Hickman

This action was one to recover money for goods sold and delivered. Some two years and a half after defendants’ answer to the complaint was filed a notice of motion was made to set the cause for trial, and pending the hearing of the motion the defendants asked permission to interpose a cross-complaint. That permission was granted after the application had been resisted by the plaintiffs. The cross-complaint was filed, and the demurrer interposed to it was eventually overruled. Plaintiffs answered the cross-complaint, and some three years thereafter the case was set for trial and tried. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiffs, and also against the defendants on the cross-complaint; and the only point made now in support of the defendants’ appeal is that before the trial of the action the court had lost jurisdiction of the cause by reason of the fact that plaintiffs failed to prosecute it to trial within five years after the defendants’ answer to the original complaint had been filed, as required by section 583 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Conceding the defendants ’ construction of the statute to be correct, nevertheless it appears that the case at bar was not fully and finally…