Burke v. Tregre

28 La. Ann. 437
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedApril 15, 1876
DocketNo. 6085
StatusPublished

This text of 28 La. Ann. 437 (Burke v. Tregre) 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
Burke v. Tregre, 28 La. Ann. 437 (La. 1876).

Opinion

Taliaeebeo, J.

The plaintiff in her own right and as tutrix of her minor children alleging that she is the holder of two several promissory notes, each for the sum of .153853 66, drawn payable to her order as tutrix by the defendant, dated twenty-fourth March, 1865, payable twelve months after date, and secured by mortgage on two tracts of land in the parish of St. John the Baptist, embracing a sugar plantation and various buildings and improvements thereon, instituted this action to enforce payment of her claims by a sale of the mortgaged property via ordinaria. The defendant answered by general denial, but seems to have been rather [438]*438passive in the contest, which is waged almost entirely by and between the plaintiff and the intervenor, Miltenberger. The latter intervened in the case, setting forth that he is bona fide owner and possessor of the property against which the plaintiff is seeking to enforce her claims'; that he acquired it free from the pretended mortgage of the plaintiff by purchase at a public sale made of the property by the United States Marshal on the third of June, 1865, under and by virtue of an order of the United States Provisional Court rendered at the suit of intervenor to pay and satisfy a debt due him by the defendant Tregre, secured by mortgage executed on the twentieth of April, 1858. He pleads in bar of the plaintiff’s action the prescription of one, three, and five years ; the intorvenor, Halsey, alleging that he is the holder of ten notes of five thousand dollars each, -executed by A. Miltenberger on the twenty-fifth of March, 1872, to secure the payment of which he mortgaged the land and plantation now in controversy. This intervenor avers that Milten-berger is the owner of the property, and joins him in resisting the claims of the plaintiff.

The plaintiff answered the intervention of Miltenberger, denying the existence of the mortgage and order of sale alleged by him, and denying that there over was any such sale.

To the intervention of Halsey the plaintiff answers that the notes and mortgage lie declares upon are without validity ; that he has no legal or •equitable ownership in them ; that the mortgage to Miltenberger in 1858 never had any legal effect, never having been inscribed or reinscribcd according to law.

Judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff for the amount claimed by her, with recognition of first mortgage on the “ Star Plantation,” and ordering the mortgaged premises to be sold to satisfy the plaintiff’s claim ; that tlie interventions bo dismissed at costs of inter-venors ; that they be enjoined from setting up any right to the mortgaged property on account of the judgment of the Provisional Court on the mortgages of 1853 and 1858.

The intervenors havé appealed.

This suit in many of its features resembles very closely the case of Thomas J. Burke vs. Tregre, twenty-second Annual, page 629, the judgment in which case was, on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, affirmed. 19 Wallace, p. 519.

In that case the plaintiff, Thomas J. Burke, holder of two notes of Louis Tregre, dated the twenty-fourth of March, 1865, and secured by mortgage on the same property mortgaged by himlto the plaintiff in the case we have now under consideration, proceeded via execution against the property mortgaged, when, as in the case at bar, he was met by an intervention filed by A. Miltenberger, claiming to bo the owner of the [439]*439property seized, by virtue of a sale o'f the same made in June, 1865, under an order of the Provisional Court of the United States for the State of Louisiana granted by said court or by special permit of the military ■commander of the district. The proceedings then taken by the said in-tervenor ■wore predicated upon the same mortgage upon which ho founded his proceedings in intervention in the present case ; namely,- the mortgage executed by Louis Tregre in favor of A. Miltenborger & Co. on the twentieth of April, 1858. In that case, the one in which Thomas J. Burke as plaintiff caused the same property to bo seized on the twenty-third of July, 1868, the said' Burke set up against the intervention of Miltenborger—

First — That the Provisional Court of the United States for Louisiana had no legal existence, not having been established by any constitutional or legal authority.

Second — If legally constituted, the said court ceased to exist before the -date of its judgment, the seventeenth of April, 1865.

Third — That the copy of the judgment presented is not certified by the seal and proper officer of that court.

Fourth — The judgment on its face is null, because it does not appear to be an extract from tlie minutes of any court, or to have been rendered in open court, or to bo the act of any judge, not being signed by a judge.

Fifth and seventh grounds related to the absence of revenue stamps ; but these grounds were not insisted upon in the appellate court.

The sixth and eighth grounds were that the copy is incomplete as a judgment, because upon its face a petition, account, and act of mortgage ■are made part thereof and are not produced.

These various objections were held by this court to be without weight, and were accordingly overruled.

In the case now at bar the plaintiffs counsel urges other objections to the title of Miltenberger, growing out of an alleged incompleteness of the same in this, that there is wanting an adjudication and title deed ■emanating from the said Provisional Court; and, further, that such adjudication and transfer, if made, were made in violation of military orders and, therefore, void ; and, lastly, that there was no legal advertisement of the pretended Marshal’s sale.

There is an admission of counsel for plaintiff that some person pretending to act as deputy of the United States Provisional Marshal put up for sale at the court-house of the parish of St. John the Baptist, on the third of June, 1865, the “Star Plantation,” and-cried it to Milten-berger for twenty-seven thousand dollars ; that Messrs. Burke, Pollock, and Judge Bcrault were present, but neither of them was advised as to the authority of this person to act.

It is shown that Elfer, a witness, testified that ho was recorder of the [440]*440parish of Orleans in. Juno, 1865; that ho had in his possession the original of the Marshal’s deod of the sale of the property described in said act, which deed is transcribed in book A, new series, of conveyances, folios 100,101,102, él seq.; and that he signed the registry in his official capacity. The witness recollected very well having seen the said deed, a certificate from the clerk of the United States Provisional Court that the act was recorded in the United States Provisional Court of Louisiana.

It is shown that & fieri facias was issued. Various facts are presented supported by circumstantial evidence that leave no reasonable doubt that the writ issued, and we conclude that there was a sale, adjudication, and title deed to Miltenberger. Next, as to the special permit. It is shown that by general orders issued on the sixteenth May, 1865, by the commander of the Department of the Gulf, sales of cultivated lands were prohibited and suspended until first of February, 1866; the object and purpose being to secure the payment of wages and other expenses incident to the cultivation of the soil. It is shown, likewise, that special permits were occasionally granted for sales of plantations by legal process.

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Bluebook (online)
28 La. Ann. 437, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burke-v-tregre-la-1876.