First Nat. Bank v. Garlick

68 So. 610, 137 La. 282
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJune 29, 1914
DocketNo. 20358
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 68 So. 610 (First Nat. Bank v. Garlick) 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
First Nat. Bank v. Garlick, 68 So. 610, 137 La. 282 (La. 1914).

Opinions

PROVOSTY, J.

In the present suit, the plaintiff bank sued out executory process upon two mortgages of unequal rank, bearing, to some extent, upon different properties. The mortgage first in rank bore upon two tracts of land situated, respectively, in the parishes of Jefferson Davis and Allen. The one second in rank did not bear upon the property situated in the parish of Jefferson Davis, but only upon the property situated in the parish of Allen. These mortgages were executed by the defendant, Garlick. The one first in rank was made in favor of one Wallace, the other, in favor of the plaintiff bank. Mrs. Martha E. Garlick, wife of the defendant, intervened in the suit, claiming, that the Jefferson Davis parish property belonged to her, and so belonged at the time her husband executed upon it the said mortgage in favor of Wallace, and that said mortgage is in consequence null. She asked that said mortgage be annulled, and in the alternative that the plaintiff bank be required to-exhaust its recourse against the Allen parish property before coming against her said property. Writs of seizure and sale issued to the sheriffs of said two parishes, and by the time the suit came to judgment the two' properties had been sold under said writs for cash to satisfy both mortgages. The judgment was adverse to Mrs. Garlick. She filed [285]*285a motion for a new trial; and in this motion, still by way of alternative demand, asked that the proceeds of the said two sales be attributed to the satisfaction of the said first mortgage, and that the remainder of said proceeds after payment of said first mortgage be turned over to her.

[1, 2] The said Jefferson Davis parish property, now claimed by Mrs. Garlick as her own, was acquired by Mr. Garlick from one Baldey, who some four years previously had acquired it from Mrs. Garlick. The contention of Mrs. Garlick is that her sale to Baldey was a mere contract of security for a debt of her husband, and that Wallace, to whom the mortgage was given, was aware of that fact. The plaintiff bank, on the other hand, denies that Mrs. Garlick was ever owner of the property, and contends that it was community property, and that at all events neither Wallace nor it knew anything of Mrs. Gar-lick’s said alleged rights when accepting the mortgage, and therefore cannot be affected by same. We have found it unnecessary to investigate these questions of fact, since we are clear that said alleged rights of Mrs. Garlick, if existing and known to Wallace when he accepted the mortgage, could not affect the plaintiff bank, who admittedly acquired the said mortgage in ignorance of said alleged rights, upon the faith of the public records. Third persons wishing to purchase real estate, or to accept a mortgage upon same, or to purchase a mortgage already existing upon same, have the absolute right to guide themselves by the public records. In the instant suit, the two acts of sale — that of Mrs. Garlick to Baldey and that of Baldey to Garlick — were duly recorded, and had absolutely nothing on their face to warn the plaintiff bank of the right of ownership now being set up by Mrs. Gar-lick.

The learned counsel for Mrs. Garlick say that when the public records show, as they did in this case, that the husband’s vendor acquired from the wife, third persons dealing with the husband are put upon inquiry,, and must come prepared with proof that the sale by the wife to the husband’s vendor was a real and bona fide sale, and not a mere cloak for securing a debt of the husband, or-transferring the title of the wife to the husband. In support of this contention the-learned counsel cite Vicknair v. Trosclair, 45 La. Ann. 375, 12 South. 486, Layman v. Vicknair, 47 La. Ann. 679, 17 South. 265, and Douglass v. Douglass, 51 La. Ann. 1455, 26 South. 546.

In the first of these cases, two neighbors, named Dasseigne and Trosclair were desirous of making an exchange of lands, but encountered an obstacle in the fact that Dasseigne was not sole owner of his land, his wife owning a one-eighth interest in it. To-overcome this obstacle, these two neighbors resorted to the expedient of Mrs. Dasseigne making a simulated sale of her one-eighth interest to one Naquin, and the latter, in turn, making a simulated sale to Dasseigne. The wife, in a suit against Trosclair, upon proper allegations, was allowed to show the true character >of these simulated sales. Needless to say, such a case does not present even the most distant analogy with the one at bar.

The second of these cited cases (Layman v. Vicknair, 47 La. Ann. 679, 17 South. 265) grew out of the same exchange of property. Bach of the two properties that were exchanged was burdened with a mortgage, and a part of the exchange agreement was that the mortgages also were to shift. To that end the exchange was given the shape of two reciprocal sales on a credit, the credits-corresponding with the amounts of the mortgages. So that the tract transferred to Trosclair in exchange (including the one-eighth of Mr. Dasseigne) became burdened with a mortgage and vendor’s privilege corresponding in amount with the mortgage that had theretofore rested upon the tract transferred, [287]*287to Lasseigne. Notes were executed for the amount of this mortgage and vendor’s privilege, and these notes were acquired before maturity by Layman; and when he sought 'to foreclose on same, Mrs. Lasseigne enjoined the foreclosure in so far as her one-eighth interest was concerned. The court recognized the legal necessity of protecting against secret or unrecorded claims of the wife third persons who have purchased real estate, or accepted a mortgage upon same, on the faith of the public records, but thought that where, as in that case, the sale by the wife to the husband’s vendor and the sale by this vendor to the husband appear to have been made on the same day before the same notary and witnesses, this close relation of the two acts shows that the two sales were in reality but one transaction, designed to invest the husband with the wife’s title, and amounting to nothing more than a sale by the wife to the husband. “A record showing such facts,” said the court, “was not of such a character .as to form the basis of a claim by any one who dealt with the husband or with Trosclair that he had been deceived into contracting with them through the condition of the public records.” True the court' arguendo used expressions much broader than this, but the syllabus correctly states the doctrine of the case. It is to the effect that:

“When the public records disclose the existence of equities or facts from which presumptions of their existence flow, parties taking mortgages are put upon inquiry.”

In the case at bar, the two sales — that by Mrs. Garlick to Baldey, and that by Baldey to Garlick — were not made on the same day, or before the same notary and witnesses, but .some four years apart, and before another notary and other witnesses, and were on their face absolute.

The third of the said cited cases (Douglass v. Douglass, 51 La. Ann. 1455, 26 South. 546) did not present the feature of a third person accepting a mortgage, or purchasing outright from the husband, upon the faith of the public records; and as that feature is the. only one with which we are now concerned, the case is not at all in point. It was a case where, as in Yicknair v. Trosclair, supra, two simulated sales had been made, one by the wife to the husband’s vendor and another by this vendor to the husband, on the same day, before the same notary and witnesses, and where the suit was by the wife to show the simulated character of the two sales.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Lawton v. Smith
146 So. 361 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1933)
D. R. Sartor Sons & Co. v. Brown
114 So. 709 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1927)
Leonard v. Brooks
105 So. 54 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1925)
Gee v. Parks
193 S.W. 767 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1917)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
68 So. 610, 137 La. 282, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/first-nat-bank-v-garlick-la-1914.