Pierce

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *Page 377 For a statement of the facts and of the grounds of the decision as to the merits, we make the following quotation from the opinion filed in the cause by the learned trial judge: "This is a suit between the present wife and the former wife of Dr. Robert E. Pierce to quiet title to an orange grove of about thirty acres near Lindsay, and now worth at least $30,000. By a cross-complaint Dr. Pierce, his mother, Fannie L. Pierce, and his brother, Frederick B. Pierce, are made parties. Dr. Pierce became a practicing physician in 1879. One year later at his ancestral home in Melrose, Massachusetts, he was married to defendant, and they lived together for nearly twenty years, most of the time at San Jose, where Dr. Pierce still resides. The land in controversy was purchased with community funds about the year 1894. Defendant was in Melrose from July, 1897, for nearly two years, visiting the doctor's mother, having gone there, as defendant says, 'at his very urgent consent and wish.' It appears from the testimony of the mother, Fannie L. Pierce, that…

Respondent has called our attention to certain findings of the court below, which, it is claimed, would render a judgment for plaintiff unsupported. Among them is: "That it is not true that the claim of the defendant, Frances P. Pierce, is without any right whatever, or that she has no estate, right, title or interest in or to said land, or any part thereof; but on the contrary, defendant, Frances P. Pierce and plaintiff Ella B. Pierce are the owners of said property as tenants in common, subject to certain liens against the said property, as hereinafter more particularly set forth." We should treat this as the finding of an ultimate fact and not as a mere conclusion. It necessarily follows that it would preclude a judgment that plaintiff is the sole owner of the property. Notwithstanding the finding of certain probative facts shows that the foregoing ultimate fact was found against the evidence, the ultimate fact must prevail since it does not appear that the findings of the probative facts dispose of all the facts involved in the pleadings. ( Forsythe v. Los Angeles Ry. Co., 149 Cal. 575 , [ 87 P. 24 ].) We think, therefore, that our judgment rendered herein should be modified…