O'Neill

This is an action to recover from defendant, as a stockholder of a corporation, his proportion of a debt of the corporation, paid by plaintiffs, who claim to have made such payment* as sureties.

Judgment was for defendant upon a defense of the statute of limitations, and plaintiffs appeal from the judgment.

The statute was pleaded in accordance with section 458 óf the Code of Civil Procedure. There was no finding in the words of the plea that the bar of the statute had fallen, but the facts upon which defendant relied to support this plea the court found in detail. Appellants contend that there should have been an express finding upon the issues raised by the plea, and, also, that if it be conceded that this is unnecessary, the facts found by the court are not sufficient to support a judgment in favor of defendant.

The first point appears to have been disposed of by a number of decisions of the supreme court adversely to appellants’ contention. Findings, as a rule, should be of ultimate facts, but it is not necessary that these should be in the language of the pleading (Clary v. Hazlitt, 67 Cal. 286 , [ 7 Pac. 701 ]), and where probative facts are found, and the court can…