Drinkhouse

This case holds the record in this jurisdiction for Rip Van Winkle litigation. The action was initiated in the lower court on the twenty-ninth day of January, 1896. A complaint in intervention was filed August 31, 1899, and various and amended pleadings were interposed. On the thirty-first day of May, 1900, a jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiffs, and judgment was entered against one of the defendants and against the intervener. Notices of appeal from the judgment were filed in July following. In May, 1902, the trial court entered an order and an amended order on motion to vacate judgment and for a new trial. Notices of appeal from these orders were filed in June, 1902. No further proceedings intervened in the lower court or here, other than the preparation and filing of the transcript on appeal on June 15, 1923.

In the “foreword” to their opening brief appellants say: “Since [the trial] many changes have taken place in California procedure, numerous and large volumes of statutes have been added to our libraries by ambitious legislators, and many decisions have been handed down interpreting our laws, old and new.” With this brief, but accurate, historical review, and a plea…