Doherty v. Baldwin

405 So. 2d 1301, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 5338
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided October 20, 1981·No. No. 8379·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

DOUCET, Judge.

In this suit partitioning community property, the husband appeals the classification of 84 acres of land as community, and the [1302] classification of a certifícate of deposit for $12,000.00 in the name of both husband and wife, as the separate property of the wife.

The parties herein were married on August 5, 1972. On October 4, 1972 Robert Baldwin’s grandfather donated unto him 4,300 shares of stock in Ambal Corporation, thereby making defendant the sole stockholder of the corporation which owned the 84 acres of land at issue herein. Subsequently, defendant needed capital for a private investment and secured a loan with First Homestead & Savings Association of New Orleans, using the 84 acres as security. On September 29,1976, Ambal Corporation, represented by Robert Baldwin, Jr., executed a cash sale of the 84 acre tract to First Homestead & Savings Association for a price of $75,000 cash. On the same date, First Homestead & Savings Association sold the 84 acres to Robert Baldwin, Jr. for the price of $75,000, represented by a promissory note in the amount of $75,000, secured by a first mortgage and vendor’s lien, granted by Robert Bruce Baldwin, Jr. in favor of First Homestead & Savings Association. The funds representing the $75,000 were paid to Ambal Corporation and deposited in its corporate bank account wherefrom a check was issued in exchange for a promissory note, payable to Ambal Corporation by Robert Baldwin, Jr. Thereafter the money was applied toward the parties’ investment in a subdivision development. The transaction was typical of homestead sale-resale security devices, except in one respect: the property was resold to a different legal entity — Robert Baldwin, Jr., individually, and not as President of Ambal Corporation. However, on April 6, 1979 an act of correction was executed by the Homestead and Robert Baldwin, Jr., both individually and as representative of Ambal Corporation, which was subsequently filed in the Clerk of Court’s records in and for the Parish of St. Tammany. In the said act it was acknowledged and declared that in the resale transaction an error was committed by placing title in the name of Robert Bruce Baldwin, Jr. instead of placing title in the name of Ambal Corporation through Robert Bruce Baldwin, Jr. as allegedly intended originally by the parties. Disputed is the legal effect and not the occurrence of these facts.

On February 17, 1977, the wife filed a petition for separation from bed and board and on June 16,1978, a judgment of separation was entered. Thereafter, on September 1, 1978, the wife filed a petition for partition of community property in St. Landry Parish, to which the husband responded with a declinatory exception of lis pendens, alleging that on August 21, 1978 a suit to partition community property had been filed in St. Tammany Parish. After a hearing on the matter, the said exception was denied.

At trial the husband claimed undivided ownership of the aforementioned 84 acres, and claimed that a certificate of deposit in the amount of $12,000, the funds for which were originally inherited by the plaintiff prior to marriage, had been converted into community property by the wife’s donation, as evidenced by transfer of the certificate into an account in the name of both husband and wife and the appellant’s subsequent pledge of same for a community debt. The wife claimed that the transaction with the Homestead Association resulted in the land becoming community property because of the different legal entity listed as vendee in the resale and the lack of a double declaration demonstrating that the purchase was made with the separate funds of the husband and that it was intended to benefit his separate estate. Furthermore, she asserted that the act of correction could not prejudice her rights acquired during the interim. The trial court agreed, finding that a deliberate transfer of the 84 acres from Ambal Corporation to Robert Bruce Baldwin, Jr. had occurred, that the subsequent act of correction was of no effect, and stated in its reasons for judgment that Homesteads simply do not make mistakes. In accordance with its finding that because of the absence of the double declaration in the sale from the Homestead to Robert Baldwin, Jr., the acreage was community property. The mortgage granted to the Homestead in the sum of $75,000 was held to be a community [1303] debt. Additionally, the trial court found the case of Owens v. Owens, 259 So.2d 454 (La.App.3rd Cir. 1972) to be dispositive of the characterization of the certificate of deposit and, accordingly, deemed it to be the separate property of the wife.

From these adverse rulings the husband has appealed, assigning numerous errors, all of which relate to the trial court’s characterization of the above two items of property.

Appellant contends that he was never divested of full ownership of the land by the sale-resale transaction, and that if he was, the error of the Homestead in listing him as vendee in the resale should not be imputed to him, but instead the error was cured retroactively by the subsequent act of correction. In support of his proposition that the transaction was merely a security device, and not an indirect donation to his spouse, the appellant notes that the property was valued in the inventory at $298,-000.00 whereas the loan secured was only $75,000.00, and there was no joint conveyance in the act of resale. In response to the trial court’s reasoning, the appellant asserts that to err is human and to attribute a Homestead with attributes greater than human is contrary to common sense.

Neither party denies that, in the absence of additional circumstances, property brought into a marriage or subsequently inherited by one of the spouses is separate property. La.Civil Code art. 2334. Appel-lee places reliance upon the presumption created in Civil Code art. 2402 that property acquired during the marriage is presumed to part of the community of acquets and gains. However appellee admits that a sale-resale transaction is a recognized exception to the judicial requirement of a double declaration necessary for a husband to acquire property for the benefit of his separate estate. Ruffino v. Hunt, 234 La. 91, 99 So.2d 34 (1958); Bagala v. Bagala, 237 La. 60, 110 So.2d 526 (1959); Fontenot v. Fontenot, 339 So.2d 897 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1976); Cookmeyer v. Cookmeyer, 274 So.2d 739 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1973); Baker v. Baker, 209 La. 1041, 26 So.2d 132 (1946).

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Doherty v. Baldwin, 405 So. 2d 1301, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 5338 (La. Ct. App. 1981).

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