Hardy v. Pecot

36 So. 992, 113 La. 350, 1904 La. LEXIS 649
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 4, 1904
DocketNo. 14,800
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 36 So. 992 (Hardy v. Pecot) 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
Hardy v. Pecot, 36 So. 992, 113 La. 350, 1904 La. LEXIS 649 (La. 1904).

Opinions

BREAUX, J.

Plaintiff, Hardy, is a judgment creditor of the Pecot Sugar Factory [351]*351Company (a company that will he referred to hereafter, for a little brevity’s sake, as the “Pecot Sugar Company”) on a judgment obtained by him against the company in the year 1894 for one sum of $2,245.93, with 8 per cent, interest, in the further sum of $400, with 5 per cent, interest, and in the further sum of $246.08, and in an additional sum of $50, with 5 per cent, interest, the date from which interest begins to run on the respective amounts, as stated in this judgment: less a credit 'of $350 paid December 12, 1896, and costs. Plaintiff’s husband died, and she, as the executrix of his last will and testament, prosecutes this suit. She claims a judicial mortgage for the amount from the 7th day of December, 1897, the date on which this judgment was inscribed in the mortgage office.

The Pecot Sugar Company owned a sugar plantation, consisting of different tracts of land, owned in common prior to the date the company was formed by members' of the Pecot family. Some of the members of the family were married, and became indebted to their respective wives for paraphernal amounts received by them. In course of time three of the wives obtained judgments for their paraphernal claims, which thereafter bore upon fractional portions of the property.

It appears that two tracts of land, owned by others than the vendors, formed part of the plantation, which in course of time became the property of the Pecot Sugar Company.

We will later again refer to these mortgage and other claims preceding in date, sold by Ermann & Cahn to the Pecot Sugar Company.

The place was sold within the year 1896 (March) in the foreclosure proceedings of Fallon v.*D. M. Pecot. This Pecot, it seems, had the property in his name at the time.

Ermann & Cahn became the owners of the place at this sale, and sold it with full warranty to the Pecot Sugar Company in the year 1896 (August), payable (as to part of the purchase price) on credit. This company remained owner until 1898. In February of that year John N. Pharr alleged that he had become the owner of the notes executed by the Pecot Sugar Company for the purchase price of the plantation sold, as before mentioned, to Pecot Sugar Company; that two of these notes had matured; and asked for an order of foreclosure of the mortgage with which the notes he held were identified. The property Was, in the foreclosure proceedings, advertised to he sold for the sum of $12,918.61 principal of the past-due notes, with interest at 8 per cent., less a credit of $2,632.31, paid on account on August 13, 1897, cash; also for 5 per cent, attorney’s fees on principal and interest of eight notes for $6,459.30 each, and costs. The sale was made on terms of credit corresponding with the amounts on each of the remaining eight notes due, respectively, on the 1st day of January thereafter to and including the 1st of January, 1906, bearing 8 per cent, per annum interest from August 1, 1896, until paid. The property in due time after this advertisement was adjudicated to and bought by John. N. Pharr for $82,000; in cash $12,918.-61, with 8 per cent, interest from August 1, 1896, loss a credit of $2,632.31 paid August 13, 1897; also 5 per cent, fee of attorney on balance due on above amount, and 5 per cent, on the other notes, including interest and principal — all corresponding with the said advertisement, which we have reproduced in full.

At the date of the sale the balance due on the notes, principal and interest, after deducting credit was..........$11,833.50

Attorney’s fee .............. 3,513.00

Advance on crop............. 3,563.53

Cost of suit................. 590.10

Total ..................$19,500.13 cash

—And on credit eight notes, each for $6,459.-30%, making total of eight notes, $51,674.44, and without taking account of interent, [353]*353which was settled between the parties, and therefore not allowed here. Total .said notes and cash due, $71,174.51, to be deducted from Pharr’s bid of $82,000, which, according to this statement, would leave a balance of $10,825.51. Instead of that amount there was nil left for distribution according to the sheriff’s return after the sale. The return showed: Claims ...................$82,000

Sale .....................$82,000

The cash before mentioned was not paid to the sheriff. The bidder, Capt. Pharr, retained the amount of the bid, and only paid cost of the proceeding.

Plaintiff asks that Pharr be ordered to pay over the balance of $10,825.57 (ten thousand eight hundred and twenty five 5t/100 dollars) to the sheriff. He (plaintiff) alleges that he is entitled to be paid by preference out of the said sum above referred to, realized from the sale of said property, he being, he states, a mortgage creditor next in rank to John N. Pharr, who, he avers, owes a balance on his purchase of the plantation.

In a supplemental petition plaintiff sets forth that, in addition to the amount already claimed by plaintiff as being in excess of the amount to which the defendant was entitled as credit, the item of $3,563.53, which appears on the return of the sheriff, should also be deducted as costs in advances made on the crop growing on the plantation then under seizure. The contention of plaintiff is that the advances were not made, and, if made, they were not secured by privilege on the crop; that they were made without the sanction of the court.

Plaintiff, in this supplemental petition, also challenges Pharr’s, the adjudicatee’s, right to credit of 5 per cent, attorney’s fees, on the principal and interest of the unmatured notes, and asks that the fee be reduced to 5 per cent, on the amount due at the date of the sale, to wit, on $11,833.50, being the sum of $591.66.

Plaintiff asks that Pharr, the adjudicatee, be condemned to return the sum above mentioned for attorney’s fee (the $3,563.53 before mentioned), together with the amount of $10,825.43, claimed in his original petition, or a sufficient sum thereof to satisfy petitioner’s demand as mortgagee.

There is, as urged by defendant, a difference in pleading between the original pleading, in which plaintiff prayed for a balance, without questioning the correctness of the item just mentioned, and the supplemental petition, in which these claims are attacked for illegality.

Defendant denies that the return of the sheriff on the writ of “seizure and sale” attacked by plaintiff is incorrect, and avers that the advances made by the sheriff while-the property was under seizure were necessary to preserve the crop on the property seized, and that they were a part of the cost of seizure. He further insists that he does-not owe the interest on the notes representing the price claimed by plaintiff; that when he bid on the property he was owner of all the notes, matured and unmatured, bearing upon the property; and that the $82,000 before mentioned was the full amount of his indebtedness as adjudicatee, without the interest accruing after the sale under which he became the owner.

Defendant also sets up in his defense that he is entitled to other credits than those credited in the return; that the wife of one of the former owners of the property claimed to be the owner of a fractional portion of the property seized, and that upon this claim she obtained judgment for the property; and that, in order to secure a good title, Capt.

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

Related

Butler v. Butler
212 So. 2d 213 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1968)
Pugh v. Houseman Roofing Co.
116 So. 189 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1928)
Bank of Berwick v. George Vinson Shingle & Mfg. Co.
50 So. 823 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1909)
Ruddock Orleans Cypress Co. v. De Luppe
6 Teiss. 80 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1908)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
36 So. 992, 113 La. 350, 1904 La. LEXIS 649, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hardy-v-pecot-la-1904.