Avenel

*146 Opinion

This is an appeal from a judgment amending judgment, the amendment naming appellants as judgment debtors.

The judgment is affirmed.

Statement of Facts and Procedural History

Communimark, Inc. (hereafter Communimark), defendant below, is a California corporation which acts as an advertising media broker. Plaintiff and respondent Dow Jones Company, Inc. (hereafter, Dow Jones), is a corporation which furnished newspaper advertising services to Communimark between 1976-1980. The amount claimed on an open book account was $208,701.52. Dow Jones accepted a promissory note from Communimark for the value of the unpaid services.

Dow Jones, thereafter, filed suit on the account and note. Later, it filed a motion for summary judgment. The court granted the motion and awarded damages to Dow Jones in the amount of $208,701.52, plus interest.

Dow Jones then filed a motion to amend the judgment to include appellants Gerard Avenel, an individual, and Avenel Imports, Ltd., a corporation (hereafter, Avenel Imports), as judgment debtors. They were not parties to the original action. The basis of the motion was that appellants were the alter egos of Communimark. At the hearing on…

This is an appeal from a judgment amending judgment, the amendment naming appellants as judgment debtors.

The judgment is affirmed.

Communimark, Inc. (hereafter Communimark), defendant below, is a California corporation which acts as an advertising media broker. Plaintiff and respondent Dow Jones Company, Inc. (hereafter, Dow Jones), is a corporation which furnished newspaper advertising services to Communimark between 1976-1980. The amount claimed on an open book account was $208,701.52. Dow Jones accepted a promissory note from Communimark for the value of the unpaid services.

Dow Jones, thereafter, filed suit on the account and note. Later, it filed a motion for summary judgment. The court granted the motion and awarded damages to Dow Jones in the amount of $208,701.52, plus interest.

Dow Jones then filed a motion to amend the judgment to include appellants Gerard Avenel, an individual, and Avenel Imports, Ltd., a corporation (hereafter, Avenel Imports), as judgment debtors. They were not parties to the original action. The basis of the motion was that appellants were the alter egos of Communimark. At the hearing on the motion, appellants presented…

I respectfully dissent.

I agree with appellant’s contention that the procedure approved in the majority opinion effectively deprives him of his right to a jury trial on the underlying “open book account” litigation.

Appellant was not a party to the lawsuit against Communimark, which terminated in summary judgment; had he been so, undeniably he had a right to jury trial. How, then, can we say, in the absence of evidence from ap *152 pellant, that summary judgment would have foreclosed his constitutional right to trial by jury? Or that, because Communimark presented no cognizable defense, a fortiori appellant had none because of later proof that for some purposes Communimark and appellant were alter egos?

Moreover, I read Code of Civil Procedure section 187 as a mere affirmation of the general principle that courts may do what is necessary to implementing judgments rendered where jurisdiction obtains. Certainly, I think, it cannot be read as investing a court with jurisdiction it never possessed, or permitting, in the supposed interests of judicial economy or convenience, amendment of a judgment to embrace persons over whom jurisdiction never existed, thus to deprive them of…