Hupp

Certiorari to review the action of the superior court in adjudging petitioner guilty of contempt.

Petitioner is an attorney at law and as such appeared as counsel for defendants in an action brought by one W. C. McEvilly against J. J. Haggarty, J. C. Haggarty, and Frank C. Hill in the superior court of Los Angeles County. The action was commenced on or about the twentieth day of February, 1912. The plaintiff in that action sought to secure an injunction to restrain defendants from interfering with his management of a mercantile institution in the city of Los Angeles, and to restrain them from refusing to accept merchandise purchased by him for the business conducted under his management, and to restrain them from carrying out an alleged threat to close the doors of such mercantile establishment and destroy the credit and business thereof. It was set out in the complaint that the plaintiff purchased from defendant J. J. Haggarty an interest in a certain cloak, suit, and millinery business, for which he agreed to pay a large sum of money; that this business was managed as a corporation, and that after making the purchase referred to McEvilly was appointed president and general…

I concur in the judgment, not only for the reasons stated in the opinion, but upon the further ground that one not a party to an action receiving a letter from another who is a stranger to the suit should not be required to produce it at the trial of such an action, save and except upon clear and unequivocal evidence, and such is not disclosed by the record, showing that it is material to the issues involved. (Kullman etc. Co. v. Superior Court, 15 Cal. App. 276 , [ 114 Pac. 589 ].) Moreover, since the witness Silk testified that the only thing said to him by Haggarty was to ask if he was selling goods to McEvilly, and upon receiving an affirmative answer said: “Well, go right on, if you want to; go right ahead, ’ ’ anything which he might have stated to Lezinsky in the letter other than this, could in no event bind Haggarty. Assuming that it was material to show whether or not Silk communicated to Lezinsky the remark so made by Haggarty, such fact could not have been ascertained by interrogating him as to what he did with reference to the matter.

A petition for a rehearing of this cause was denied by the district court of appeal on June 25, 1913, and the following opinion then…