JACOBSON v. SUPERIOR COURT IN AND FOR LOS ANGELES COUNTY (1935)

The petition seeks the writ of mandamus to compel the respondent superior court to transfer a cause pending therein to the municipal court of the city of Los Angeles. A general demurrer to the petition has been interposed.

On September 20, 1934, the petitioner brought an action in the respondent superior court entitled Hastrup L. Jacobson, Plaintiff, v. AEtna Life Insurance Company, defendant, numbered 378428 in the files of said court. In said action the plaintiff sought to recover a judgment in the sum of $1,300 and interest, representing the amount alleged to have accrued pursuant to the provisions of an insurance policy providing for payment of $50 per month on account of the permanent total disability of the plaintiff, plus the sum of $81.20 paid as premiums since the disability the payment of which it was alleged was eaived by the terms of the policy. The amounts thus sought to be recovered, plus interest, aggregated less than $2,000. The plaintiff also sought a declaratory judgment that he was entitled to future payments of $50 per month during the period of permanent total disability.

On October 31, 1934, this court filed an opinion and order in the case of Brix v. People's Mutual Life Insurance Company (Cal. Sup.) 37 P.(2d) 448. In that case a similar action was filed in the superior court in San Francisco wherein the plaintiff sought to recover sums accrued under a similar policy, and installments to become due in the future. Judgment had been entered in that case for the sums which had become due under the policy, aggregating $1,300, also for sums to become due in the future. In the opinion then filed in that case it was held that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover installments which had not accrued, that he could not obtain a judgment therefor by resort to the declaratory relief statute, and that the plaintiff consequently was not entitled to a judgment for the future installments. The decision on that branch of the case was not disturbed in the opinion filed on rehearing. (Cal. Sup.) 41 P.(2d) 537.

In November, 1934, the petitioner herein filed in the action of Jacobson v. AEtna Life Insurance Company an amended complaint, omitting, however, the allegations and prayer with reference to declaratory relief. In December, 1934, the defendant in the action filed an answer and a cross-complaint whereby it sought the cancellation of the policy by reason of the assured's alleged failure to continue payment of the premiums and the alleged consequent lapsing and termination of the policy. Thereafter, the petitioner made a motion that the cause be transferred to the municipal court on the ground that the superior court did not have jurisdiction of the cause, but that jurisdiction thereof was exclusively in the municipal court. The respondent court denied the motion and will proceed to try the action unless directed to transfer the same to the municipal court pursuant to section 396 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as added by St. 1933, p. 1841.

The parties apparently agree that the jurisdiction of the cause is properly and exclusively in the municipal court if the jurisdictional facts are governed solely by the facts appearing from the complaint. See Shipp v. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, 209 Cal. 671, 676, 289 P. 825; Van Horn v. Justice's Court of San Bernardino Township, 216 Cal. 235, 13 P.(2d) 704; Const. art. 6, § 11a.

We may accept the defendant's view as to the nature of the cross-complaint and of the relief sought thereby. The only point necessary for determination is whether the filing of the cross-complaint purporting to set up a cause for equitable relief and seeking a judgment of cancellation of the policy, was sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the superior court pursuant to the statutes now in force. In Brix v. People's Mutual Life Insurance Company (Cal. Sup.) 41 P.(2d) 537, it was held that jurisdiction was conferred on the superior court by the cross-complaint wherein similar equitable relief was sought. There, however, it was pointed out that the matters pleaded in the cross-complaint at the time there involved were such as only a court of equity could take jurisdiction, and were therefore unaffected by the 1933 amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure. In 1933, section 89 was added to the Code of Civil Procedure (St. 1933, p. 1811). That section conferred certain limited equity jurisdiction on the municipal court. By subdivision 1(c) thereof jurisdiction was vested in that court of all cases in equity when pleaded as defensive matter, in any case properly pending therein. Here we find an affirmative grant of power to the municipal court to determine the issues tendered by the cross-complaint in the event the case should be properly pending in the municipal court. Notice must then be taken of section 396 of the Code of Civil Procedure added by the statutes of 1933 (St. 1933, p. 1841), to ascertain the proper court to take jurisdiction. It is there stated that if an action is commenced in a court which lacks jurisdiction of the subject-matter thereof, as determined by the complaint, and there is a court of this state which has such jurisdiction, the action shall be transferred to the latter court as therein provided. Tested by the allegations of the amended complaint the jurisdiction of said action is in the municipal court and the motion to transfer the cause to that court should have been granted. After such transfer the municipal court would have jurisdiction of the entire cause under section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure as enacted in 1933.

Let the peremptory writ issue accordingly.

SHENK, Justice.

We concur: WASTE, C. J.; SEAWELL, J.; LANGDON, J.; CURTIS, J.