Ball v. Price

121 So. 752, 168 La. 226, 1929 La. LEXIS 1767
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedFebruary 11, 1929
DocketNo. 28465.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 121 So. 752 (Ball v. Price) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ball v. Price, 121 So. 752, 168 La. 226, 1929 La. LEXIS 1767 (La. 1929).

Opinions

BRUNOT, J.

This is a petitory action. The petition also contains a moneyed demand for the value of certain timber the defendants are alleged to have cut and removed from the land.

The property sued for is described as follows:

“All of Section 27, Township 5 North, Range 1 East, lying South of Beaver Creek, Rapides Parish, Louisiana.”

Plaintiffs pray to be decreed the owners of and entitled to the possession of said land and for a judgment, in solido, against the defendants, for $1,400, with 5 per cent, per annum interest thereon from judicial demand, and for costs.

There are two defendants, viz. James Monroe Price and H. D. Eoote Lumber Company, Inc. The defendants deny the plaintiffs’ alleged ownership of the property. Defendant Price affirmatively alleges ownership and possession of the land, and the H. D. Foote Lumber Company alleges ownership and possession of the timber on the land. Both allege continuous, open, and uninterrupted possession, through themselves and their authors in title, of the respective property claimed by them, for more than thirty year’s, and both plead estoppel and the prescriptions of ten and thirty years in bar of the plaintiffs’ claims.

The case was tried on the issues stated, and, from a judgment in favor of defendants and against the plaintiffs, rejecting the plaintiffs’ demands and dismissing the suit at their cost, decreeing James Monroe Price to be the owner and entitled to possession of the land, and decreeing the H. D. Foote Lum-, ber Company, Inc., to be the owner and entitled to possession of the timber on the land, the plaintiffs appealed.

Plaintiffs and defendants trace. their respective claims of title to a common author. They allege that' the property sued for was a part of the community of acquets and gains, existing between Asa Bell and his wife, Mrs. Charlotte Bell, and that Asa Bell died intestate, leaving Mrs. Charlotte Bell, his surviving widow in community, and several children, as his sole heirs.

The chains of title under which the plaintiffs and defendants claim ownership of the property is clearly set forth in the transcript.

The record shows that in a recorded act of partition executed by Mrs. Charlotte Bell, widow of Asa Bell, and all of the children and sole heirs of Asa Bell, which act was recorded October 17, 1910, Mrs. Charlotte Bell acquired the following property:

“All the remaining portion of Section 27, Township 5 North, Range 1 East, lying South of Beaver Creek, being the remainder of the Thomas Nugent Tract.”

Mrs. Charlotte Bell died intestate, and, by acts of record dated August 2, 1919, April 10, 1922, April 19, 1922, October 5, 1922, January 3, 1923, August 21, 1924, and August 16, 1924, the heirs of Mrs. Charlotte Bell, deceased, sold and conveyed to plaintiffs all of their, undivided interest in and to the following property:

“All of Section 27, Township 5 North, Range 1 East, lying south of Beaver Creek, being the remainder of the Thomas Nugent Tract.”

The description of the property in the plaintiff’s chain of title from Asa Bell to plaintiffs is, in each transfer thereof, a precise and accurate description of the land sued for.

The defendants are claiming under a deed from the widow and heirs of Asa Bell to Ste *230 phen J. Sasser, and through mesne conveyances from Stephen J. Sasser to defendants. The property which the widow and heirs of Asa Bell sold to Stephen J. Sasser is described as follows:

“One hundred twenty-five acres of land lying, being and situated on Bayou Plaggon, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, in Section Twenty-five (25) and Twenty-six (26), township five North Range One East, North of Red River, together with all the buildings and improvements thereon, rights, ways and privileges thereto belonging, and bounded on the East by lands of S. M. Price, West by public lands, South, by lands of Wesley Barron, North by Beaver Creek and Mrs. Charlotte Bell, and being a portion of the lands belonging to the estate of Asa Bell and Mrs. Charlotte Bell, his widow, and known as the Thomas Nu-gent Tract, and being the same property acquired by Donaldson Price from Mrs. Charlotte Bell, as per act of sale passed before James R. Waters on the 1st day of April, A. B., 1882, and afterwards sold by Donaldson Price to James Stewart, who is now in possession of said land without any written deed or title, who also appears to confer in and ratify this deed and title, with full and complete guarantee against the claims of any and all former owners.”

This sale is dated November 24, 1896. It was recorded January 8,1897. On November 29, 1905, Stephen J. Sasser sold the same property to Robert Aaron, bounding it, however, in the description in this deed, by lands of Lorena Nugent on the west instead of by public lands, which is given as the western boundary in the deed by which he acquired, it. On the same day, Robert Aaron sold the property back to Stephen J. Sasser. The description in the deed from Aaron to Sasser is the same as the description in the deed from Sasser to Aaron, except as to the eastern boundary. In the deed from Sasser to Aáron, the land is bounded on the east by S. M. Price, but in the deed from Aaron to Sasser it is bounded on. the east by Mrs. A. M. Price, On August 5,1909, Stephen J. Sasser sold the property to Charles Claremont. In this deed the land is bounded on the east by S. M. Price and on the west by Henry Sasser. On October 26, 1910, Charles Claremont sold the same property to James Monroe Price, one of the defendants. On March 6, 1924, James Monroe Price sold all of the pine timber, including poles and tie timber on the land, to Thomas L. Owen, who, in a declaration and transfer executed before B. T. Dawkins, notary public, and recorded May 2, 1924, acknowledged and declared the H. D. Foote Lumber Company, Inc., to be the true and lawful owner of said pine timber, poles, and tie timber.

Defendants contend that the deed from the widow and heirs of Asa Bell to Stephen J. Sasser; which antedates the act of partition between the said widow and heirs of Bell, identifies the land conveyed by it, as being the land sued for by plaintiffs; that it was a deed translative of the property; and that its recordation was sufficient notice to third persons or subsequent purchasers of such a conveyance.' They also contend that, as the widow and heirs of Asa Bell were the vendors in the act of sale by which Stephen J. Sasser acquired the land, they and their heirs are estopped from attacking that deed, and, as the deed was translative of the property, defendants had acquired it, through their own and the possession of their authors in title, by the prescription of ten years. Defendants also plead the prescription of thirty years, but, we will say here that the record shows that the property was woodland, that the author of defendants’ chain of title could not have possessed it prior to January 8, 1897, the date the deed from the widow and heirs of Asa Bell to him was filed for record, and, as this suit was instituted September 23, 1924, well with *232 in the prescriptive period, the plea passes out of the case. We will add.that, before the prescription of ten years aequirendi causa can be successfully invoked, the pleader must show that he holds under a title sufficient to transfer the ownership of the property. R. C. C. art. 3485. In the ease of Castera’s Heirs v.

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Bluebook (online)
121 So. 752, 168 La. 226, 1929 La. LEXIS 1767, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ball-v-price-la-1929.