In Gherman v. Colburn (1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 544, plaintiffs sought to establish the existence of a joint venture and its breach; an accounting was requested. Plaintiffs desired a trial by jury but defendants did not. In their pleading, defendants had denied that a joint venture had ever existed. Plaintiffs dismissed their cause of action for an accounting before trial. On the day of trial, defendants shifted their position to demand, by a proposed cross-complaint, an accounting with respect to the joint venture they had claimed did not exist. The trial court denied defendants the right to file the cross-complaint, and that denial was upheld upon the defendants' appeal from the judgment in favor of plaintiffs as a result of the jury's verdict. The Gherman court noted that the defendants had known for some time prior to trial that plaintiffs had abandoned their request for an accounting and then concluded with the pertinent observation that "where the defendant fails to act for a period of over 30 days and waits until the first day of trial, such conduct may be interpreted as evidence of a lack of good faith especially when coupled with the long history of litigation between the parties, which demonstrates that both sides were jockeying for position over the right to a jury trial." ( Gherman, supra, 72 Cal.App.3d 544, 559.)