Buillard v. Davis

197 So. 273, 195 La. 684, 1940 La. LEXIS 1109
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 27, 1940
DocketNo. 35330.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 197 So. 273 (Buillard v. Davis) 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
Buillard v. Davis, 197 So. 273, 195 La. 684, 1940 La. LEXIS 1109 (La. 1940).

Opinion

HIGGINS, Justice.

This is an appeal by the plaintiffs and the interveners from a judgment of the district court in a petitory action fixing the proportionate interest of the respective co-owners in a tract of approximately 1218.75 acres of land situated in St. Mary Parish and reserving to all parties their respective rights flowing from their ownership in indivisión.

The defendants answered the appeal, complaining of certain alleged errors in the judgment, and the plaintiffs and the interveners challenged the defendants’ rights to question the correctness of the judgment on the ground that the defendants had obtained an order for a devolutive and a suspensive appeal from the judgment and had abandoned the same by failing to perfect the appeal, as they did not file an appeal bond ■ and, therefore, they waived their rights to answer the appeal.

The law is well-settled that where an order for a devolutive appeal is obtained by a party against whom judgment has been rendered and the appeal is not perfected by furnishing bond, this litigant has the right to obtain another order for a devolutive appeal and he is not barred from doing so, provided the second devolutive appeal is applied for and perfected within the prescriptive period of one year from the date the judgment was signed. Gresham v. Collier, 128 La. 143, 144, 145, 54 So. 590; Durand v. Landry, 118 La. 711, 43 So. 307; and Bowie v. Davis, 33 La.Ann. 345.

It inexorably follows from the above principle of law that the right of a party, who has failed to perfect his own devolutive appeal, to answer the appeal taken by his adversary is neither waived nor barred, for it is clear that he is in the same position as if he had never attempted to, appeal. Therefore, the defendants are entitled to have the issues presented in their answers to the plaintiffs’ and the interveners’ appeal decided by this Court.

Counsel for the appellants have referred us to the cases In re Gem Co., Inc., 161 La. 18, 108 So. 110, and In re Gem Co., Inc., 173 La. 934, 139 So. 11. Those decisions are not in point for they hold that where the appellant abandons his appeal he cannot thereafter, in the absence of changed conditions, renew it.

The plaintiffs and the interveners, as appellants, contend that the judgment of the trial court is erroneous in recognizing the interests of two of the defendants, Miss Alice G. Miller and Mrs. H. Generes Dufour, in the property.

It appears that the plaintiffs and the interveners in their respective petitions instituting this petitory action, affirmatively alleged that their ancestors in title, the heirs of Mr. and Mrs. Francois Gonsoulin and Clair St. Clair Gonsoulin, transferred to David Todd and Branch K. Miller on January 11, 1904, an undivided one-twelfth interest in the entire property in question. All of the defendants filed exceptions of no right and no cause of action to the plaintiffs’ and the interveners’ petitions, and in their answer set up a chain of title in themselves adverse to the *690 title of the plaintiffs and the interveners. These exceptions, as well as other pleas, were sustained hy the district judge and the plaintiffs’ and the interveners’ suit was dismissed and they appealed. We affirmed the judgment of the trial court sustaining these exceptions only insofar as the undivided one-twelfth interest in the land was concerned, because the plaintiffs and the interveners had alleged affirmatively that their ancestors in title had previously transferred the undivided one-twelfth interest in the tract of land to Todd and Miller. Buillard et al. v. Davis et al., 185 La. 255, 169 So. 78, and Buillard et al. v. Davis et al., 188 La. 38, 175 So. 742.

The plaintiffs and the interveners now state that they made the above allegations as to the transfer of the undivided one-twelfth interest to Todd and Miller to show that the heirs of the Gonsoulins had exercised ownership of the property and, therefore, had accepted the successions of the decedents. They further state that the act of sale of this one-twelfth interest was introduced in evidence solely for the purpose of supporting the above allegations of the petition for the aforementioned limited purpose. Their counsel, therefore, argues that the trial judge went beyond the pleadings and created new issues based upon the above allegations in the petition and upon the act of sale which were offered in evidence, in decreeing Miss Miller an owner in her capacity as heir of her father and Mrs. Dufour, as an owner through inheritance from her husband. In short, he complains that the court had no right and authority to recognize Miss Miller and Mrs. Dufour as owners through inheritance of an interest in the property under the allegations and proof placed in the record by the plaintiffs and the interveners after this Court had concluded that the links in the chain of title relied upon by these two defendants in the averments of their answers were absolute nullities. The plaintiffs and the interveners in their petitions did not state that the allegations as to the transfer of the one-twelfth interest in the property to Todd and Miller by their ancestors in title were made for the purpose of merely showing the exercise of ownership by these heirs of the property belonging to the Gonsoulins’ successions so as to show their acceptance thereof; nor did they state therein that the alleged transfer to Todd and Miller was in any way illegal or irregular and that they reserved their rights to attack the validity thereof. Consequently, when we sustained the exceptions of no right and no cause of action, the heirs or transferees of David Todd and Branch K. Miller were entitled to show in this case when we remanded it for further proceedings that they were the lawful owners of the undivided one-twelfth interest in the property, and as the trial judge concluded that the record contained sufficient evidence to show that Miss Miller was the heir of her father and Mrs. Dufour was the heir of her husband, we fail to see where the pleadings were enlarged or new issues created against the plaintiffs and the interveners, for they had unequivocally alleged in their petitions that the one-twelfth interest in the land belonged to Todd and Miller.

Furthermore, the appellants m making the above contention entirely ignored the *692 fact that this Court definitely and finally held that the exceptions of no right and no cause of action were well founded as to the undivided one-twelfth interest transferred to Todd and Miller, and therefore the plaintiffs’ and the interveners’ petitory action (coupled with the pleas for the nullity of certain probate proceedings) only involved the eleven-twelfths or the remainder of the tract of land.

' The defendants, in their answer to the appeal, assign as the first error in the judgment of the lower court that the trial judge failed to follow our decrees in the cases of Buillard et al. v. Davis et al., reported in 185 La. 255, 169 So. 78, and 188 La. 38, 175 So. 742, wherein we declared that the plaintiffs and the interveners having alleged in their original petitions that an undivided one-twelfth inter-' est in the whole of the property had been conveyed by the heirs of Mr. and Mrs. Francois Gonsoulin and Clair St. Clair Gonsoulin (plaintiffs’ and interveners’ predecessors in title) to their attorneys David Todd and Branch'K.

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Bluebook (online)
197 So. 273, 195 La. 684, 1940 La. LEXIS 1109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buillard-v-davis-la-1940.