Thompson

argued that the answer contained a'cross-complaint, which was not denied, and that, therefore, upon its allegations, the defendant was entitled to equitable relief, and cited sec. 442 of the Code of Civil Procedure as enacted in 1874.

W. M. Francis, for Respondent.

There was nothing in the cross-complaint (so-called) which it was incumbent on the plaintiff to answer. So much of it as averred a prior grant to the defendant by the municipal authorities of Santa Barbara amounted only to a denial of the plaintiff’s title; and the fact was admissible in evidence under the general denial in the answer. The averment that the grant to Espinosa (under which the plaintiff claims title) was in fact made for the benefit of De la Guerra, the President of the Town Council, and that when the plaintiff took his conveyance he had notice of this fact, presents no ground for equitable relief to the defendant. If he already had the title, as the cross-complaint avers, under a prior grant from the authorities of the town, he needed no affirmative relief. On the other hand, if he had no privity with the title of the town, he was not in a position to institute an inquiry whether the grant to Espinosa…