Cordes v. Harding (27 Cal. App. 474, 1915)

LENNON, P. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of nonsuit in an action instituted for the recovery of the sum of $1,720.20, alleged to be due to the plaintiff under the terms and conditions of a contract entered into by him with the defendants.

The sufficiency as a matter of law of the pleaded and proven facts to constitute a cause of action was challenged by the motion for nonsuit, and these facts, as admitted by the pleadings or established in evidence, are conceded to he substantially as summarized in the plaintiff’s statement of the ease, which, with some slight modifications, will be adopted as a general statement of the facts involved in and essential to a determination of the points presented in support of the appeal.

In the early part of the year 1910 and for some time prior thereto the defendants, Hardin and Monroe, were attorneys for the Consolidated Mines Company, a corporation, which owned certain mining property in the county of Amador. At this time they, the defendants, asserted a claim aganst the Mines Company for $10,193.25 for legal services, and through their assignee, I. Linderman, brought suit, and on May 9,1910, procured an attachment',upon the company’s property. At that time the company wS&,indebted to certain persons for merchandise sold in various anhsqmts, aggregating $2,283.65. These creditors threatened to commence proceedings against the Mines Company to have it declarecE^ bankrupt. However, they did not pursue this plan, but assigned their claim to W. F. Cordes, the plaintiff here, who brought an action against the Mines Company, and caused an attachment to be levied on June 17, 1910, on the same property of the company which had been previously attached in the suitXbrought by Linderman. A stipulation was thereupon made, entitled in the court and causes of Linderman and Cordes againsi