Opinion
Rehearing Granted Feb. 8, 1961.
Opinion vacated 10 Cal.Rptr. 857.
Spray, Gould & Bowers, Los Angeles, for appellant.
Schell & Delamer, by Fred B. Belanger, Los Angeles, for respondent.
BISHOP. Justice pro tem.
On April 8, 1956, the driver of a Buick and the driver of a Hudson each negligently operated his car in such a manner that the driver of a Cadillac was injured. The latter, with the assistance of a jury, obtained a judgment, entered April 7, 1958, against the two joint tort-feasors, awarding him, the Cadillac driver, $11,592.20. The driver of the Hudson appealed; the judgment was affirmed (Augustus v. Shaffer, 1959, 171 Cal.App.2d 160, 340 P.2d 37), and the Hudson driver, Aaron Shaffer, the respondent on this appeal, having completely satisfied the judgment, in the fall of 1959, moved for a judgment of contribution against his co-defendant, the Buick driver, Cecil Compton Bean. This motion was granted, and a judgment was entered decreeing that defendant Aaron Shaffer recover $5,796.10 from his co-defendant Cecil Compton Bean. It is from this judgment that the last named defendant has appealed.
But for the provisions of sections 875-880, added to the Code of Civil Procedure in 1957, defendant Shaffer would have had no recourse against his co-defendant, for as stated in Smith v. Fall River J. U. High School Dist., 1934, 1 Cal.2d 331, 334, 34 P.2d 994, 996: 'It is well settled in this Adams v. White Bus Line,
Alisal Sanitary Dist. v. Kennedy,The original cause of action, in this case 'accrued' in 1956, it is true. For meaning of 'accrued' see Maguire v. Hibernia S. & L. Soc., 1944, 23 Cal.2d 719, 733, 146 P.2d 673, 680, 151 A.L.R. 1062 and Van Hook v. So. Cal. Waiters Alliance, 1958, 158 Cal.App.2d 556, 565, 323 P.2d 212, 217. But the cause of action that there accrued was not one with which sections 875-880 were at all concerned. It was a cause of action for damages resulting from the negligence of the defendants. As to such a cause of action sections 875-880 were never intended to become effective. The sections deal with the subject of contribution between joint tort-feasors, and give a cause of action, where none existed before, between the defendants. At the earliest, that cause of action, in this case, accrued April 7, 1958, when the judgment that made them judgment debtors was entered. That was after 'This title,' sections 875-880, became effective.
This interpretation gives the section a prospective, not a retrospective, effect. Our conclusion is in harmony with that expressed in Hudson v. Hutchason, 1959, 171 Cal.App.2d Supp. 869, 340 P.2d 756.
The appeal from the order granting the motion for judgment of contribution is dismissed. The judgment for contribution is affirmed.
SHINN, P.J., and FORD, J., concur.