Desobry v. Schlater

25 La. Ann. 425
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 15, 1873
DocketNo. 4536
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 25 La. Ann. 425 (Desobry v. Schlater) 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
Desobry v. Schlater, 25 La. Ann. 425 (La. 1873).

Opinion

Morgan, J.

On the sixteenth December, 1846, Jean Arvillien Dardenne and Frances Desobry, entered into a marriage contract, by which it was stipulated that the future husband brought into marriage property valued at $18,000, and the future wife $7500 in cash, which sum was advanced by her father and mother out of the share which might fall to her in their succession after their death. This sum of $7500 was acknowledged to have been received by the future husband.. Besides the cash, the tature wife also brought into marriage a slave,, aged about eighteen years, which was also advanced by her father and', mother upon the same terms. The parties to this contract were Dar-denne and Frances Desobry, and her father and mother, Lewis and! Minerva Desobry.

By this contract it was further agreed that all the property brought by the future husband and wife in marriage, or which might' fall to them or either of them by succession or donation during their mar-; riage, should be held in common between them under a title similar to that of acquets and gains, made during the existence ot the marriage •, and it was expressly agreed between the parties to the contract, that the future wife had not, and should never exercise any dotal or paraphernal rights. This portion of the contract is as follows:

[426]*426“Article third — The parties to this contract, that is to say, the said Jean Arvillien Dardenne and the said Frances Desobry and her said father and mother, Louis Desobry and Minerva, his wife, convenant and agree that all the property brought by them in marriage, or which may fall to them, or either of them, by succession or donation, during their marriage, shall be held by them in common, on a title similar to that of acquets and gains, made during the existence of the marriage, it being expressly understood by and between the parties to this contract that the said future wife has not, and can never exercise any dotad- or paraphernal rights.

Dardenne and Frances Desobry were married under this contract.

At various times after the marriage the father and mother of Mrs. Dardenne gave to Dardenne sums of money. They also gave him a slave. He receipted for the amounts received, and it was stated in the receipts that the money and the slave given were received as donations to Mrs. Dardenne, to be deducted out of any interest which she might •eventually have in the succession of her father and mother.

On the twenty-fourth March, 1856, Louis Desobry, Mrs. Dardenne’s father, sold to Dardenne certain pieces of property for $10,150, of which $2000 were paid in cash, and for the balance the vendor made a donation thereof to his daughter, Mrs. Dardenne, as an advance of her ■share of inheritance, which sum, so advanced, was to be considered as the paraphernal property of Mrs. Dardenne. On the fifth September, 1866, Mrs. Dardenne'instituted suit against her husband, in which she sets up the marriage contract referred to, and the payments made therein and thereunder, all of which payments she avers were received by her husband, and were by him converted to his own use and benefit. She alleges further that the stipulations therein contained, with reference to the community which it was agreed should exist between her husband and herself, are contrary to law, and are therefore null and void; that the derangement of her husband’s affairs and his pecuniary embarrassments induce her to fear that she may lose her rights and claims for the sums of money and the property received by him for hex; and she prayed for a separation of property, and for a judgment for the amount of her claims, with interest, and with a legal mortgage to secure the payment thereof upon her husband’s property. The husband made default, which was duly confirmed, and on the twenty-eighth September, 1866, judgment was rendered in her favor, declaring that portion of their marriage contract regarding the community which was to exist between them null; decreeing, further, a separation of property between her husband and herself, and giving her a judgment for $19,641, amount of her separate and paraphernal funds and moneys received by her husband for her account, with legal interest from judicial demand until paid, and granting her a legal mortgage on the [427]*427property of her husband to secure the payment of the $19,641, to date from the dates upon which the several sums making up this aggregate were received by him. This judgment was published according to law.

On the first March, 1867, by public act passed before the recorder of the parish in which they reside, Dardenne, in full satisfaction of the .'judgment above recited, gave to his wife, who accepted the same under his authorization, a certain plantation known as the Crescent plantation, together with the mules, horses, sheep, and agricultural implements thereon, and another tract of land. This elation en paiement was recorded on the twenty-first March, 1867. On the thirteenth February, 1867, Mrs. Dardenne gave to her husband a power of attorney, to manage all the matters regarding her property, and he has been administering it ever since. The Crescent plantation has been cultivated by him, and in the year 1871 a crop of sugar and molasses was made thereon.

On the twenty-eighth September, 1866, Roman Schlater obtained a judgment against Brusle and Dardenne, in solido, for $9504, with four per cent, interest thereon per annum, from first April, 1862. On the seventh December, 1871, he issued execution thereon. On the eighth December, the sheriff seized six hogsheads sugar, and on the fifteenth he seized twenty-six and two-thirds hogsheads and three thousand seven hundred and forty-five gallons molasses, more or less, of which he sub•sequently released one-third of the sugar and two thousand eight hundred gallons of molasses, under instructions from Schlater, which ■sugar and molasses was produced on the Crescent plantation.

This execution was injoined by the plaintiff herein. In her petition she sets up her judgment, the payment thereof by the transfer of property above set forth, amongst which was the Crescent plantation, of which she alleges continual possession since the transfer thereof; and she claims that the property seized belongs to her, and that it is not liable for her husband’s debts. She asks for a judgment decreeing the seizure illegal.

The defendant answers that plaintiffs’ judgment and the proceedings thereunder, are mere simulations, intended to place the property of her husband beyond the pursuit of his creditors, who had obtained and recorded judgments against him prior to her judgment, and the transfer thereunder. He sets up the marriage contract between the parties, on the faith of which, he alleges, he and others, transacted business with her husband and became his creditors, and he claims that her judgment as against him is an absolute nullity. Upon these issues the parties wentto trial. There was judgment perpetuating the injunction, and the defendant has appealed. The whole case turns upon the validity of the marria,ge -contract, about the existence and confection of [428]*428which there is no dispute; and the question propounded to us for answer is : Can parties, in Louisiana, by their marriage contract, agree that the property which they may acquire by succession, or donation, during marriage, shall fall into the community of acquets and gains? And herein (in this case) can the father and mother of the parties to the marriage, give the whole or a part of the property they may leave on the day of their decease for the benefit of the parties ?

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87 So. 3d 230 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2012)
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 La. Ann. 425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/desobry-v-schlater-la-1873.