## Facts

- C. A. Kassell owned the disputed real property and encumbered it in 1929 with a trust deed in favor of E. W. Ulrich to secure a promissory note.
- In 1931, a street improvement bond was issued against the property to Oswald.
- In 1934, Ulrich sued Kassell in municipal court on the note without alleging that it was secured; the municipal court entered a money judgment and issued a writ of execution.
- In 1936, the property was sold to Ulrich at an execution sale; the marshal’s certificate of sale was recorded in 1936 and the marshal’s deed was delivered and recorded in 1937.
- In December 1936, between the execution sale and delivery of the marshal’s deed, Oswald sued Kassell to foreclose the bond lien; Ulrich was not named or served. Kassell defaulted, foreclosure was ordered, and the property was sold to Oswald in 1937.
- Oswald assigned his purchaser’s rights to Fred R. Salter, who received a commissioner’s deed in 1938 and then filed this action to quiet title.
- In the quiet title action, the parties stipulated that the note underlying Ulrich’s municipal court judgment was secured by a trust deed.
- The trial court quieted title in Ulrich based on the execution sale, subject to Salter’s street improvement bond lien; Salter appealed, arguing Ulrich’s municipal court judgment was void under Code of Civil Procedure § 726.

## Issues

1. Whether a money judgment on a promissory note that was actually secured by a trust deed is void for noncompliance with Code of Civil Procedure § 726, permitting collateral attack in a later quiet title action.
2. Whether noncompliance with § 726 is a jurisdictional defect (void judgment) or, instead, nonjurisdictional error (voidable only on direct review).

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment quieting title in Ulrich subject to Salter’s bond lien.
- The Court held the municipal court judgment obtained by Ulrich was not void and therefore was not subject to collateral attack.
- The Court concluded that any failure to proceed by foreclosure under § 726 did not deprive the municipal court of power to enter a personal money judgment on the debt.

## Legal Principles

- A domestic judgment is not subject to collateral attack unless it is void on its face (or otherwise shown to be jurisdictionally void).
- Code of Civil Procedure § 726 prescribes a procedural limitation on the remedy for enforcing a debt secured by real property; noncompliance generally constitutes error in the mode of relief, not a defect in subject-matter jurisdiction.
- A judgment entered in violation of § 726 is at most erroneous or voidable and must be challenged, if at all, by direct attack rather than treated as a nullity in a separate proceeding.
- Where the rendering court had jurisdiction over the parties and the type of action (e.g., an action on a promissory note), an asserted § 726 violation does not render the resulting judgment void.

## Conclusion

Because § 726 noncompliance did not make Ulrich’s municipal court judgment jurisdictionally void, Salter could not collaterally attack that judgment in a quiet title action, and Ulrich’s execution-sale title was upheld (as the trial court found) subject to Salter’s street improvement bond lien.


Salter v. Ulrich, 22 Cal. 2d 263 (Cal. 1943)