McConnell

This is an action to quiet title. The plaintiff had judgment, and defendant Fox appeals from an order denying him a new trial.

The sole ground urged for reversal is that the court erred in denying defendant’s motion for a continuance. We think the matter of continuance was in the discretion of the trial judge, and that he did not abuse such discretion. The showing was that, though the ease had been at issue for nine months, the defendant voluntarily went to New York after the case was set for trial and some twenty days prior to said trial. His reason for absenting himself is stated to have been that he desired to negotiate and sell certain bonds for the city of Los Angeles in the money centers of the east. There is no showing that this could not have been attended to for the city to its greater advantage by some other person, nor does it appear to what extent the defendant’s presence in New York would promote the sale of the bonds or was necessary thereto. Nor is it shown that his necessary presence in New York could not have preceded or followed the date of this trial without injury to himself or the city of Los Angeles. The showing made is weak, much weaker than in the case of…

I concur in the judgment. I am not prepared to say that on the showing made by the appellant the ease should not have been continued, or that the denial of a continuance by the court was not an abuse of discretion. But in the absence of the evidence, or of any showing to the contrary on the motion for new trial, either by the affidavit of the defendant or otherwise, I think it must be presumed, in support of the order of the trial court, that the case was fairly tried, and the appellant in no wise injured by his absence, and that there was no error or abuse of discretion in the denial of the motion for new trial.