Pierce

Ejectment for a tract of land in Santa Barbara county, a portion of the Rancho Lomas de la Purificación. The plaintiff had judgment, and the defendant has appealed directly from the judgment without any bill of exceptions.

The defendant pleaded in his answer that the predecessor of the plaintiff had commenced an action against him to recover the same property on the 17th of June, 1887; that summons was issued in said action, and served upon him, and that, on the seventh day of July, 1887, he filed his answer therein denying every allegation in the complaint; that on the 23d of July, 1888, the attorney for the plaintiff in said action entered and signed a dismissal thereof upon the register of actions kept by the clerk, and that thereafter, October 3, 1891, the court, by its judgment, formally dismissed said action. To this defense the plaintiff demurred, and the court sustained the demurrer. The defendant now contends that this was error, for the reason that the judgment in the former action operated as a bar to the prosecution of the present action, and cites Merritt v. Campbell, 47 Cal. 542 , in support thereof, that case, however, the judgment was rendered upon .greement by…