Coguenhem v. Trosclair

69 So. 800, 137 La. 985, 1915 La. LEXIS 1786
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJune 25, 1915
DocketNo. 20491
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 69 So. 800 (Coguenhem v. Trosclair) 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
Coguenhem v. Trosclair, 69 So. 800, 137 La. 985, 1915 La. LEXIS 1786 (La. 1915).

Opinions

PROVOSTY, J.

There being a sugar factory and a tramway system on the Laurel Grove plantation fronting on Bayou Lafourche, the owners of the plantation extended the tramway about a mile across six plantations likewise fronting on Bayou Lafourche and belonging to other persons; the object being to facilitate the transportation of cane to the factory. Eor making said extension they obtained a servitude of way across these plantations. Shortly thereafter they acquired the most distant of them, the Enterprise. This was some 19 years before the origin of the present controversy, and said tramway across said plantations has been used regularly ever since in transporting cane to said factory.

The two plantations, Laurel Grove and Enterprise, were sold at private sale to L. A. Troselair, the defendant in this suit. By him they were mortgaged to Le Bourgeois & Bush. At the foreclosure sale of this mortgage they were adjudicated to J. C. Le Bourgeois; and by him, two days later, were sold to the intervener in this suit, the Laurel Grove Company. About two weeks thereafter the plaintiff in this suit caused execution to issue upon a judgment which he had obtained against the said L. A. Troselair, and caused the cross-ties and steel rails conrposing that part of said tramway which is upon the five plantations intervening between the Laurel Grove and Enterprise to be seized. The intervener, the Laurel Grove Company, intervened in the seizure, claiming that said tramway was an accessory and dependency of said plantations, and, as such, passed with them to Le Bourgeois at the foreclosure sale, and passed to it, the intervener, at the private sale made to it by Le Bourgeois.

The said foreclosure proceeding was by ex-ecutory process; and the only property that can be seized and sold in an executory process is the property covered by the mortgage that is being foreclosed. Plaintiff contends that the part of said tramway that has been seized in this suit was not covered by said mortgage, and therefore was not sold. For this he assigns two reasons: First, that-the act of mortgage makes no mention of any servitude of way or of any tramway; and, second, that the part of said tramway not situated upon the said two plantations, but upon the five intervening plantations, is a movable, and hence was not susceptible of being mortgaged.

The learned counsel of plaintiff quote authority (State v. Mexican Gulf Railway, 3 Rob. 513; Woodward v. American Exposition Co., 39 La. Ann. 569, 2 South. 413) to the effect that a railroad laid upon land not belonging to the owner of the railroad is a movable; and they quote the Civil Code and French authorities (articles 468, 469; Marcadé on Art. 525, C. N.; Toullier, Ls. 2, tit. 1, c. 1; Laurent, p. 453 (volume not stated); Duranton, Lw. 2, T. 1, § 2; Caen, 1st April, 1879-1880; J. of P. p. 1236; Toulouse 15th of May, 1879-1880, J. of P. 1238) to the effect that, in order that a movable should become an immovable by destination, it must be XDlaced on, or attached to, the realty permanently ; and they argue that, even if this servitude of way could be considered as realty, and forming part of the two xHaDtations (which they do not admit), still that part of said tramway not situated upon said two plantations could not be considered as having been attached to same permanently, because the said servitude of way was itself not permanent, but only temporary, it, in fact, being about to expire in the case of one of the five plantations.

In the act of mortgage by L. A. Troselair to Le Bourgeois & Bush, under which the foreclosure sale took place, the property mortgaged was declared to be the Laurel Grove and Enterprise plantations, “with all the buildings and improvements thereon,” [989]*989and the metes and bounds were given. No mention was made of any servitude or tramway. But in the act of sale to L. A. Trosclair the servitudes and tramways were specifically mentioned, and they were specifically mentioned at every step in the foreclosure proceedings, to wit: in the petition; in theiorder for foreclosure; in the advertisement l in the sheriff’s deed; and in his return upon the writ.

[1] Intervener contends that the order of seizure and sale, which specifically mentions this servitude and tramway and orders them to be seized and sold, is a judgment, the correctness of which cannot be inquired into collaterally, and that said judgment and the sale made thereunder cannot be ignored, and a direct seizure made of said property, as if there had never been any judgment, seizure or sale.

Considering that said servitude and tramway were, as a matter of fact, ordered to be seized and sold, and were seized and sold to satisfy a debt of Trosclair, the owner thereof and the defendant in the executory process, and that the price thereof went actually towards satisfying his debt, and considering that he stood by and made no objection to said sale, it may well be that he would now be estopped from raising the question which the plaintiff is now raising, as to whether the said things were not movables, and therefore not susceptible of being mortgaged, and, as a consequence, were not included in the said sale. But these reasons for estoppel would not apply to the plaintiff, a creditor of Troselair; and, as to such a creditor and all other third persons, we prefer to adhere to the rule that ,at a sale made in foreclosure of a mortgage property not covered by the mortgage does not pass. Jones v. Lake, 43 La. Ann. 1024, 10 South. 204; Dauchite Lumber Co. v. Lane & Bodley Co., 52 La. Ann. 1937, 28 South. 232. The case has to turn, therefore, upon whether said things were immovables and were included in the mortgage.

[2] We think they were. The two plantations were unquestionably intended to be mortgaged just in, the con'dition in which they were, that is to say, with this tramway connecting them; and hence the contention of plaintiff must be that this tramway was not included in the mortgage, not because it was not specifically mentioned as being included, but because, it being movable, it could not be included; in other words, that no matter how much the parties may have desired and intended to include this property in the mortgage, they could not do so, because it was a movable, and.formed no part of the plantations. This tramway was an improvement-added to the plantations, increasing, and materially, doubtless, their value. Now, it would be an unbusinesslike and unreasonable or senseless law which would not allow these two,-plantations to be mortgaged thus connectedly, together with this improvement adding to their value, but only disconnectedly, without this valuable and important improvement. The learned counsel for plaintiff would have to concede, and do virtually concedé, that the servitude of way followed the plantations; and hence their contention has to be that, while the servitude did, the tramway, by which alone it was useful or could be exercised, did not. Our law of mortgage is not thus defective; it is open to no such imputation and reproach as this.

[3] The servitude of way as well as this-railroad by which it was to be exercised were accessories and dependencies of the plantations, or at least of one of them, and passed with them. The servitude of way is due not to the owners of the plantation, but to the plantation itself. C. O. 646, 651. It is an accessory of the plantation. O. C. 652. It can pass only “by means of the” plantation. C. C. 654. “Servitudes being essentially due from one estate to another for the advantage [991]

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Bluebook (online)
69 So. 800, 137 La. 985, 1915 La. LEXIS 1786, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coguenhem-v-trosclair-la-1915.