Lewis

The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendants to quiet title to certain lots in Los Angeles. The defendant Mary Marshall filed an answer in which she denied the material allegations of the plaintiff’s complaint and as a separate defense she alleged that she was the owner of the property under and by virtue of a deed made by E’dward B. Lewis on the nineteenth day of July, 1924. The defendant Maurice Nathanson filed an answer in which he denied the material allegations of the plaintiff’s complaint and then as a separate defense he alleged that he held a mortgage lien in the sum of $500. A trial was had in the trial court before the court sitting without a jury. The court made findings of fact in favor of the defendant Nathanson and against the defendant Marshall, and in favor of the plaintiff. From a judgment entered thereon the defendant Marshall has appealed under section 953a of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Before stating the points made by the defendant it may be well to recite that Edward B. Lewis is an emancipated, illiterate negro of the age of seventy years or thereabouts, and that according to the evidence he was able to merely write his name and was unable to…