Burbank v. Conrad

96 U.S. 291, 24 L. Ed. 731, 1877 U.S. LEXIS 1664

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: March 25, 1878
• Docket: 209
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Field

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit for a partition of certain real property situated in the city of New Orleans in the State of Louisiana. The plaintiff alleges that he is the owner of an undivided half of the premises ; that the defendants are the owners of the other undivided half; and' that from the nature of the property it -cannot- be conveniently divided in kind. He therefore asks a partition by licitation; that is, by a sale of the premises and a division of the proceeds.

The plaintiff asserts title to an undivided half by a deed of the marshal of -the United States, executed to him upon a sale under a decree of the District Court, condemning and forfeiting the property to the United States, in proceedings taken against it as the property of Charles M.- Conrad, under the Confiscation Act of July 17,1862.

The defendants assert title to the whole property by a sale by public act,.made to them by their father,' the said Charles M. Conrad, before the recorder and ex-officio notary-public, of the parish of St. Mary, in Louisiana, on the 3d of June, 1862. This parish was then within the Confederate lines; and the Conrads, father and sons, were engaged in the rebellion against the United States. The act of sale was not placed on record in the city of New Orleans until 1870. The good faith of; the parties in the transaction is not questioned, nor'is the sufficiency of the consideration. But it is contended that the parties,'being public^ enemies in hostile -territory, were' incompetent' at the time to transfer or to accept the title to real property situated within the.Federal lines. And if this position should not be sustained, it is'further contended that thé act of sale not having been recorded in the city of New Orleans until after the condemnation of .the property by the District Court and its sale by tbe marshal, the plaintiff, as purchaser, took the title unaffected by the transaction; in other words, that his position us that of a third party buying upon the faith of the title standing in the ■ name of the elder Conrad upon the public records.

We have recently had occasion, in Conrad v. Waples (supra, p. 279), to consider the first of these questions, and it Avill be unnecessary here to do more than refer to our opinion in that case. And the second question requires only a brief notice. The-object of requiring a'p.ubliG record of instruments affecting the title to real .property'is to protect third parties dealing with the vendor, by imparting notice ,to'< them of any previous sale or hypothecation of the property, and to protect the purchaser against any subsequent attempted disposition of It. In Lóuisi- ’ ana, the conveyance is valid, between the partiés without registration, and passes the title. The only consequence of a failure' of the purchaser, to place his convey airee on the records of. the parish where the property is situated is that he, is thereby subjected. to the risk of losing the property if it be again sold or hypothecated by his vendor to an innocent third party, or if it be séized and sold by.- a ■ creditor of his vendor for the latter’s debts. The second purchaser from the vendor and the bidder at the judicial sale would,' in that case, hol'd the property. The United States never stood-in the position of a second purchaser of the property sold by the elder Conrad. They were ,not purchasers at any sale of his property. They had caused his estate in the land, whatever that was, to be seized and condemned. By the decree of condemnation, that estate vested in them for the period of his life. His estate for that period was then their property. The statute- declares that the property condemned “ shall become the property of the United States, and may be disposed of as the court shall decree.” It was the property of the United States, therefore, which was sold and conveyed at the marshal’s sale. The United States acquired by the decree, for the life of the offender, only the estate which at the time of the seizure he actually possessed; not what he may have appeared from the public records to possess, by reason of the omission of his vendees to record the act of- sale to them: arid that estate, whatever it Avas, for that period passed by the marshal’s sale and deed; nothing more .and nothing less. The Registry Act was riot intended to protect the United States in the exercise of their power of confiscation from the consequences of previous unrecorded sales of the alleged offender. It was in the ’ poAver of Congress to provide for the confiscation of the entire property, as being within the enemy’s country, without limiting it to the estate remaining in the offender-; but, not having done so, the court cannot enlarge the operation of the stringent provisions of the statute. The plaintiff had notice of the. character and legal effect of the decree, of condemnation when he purchased, and is therefore presumed to have known, that if the alleged offender possessed no estate in the premises at the time of their seizure, nothing passed to the United States ■ by the decree, or to him by his purchase.

We see no error in the ruling of the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana, and its judgment is

Affirmed.