Home/Supreme Court of Louisiana/Dickson v. Sandefur

Dickson v. Sandefur

250 So. 2d 708, 259 La. 473, 1971 La. LEXIS 4269
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJune 7, 1971
Docket50690
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 250 So. 2d 708 (Dickson v. Sandefur) 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
Dickson v. Sandefur, 250 So. 2d 708, 259 La. 473, 1971 La. LEXIS 4269 (La. 1971).

Opinions

BARHAM, Justice.

The district court rendered judgment in favor of plaintiffs on their principal demand and dismissed the reconventional demand of one of the defendants, Norman D. Stewart. The Court of Appeal affirmed,1 235 So.2d 579, and we granted writs to review its decision.

C. Bickham Dickson, Jr., and his two sons instituted a possessory action against a number of defendants, claiming the old abandoned bed of Red River, a navigable river, around Sunflower Peninsula and the land between that bed and the new bed of the river across Stmflozver Peninsula-. Among the defendants was Norman D. Stewart, owner of Eagle Bend Plantation, who answered the possessory action and filed by reconventional demand a petitory action in which he claimed ownership of the old bed of the river around Eagle Bend Point of Eagle Bend Plantation as well as all the land lying between the old bed and the present channel of Red River across Eagle Bend Plantation. Stewart’s demand claimed ownership of land also claimed by the Dicksons and others who had entered into an act of partition of that [477]*477land in 1958. All parties to the partition were made defendants in the petitory action.

The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the Dicksons in their possessory action, awarding to them the old river bed as it existed prior to 1945 and the land comprising Sunflower Peninsula between the old bed and the new bed of Red River. The trial court dismissed the reconventional demand of Stewart. Only Stewart, of all the defendants in the possessory action, appealed from the judgment in favor of the Dicksons in that possessory action. Stewart in his appeal as well as before us states that his position is basically an appeal from the adverse decision on his petitory action in the reconventional demand. He argues that if he is successful in his petitory action, which claims Eagle Bend Point and the old river bed there, then the Dick-sons are entitled to judgment against him on their possessory action concerning Sunflower Peninsula. Stewart simply asserts that the situations at Sunflower and at Eagle Bend are identical, and that the legal determination should not be adverse to him in both instances. We address ourselves to a determination of the rights of the parties under Stewart’s petitory action in his re-conventional demand in which he claims ownership of the abandoned river bed which surrounded Eagle Bend Point prior to 1945 and the land between it and the new river channel across Eagle Bend Plantation.

The court is most fortunate in this case to have the numerous photographs taken before the flood, during the flood, and after the flood, and it is from these photographs and the experts’ testimony concerning them that we are able to reconstruct in large part the occurrences pertinent to thir. decision.

We have incorporated in this opinion four photographs of exhibits offered by the various parties. We have left the identifying symbols on Photo 3 and have added pertinent additional identifying marks; but on the other photographs we have omitted all identifying marks made ■ during the trial, and the identifying symbols appearing on them as here reproduced are our own. The reader should be careful to note that in Photographs 1, 2, and 4 north is at the bottom of the picture, and therefore east will be to the reader’s left and west of course to the right, which is contrary to ordinary map reading. However, Photograph 3 is depicted in the usual manner, with west to the left and east to the right.

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Dickson v. Sandefur
250 So. 2d 708 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1971)

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Bluebook (online)
250 So. 2d 708, 259 La. 473, 1971 La. LEXIS 4269, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dickson-v-sandefur-la-1971.