Dunlap v. Red River Waterway Commission

405 So. 2d 655, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 5177
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 7, 1981
Docket8405
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 405 So. 2d 655 (Dunlap v. Red River Waterway Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dunlap v. Red River Waterway Commission, 405 So. 2d 655, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 5177 (La. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

405 So.2d 655 (1981)

Claude O. DUNLAP, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
RED RIVER WATERWAY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 8405.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

October 7, 1981.
Rehearing Denied November 20, 1981.

*656 Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway, Charles G. Tutt, Shreveport, for defendant-appellant.

Michael F. Kelly, Marksville, for defendant-appellee.

Knoll & Knoll, Kerry L. Spruill, Marksville, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before CUTRER, STOKER and LABORDE, JJ.

CUTRER, Judge.

This appeal involves the respective rights of the parties to a sale of immovable property subject to a servitude. Claude O. Dunlap (Dunlap) was the original owner of the tract of land upon which he granted a servitude to defendant, Red River Waterway Commission. Webster Paul Guilliot (Guilliot) subsequently purchased the property burdened by the servitude. Dunlap filed this suit against Red River Waterway Commission (Red River), seeking payment for land destroyed pursuant to use of the servitude. Payment had been made by Red River to the subsequent purchaser and record owner of the land, Guilliot.

The trial court granted judgment in favor of Dunlap in the amount of $4,715.00, the value of the land used by Red River. It dismissed Red River's third party demand against Guilliot, which sought restitution of the amount paid to Guilliot in error. The trial court also dismissed Guilliot's third party demand against Dunlap. Red River and Guilliot appealed.

The issues on appeal are:

(1) Whether the servitude grant between Dunlap and Red River creates rights and obligations which "run with the land;"
(2) Whether the right to receive payment for the servitude remains in Dunlap or does such right to payment run with the land vesting such right in a subsequent purchaser, Guilliot;
(3) If Dunlap obtains judgment against Red River, the issue arises as to whether Red River may recover the payment it made to Guilliot; and
(4) If Red River is allowed to recover from Guilliot, we must determine whether Guilliot has any recourse against Dunlap for the price of the land destroyed due to the use of the servitude.

FACTS

On September 13, 1968, Dunlap purchased property from his father, which contains the tract in question. On October 30, 1975, Dunlap granted to Red River a servitude affecting 10.5 acres which abutted the Red River. The servitude was granted in perpetuity to Red River, its successors and assigns. Red River was in the process of constructing revetment works which construction was known as the "Red River Waterway Project." The servitude grant *657 gave Red River the authority to generally perform the work necessary for the construction and continued maintenance of the revetment works. As to payment for the servitude, the transfer contains the following provision:

"In consideration for the granting of this servitude, GRANTEE agrees, binds and obligates itself to pay GRANTOR at the rate of Five Hundred Seventy-Five and No/100 ($575.00) Dollars for each acre of land actually destroyed as determined by cross-sections taken after the work has been completed and compared with cross-sections taken immediately before the work commenced, the consideration to be due and payable as soon as the amount due can be determined."

This servitude was filed into the public record on November 3, 1975.

On July 16, 1976, Dunlap sold his land, including that subject to the servitude he granted Red River, to his brother, Marion Dunlap. The sale was by cash deed and made no mention of the servitude previously granted to Red River. Within a year, March 16, 1977, Marion Dunlap sold to Guilliot, by cash deed, 28 of the 40 acres he had acquired from Claude. Included within this 28 acres were the 10.5 acres subject to the servitude granted by Claude Dunlap. This deed made no mention of the prior servitude. Guilliot had purchased the property in question after having had a title examination made of the property.

Dunlap contends that the grant of the servitude was a contract between him and Red River creating a personal right for Dunlap to be paid the amount agreed upon. Red River, as does Guilliot, urges that the right, to receive payment for the land used, is one which passes with immovable property once sold; therefore, payment to Guilliot was proper.

WHETHER THE SERVITUDE "RUNS WITH THE LAND"

The resolution of this first issue is well established by the provisions of the Civil Code and jurisprudence.

LSA-C.C. art. 2012 provides, in part, as follows:

"Real obligations are created in three ways:

* * * * * *

(2) By alienating to one person the immovable property, and to another, some real right to be exercised upon it.

* * * * * *

"All these contracts give rise to obligations purely real on the part of those who acquire the land, under whatever species of title they possess it; ...."

This article further provides that a sale of the property, subject to the right of use, is an example of such a real obligation created under # (2) above.

LSA-C.C. art. 2015 declares, in part:

"Not only servitudes, but leases and all other rights, which the owner had imposed on his land before the alienation of the soil, form real obligations which accompany it in the hands of the person who acquires it, although he have made no stipulation on the subject, or they be not mentioned in the act of transfer....." (Emphasis ours.)

Under these code provisions, the servitude created herein, is a real obligation which burdens the land and thus travels with the land into the hands of subsequent purchasers. In the case at hand, the real rights granted by Dunlap to Red River followed the land into the hands of the subsequent owner, Guilliot.

PAYMENT TO DUNLAP OR GUILLIOT?

Having come to such conclusion, we must next determine whether the right to payment also travels with the land or does such remain with the original grantor, Dunlap. A review of the jurisprudence reflects that such right is personal to and remains with Dunlap.

In the early case of Taylor v. New Orleans Terminal Co., 126 La. 420, 52 So. 562 (La.1910), the plaintiff purchased land which was subject to a right of use of a railroad tacitly granted by plaintiff's predecessor in title. The defendant then exercised *658 its right of use by constructing a switch track. The plaintiff sued seeking remuneration for the land appropriated and other general damages. The court appropriately delineated the dichotomy between real rights and real obligations which burden the land and pass with it to successive purchasers, and the personal right of the original vendor to claim remuneration for land appropriated or damaged which does not pass with the sale of the land, except by express subrogation as follows:

"By defendant's appropriation with the tacit consent of the owner at the time, the right of the strip of land passed from the owner to the appropriator-the right became segregated from the property, and the owner became a creditor for the value of the proeprty taken.
"The right was personal. The owner at the time had a claim personally for the amount.
"

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Bluebook (online)
405 So. 2d 655, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 5177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dunlap-v-red-river-waterway-commission-lactapp-1981.