Iberia Cypress Co. v. Christen

40 So. 529, 116 La. 53, 1906 La. LEXIS 466
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 15, 1906
DocketNo. 15,706
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 40 So. 529 (Iberia Cypress Co. v. Christen) 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
Iberia Cypress Co. v. Christen, 40 So. 529, 116 La. 53, 1906 La. LEXIS 466 (La. 1906).

Opinion

PRO YO STY, J.

Defendant, who has a wife and child dependent upon him for support, owned several tracts of land in indivisión with one Lee. Upon one of these-tracts he established a home for himself and family. Subsequently he and Lee and plaintiff entered into an agreement by which he-was to buy Lee’s interest, and plaintiff furnish the money and be given a mortgage upon the entire property to secure the loan. This agreement was carried out, and the-mortgage thus given is now being foreclosed.

■ Defendant resisted the seizure of the tract upon which he had established his home,, claiming it as his homestead; but, the property being worth more than $2,000, the court,, as the law requires in such cases, sent it to-sale, leaving defendant free to claim $2,000-out of the price; and that is what he is now doing. The homestead sold for $4,600. The-mortgaged property, as a whole, did not sell for near enough to pay plaintiff’s debt.

“The homestead exemption,” says article-245 of the Constitution, “shall not apply to-the following debts, to wit:

“(1) For the purchase price of property or any part thereof.”

[56]*56Plaintiff says that his debt is due for the purchase price of the property, within the meaning of this law.

This may or may not be true as to the half acquired from Lee, but it is certainly not true as to the half which defendant owned .and- had paid for already at the time the money was lent; and since the price of the latter part, i. e., one-half of the price of the whole, or one-half of $4,600 is more than sufficient to satisfy the $2,000 homestead claim, we do not see that this question of the debt being or not for the purchase price ■of the property can arise in the case.

But, say the learned counsel for plaintiff, the language of the Constitution is “the purchase price of the property or any part thereof,” meaning the purchase price of any •part of the property; and this debt is due for the purchase price of a part of the property.

This contention would not appear to us to be serious, if it were not being urged seriously. It is plain that by the words “the purchase price of the property or any part thereof,” the Constitution means any part •of the purchase price. The idea is that the homesteader shall not retain property which he has not paid for; that he shall either return the property or pay the price. The vendor of property is entitled to no • more than this. There could be no reason for extending further than this the exception made in his favor.

Since the above opinion was written, a ¡supplemental brief has been filed in behalf ■of plaintiff, in which the view opposite to that adopted in this opinion is given with .admirable clearness and terseness and with great force; and, since the point is a new one, we deem it well to give the argument in full and to state our reasons for not yielding to it. The brief reads as follows:

“Defendant’s brief lays great stress on the ■fact that the money advanced by the Iberia •Company was used to purchase only the undivided half of the property. His claim is that, as the homestead tract sold for $4,673, the Iberia Company standing in the relation of vendor only of the undivided half, Christen is entitled to receive his $2,000 out or the $2,337.-50, which the other undivided half necessarily brought.
“This point was pressed in the lower court, but the district judge made no allusion to it in his lengthy opinion; and we considered it of so little merit that we made no argument of it in our first brief herein.
“It was, however, so warmly pressed before this court that we desire to meet it in this supplemental brief, if it shall reach your honors in time.
“(1) This contention' is defeated by the constitutional provision:
“ ‘This exemption shall not apply to the following debts, to wit:
“ ‘(1) For the purchase price of property or any part thereof.’
“The homestead exemption either can be claimed in a given case, or it cannot be claimed. In this case the debt is for a part of the purchase price of the property, and the Constitution unequivocally declares that the exemption shall not apply to it.
“In interpreting this article of the Constitution let us invoke one of the old rules for the construction of statutes, viz., ‘Examine the context.’ Let us look at the exemption next following the one under discussion, to wit:
“ ‘(2) For labor, money, and material, furnished for building, repairing- or improving homesteads.’
“Now, if a man, owning a lot of ground, employs a contractor to build a dwelling thereon for him, agreeing to pay the contractor \$5,000 for the completed dwelling, the debt thus created ,uis one against which the homestead exemption cannot be successfully set up. The debtor could not maintain that the ground was exempt, and that the contractor could subject only the building to the payment of his claim. And so it would be in the case of one who had put a new roof on the dwelling or performed any labor in improving the premises. Absolutely, the exemption cannot be pleaded against such a debt.
“Article 245 enumerates five cases in which the homestead exemption shall have no application whatever, and our case is one of them.
“(2) It is a rule of property well established in our jurisprudence that the right of homestead cannot exist with respect to property held in indivisión. Bank v. Stansbury, 110 La. 304, 34 South. 452, and cases there cited.
“To hold that defendant is entitled to receive $2,000 out of the proceeds of one-half of the property would be to hold that he had maintained a valid homestead in the undivided half of the property as to this debt, while he had maintained no homestead in the other half. To maintain a homestead in an undivided [58]*58portion of property is impossible, under our settled jurisprudence.
“Let us suppose another case: Premises are sold for $10,000, $5,000 is paid in cash, and credit given for the remainder. The purchaser establishes the premises as a residence. The $5,000 debt is not paid. The creditor has the premises seized to satisfy the debt. Debtor pleads homestead. Whole property brings $6,-000, not enough to satisfy the debt, with interest and costs. Could debtor successfully maintain a claim for $2,000 out of the undivided half of the property for which cash was paid? We think not, and yet this conclusion would naturally follow if defendant’s claim can be maintained in this case.
"Again, it is well setttled that, ‘where a special mortgage is given, the mortgage and homestead rights must be governed by the state of facts existing at the date of the mortgage.’ Gilmer v. Sheriff, 32 La. Ann. 983; Brannin v. Womble, 32 La. Ann. 808; Bank v. Stansbury, 110 La. 304, 34 South. 452. In our case the sale to Christen and the mortgage to the Iberia Company took place, in the eye of the law, at the same moment, being parts of the same transaction. Up to the time_ of the mortgage Christen was owner in indivisión with Lee, and not in a position to claim homestead exemption. This very mortgage, then, is what gave him his homestead, as against all the_ world except the one who procured it for him, and the debt which was created in procuring it.

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10 F.2d 240 (W.D. Louisiana, 1925)

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Bluebook (online)
40 So. 529, 116 La. 53, 1906 La. LEXIS 466, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/iberia-cypress-co-v-christen-la-1906.