In re the Succession of Reed

393 So. 2d 794, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 3434
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 13, 1981
DocketNo. 14383
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 393 So. 2d 794 (In re the Succession of Reed) 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
In re the Succession of Reed, 393 So. 2d 794, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 3434 (La. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

JASPER E. JONES, Judge.

Plaintiff, Estella Reed James, appeals a judgment rejecting her demand to annul the judgment of possession in the Succession of Bertha Reed, wherein the defendant, Jerry Miles, Jr., was recognized as decedent’s sole and only heir. The judgment of possession was based upon an affidavit of death and heirship executed by Magnolia Vantley Jackson and Dorothy L. Holmes on March 2, 1979, wherein affiants stated that Bertha Reed died intestate on February 23, 1979 in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana; that she had been married but once during her lifetime, and then to Jerry Miles, Sr. and there was only one child born issue of said marriage, namely Jerry Miles, Jr.; and that said decedent left the said Jerry Miles, Jr. as her sole and only heir.

The thrust of plaintiff’s suit was that Jerry Miles, Jr. was not the child of decedent and that decedent was survived by no ascendants or descendants and was survived by appellant as her sole full sister and by numerous half-sisters, half-brothers, and descendants of two predeceased half-brothers. Plaintiff contends that these collateral relations of decedent are her only heirs. Plaintiff seeks to annul the judgment of possession contending that it was obtained by fraud and ill practices and should be annulled under the authority of LSA-C.C.P. art. 2004.1

The trial court found as a fact that decedent and Jerry Miles, Sr. raised defendant as their son and held him out to the public as their son and that appellant and other collateral heirs of decedent never asserted [796]*796defendant was not the child of decedent until after her death. Evidence in the record supports these factual conclusions of the trial judge.

Defendant testified that decedent always told him that he was her child and held him out to the world as the son of her and his father, Jerry Miles, Sr. He testified he was never told by anyone that he wasn’t the son of Bertha Reed until after her death.

Jerry Miles, Sr. testified he was told by decedent that she was expecting a child, and that in 1954 upon his return from a three week absence, required by his hospitalization, his wife presented him with defendant and told him it was their child. Jerry Miles, Sr. signed a birth certificate for defendant, Jerry Miles, Jr., on December 19, 1955 stating the facts of birth set forth thereon were true and correct. A certified copy of the birth certificate which is in the record reflects that defendant was born August 1, 1954, and that his father was Jerry Miles and his mother was Bertha Reed. This certificate states the mid-wife who attended Bertha Reed was Lucy Singleton, but that she was deceased. The certificate reflects that it was accepted for Registry December 16, 1955 by Dr. W. Carroll Summer, local Registrar of Ouachita Parish, and was filed with the State Registrar of Vital Statistics on December 23, 1955.

Jerry Miles, Sr. testified that defendant was his son born of his marriage to Bertha Reed. Appellant’s attorney, during the trial, stipulated that defendant, Jerry Miles, Jr., was held out throughout his entire school career as a child of Bertha Reed Miles and Jerry Miles, and that all of the school documents would reflect these facts.

There is of record a marriage certificate reflecting a valid marriage between Jerry Miles and Bertha Reed on December 2, 1948. There is included within the record a certified copy of a divorce judgment rendered in a matter styled Jerry Miles v. Bertha Reed Miles, No. 87734 on the docket of the Fourth Judicial District Court on the 24th day of February, 1971, which judgment reflects that plaintiff and defendant therein were each represented by named attorneys, and the judgment provided that Bertha Reed Miles was granted permanent care, custody, and control of Jerry Miles, Jr., and that Jerry Miles, Sr. was ordered to pay her $25 per month child support.

Some of appellant’s witnesses affirmatively testified that Bertha Reed had raised defendant as a child born to her of her marriage to Jerry Miles and held him out as such to the public.

The totality of the evidence establishes that Jerry Miles, Jr. was raised a child of the marriage of Bertha Reed and Jerry Miles, Sr. and was held out to the world as their child.

Appellant offered the testimony of Gladys Reed Mitchell, Eserlean Reed Abram, and Mahaley Reed Turner, her three half-sisters, and the testimony of the two affiants who had signed the affidavit of death and heirship supporting defendant’s possession judgment, Magnolia Vant-ley Jackson and Dorothy Holmes, to establish that Jerry Miles, Jr. was a child born to Hattie Sawyer and given by her to Bertha Reed. Hattie Sawyer neither testified in person nor by deposition, though the record established she was alive and lived in Los Angeles, California only a few months before the trial.

None of these witnesses testified that they saw Hattie Sawyer deliver a baby to Bertha Reed. Gladys Mitchell testified she witnessed Hattie Sawyer give birth to the baby and helped Hattie Sawyer take care of it for several days. She later saw Bertha with a child and knows that the child Bertha had was the same child Hattie delivered because it had the same physical characteristics as Hattie’s baby. The other four witnesses based their conclusions that the child raised by Bertha was the one born to Hattie upon the fact that Hattie appeared to be pregnant but Bertha never was, and upon the fact that they had been told either by Bertha or Hattie, or both, that the child being raised by Bertha was in fact one to which Hattie had given birth.

[797]*797The trial judge in written reasons for judgment observed that the three of these witnesses who were half-sisters to decedent, Bertha Reed, would be entitled to participate in her succession if defendant was found not to be the child of Bertha Reed. The trial judge noted that the other two witnesses, Magnolia and Dorothy, who had executed the affidavit of death and heirship wherein they stated defendant was born issue of the marriage between Bertha Reed and Jerry Miles, gave totally contradictory information under oath in their trial court testimony wherein they stated Jerry Miles, Jr. was a child born to Hattie Sawyer. For the stated reasons the trial judge found the testimony of these five witnesses lacked credibility and was inadequate to meet appellant’s burden of proving that defendant, who had been held out to be the child of Bertha Reed and Jerry Miles for 25 years, was not the child of Bertha Reed.

The trial judge recognized in his written reasons that the birth certificate of defendant was confusing on its face in the sense that it was executed by Jerry Miles on December 19,1955, establishing the birth of Jerry Miles, Jr. almost a year and one-half earlier on August 1,1954, and reflecting on its face that it was recorded by the local registrar on December 16, 1955, three days before Jerry Miles, Sr. was set forth thereon as having signed same. The trial court further recognized that Jerry Miles’ testimony that he was carried to the health office by the mid-wife, Lucy Singleton, about 4 months after Jerry Miles, Jr.’s birth and signed a birth certificate, was impossible to reconcile with the facts set forth on the birth certificate. It is apparent that the trial judge placed little weight on the birth certificate in reaching his factual conclusions.

Jerry Miles, Sr. testified at trial that he was in the Veterans’ Hospital in New Orleans having back surgery at the time Jerry Miles, Jr. was born.

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Bluebook (online)
393 So. 2d 794, 1981 La. App. LEXIS 3434, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-succession-of-reed-lactapp-1981.