, or of a counterclaim arising out of the transaction set forth in the complaint as the foundation of the plaintiff's claim, or of a cross-complaint, will necessarily involve the determination of questions not within the jurisdiction of the court, in which the action is pending, the court, whenever such lack of jurisdiction appears, must suspend all further proceedings in the action or proceeding, and certify the pleadings * * * to a court, having jurisdiction thereof.” Code Civ. Proc. § 396.

It is at once patent that it may not appear from another source than that so provided that there may be reason to transfer or certify the pleadings as above provided; nor is the pendency of other proceedings outside the court of first instance a ground for such certification specified in said section. Arroyo Ditch & Water Co. v. Superior Court, 92 Cal. 47, 28 P. 54, 55, 27 Am. St. Rep. 91, involved an action which was transferred to the Superior Court upon the erroneous theory that it had jurisdiction, and after trial judgment was rendered from which the unsuccessful party sought a review of the proceedings, which was granted. The Supreme Court there said: “Although the exercise of jurisdiction by the superior court will be presumed to have been rightful, yet if it appears upon its own records of its action in any matter that it had not acquired jurisdiction either of the subject-matter, or of the parties, this presumption is destroyed. It cannot exercise jurisdiction in any instance until after it has acquired it, and it can acquire it only in the mode prescribed by statute. Merely certifying to the county clerk by a justice of the peace the pleading in a case pending before him does not confer jurisdiction upon the superior court of a matter of which jurisdiction has not been conferred upon it by the constitution.” In Raisch v. Sausalito Land & Ferry Co., 131 Cal. 215, 63 P. 346, a party attempted to appeal to the Supreme Court from a judgment of the Superior Court after transfer thereto and trial of a cause praying $299. The appeal was dismissed for like reasons, upon the authority of Arroyo Ditch & Water Company v. Superior Court, supra.

The citation of cases by petitioners wherein a municipal or justice's court was restrained from passing upon the same issues, or a transfer was required by other and different conditions and statutes, are not helpful to their cause herein. The quoted section plainly specifies as the single ground for certifying pleadings to a court having jurisdiction thereof that they show the necessity for a trial of questions over which the certifying court has not jurisdiction. This is not such a case.

It is contended that when called in the calendar department it had no authority other than to send the case to a trial department, and was without power to remand the same to the municipal court. But the Superior Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and all proceedings dependent upon the order of transfer thereto, were null and void. Hopkins v. Anderson, 218 Cal. 62, 21 P.(2d) 560. No authority is cited nor do the petitioners suggest how they could have benefited by assignment to a trial department and remand of the case therein to the court vested with exclusive jurisdiction, and whose order and subsequent steps based thereon were void. Egan v. McCray (Cal. Sup.) 28 P. (2d) 18.

The transfer to the Superior Court is annulled, and the retransfer to the municipal court is affirmed.

CRAIG, Acting Presiding Justice.

We concur: DESMOND, J.; SCOTT, Justice pro tem.