Lowenberg, Marks & Co. v. H. & C. Newman, Ltd.

77 So. 891, 142 La. 959, 1918 La. LEXIS 1468
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 28, 1918
DocketNo. 21182
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 77 So. 891 (Lowenberg, Marks & Co. v. H. & C. Newman, Ltd.) 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
Lowenberg, Marks & Co. v. H. & C. Newman, Ltd., 77 So. 891, 142 La. 959, 1918 La. LEXIS 1468 (La. 1918).

Opinion

SOMMERVILLE, J1.

Plaintiffs, alleging, themselves to be judicial mortgage creditors of George L. Roger, have joined in one petition asking that a certain sale of Roger’s property, under executory process, to H. & C. Newman, Limited, be declared null, void, and of no effect; that the property be declared to belong to Roger, and to be subject to plaintiffs’ mortgages.

Plaintiffs do not claim to be acting for Roger. On the contrary, they have made him a defendant in the cause.

[1] If the action may be considered petitory in its nature, as was argued orally by [961]*961counsel, the exception of no cause of action filed by H. & O. Newman, Limited, was properly sustained, and the suit was properly dismissed. Plaintiffs have appealed from the judgment.

Plaintiffs do not set up in Roger or in themselves a title superior to the title of Newman to the property. They allege that Roger owned the property; that he mortgaged it to Newman, Limited; that Newman, Limited, caused executory process to issue on the mortgage notes held by it; that Newman, Limited, bought the property at the sheriff’s sale, and went into possession thereof nearly five years before the plaintiffs became judicial mortgage creditors of Roger.

Plaintiffs’ mortgages did not exist at the time of the sale of Roger’s property. Their mortgages came five years thereafter, and they were inferior in rank to that held by Newman. Plaintiffs therefore have no interest in setting up irregularities in the judicial proceedings by which Newman acquired title.

The property of the debtor is the common pledge of his creditors; but the proceeds of the sale thereof go to the creditor who has some lawful cause of preference. The creditor Newman had a preference over plaintiffs. Roger did not give this preference; the law gave it. The property was sold for less than the mortgage; so the sale did not result in any injury to the plaintiffs. R. L. Gilmer, Application for Monition, Opposition of Josephine Nicholson et al., 21 La. Ann. 589.

Plaintiffs do not allege that the Newman mortgage was invalid, or that there was collusion, fraud or other ill practices on the part of Roger or Newman in the executory proceedings. They do not allege that the price was inadequate, or that the property would bring sufficient to benefit them if it was offered for sale now.

[2] Plaintiffs simply allege certain irregularities of the clerk of court and sheriff in the executory proceedings which they say annul the sale. They allege that the clerk failed to file the papers in the suit; that the sheriff gave no notice of seizure to Roger; and that he did not actually go' upon the property and seize it. But they do not allege that Roger did not acquiesce in the seizure. Vinton Oil Co. v. Gray, 135 La. 1049, 66 South. 357. On the contrary, they allege that Newman went into possession of the property as owner under the title he received from the sheriff.

According to exhibits marked C and D, annexed to and made part of plaintiffs’ petition, H. & C. Newman, Limited, defendant herein, caused to be issued a writ of seizure and sale against George L. Roger personally and as administrator and liquidator, on the 25th day of February, 1909. The notes sought to be collected were of date March 28, 1906, for $45,000, with interest.

The sheriff of St. Martin parish, acting under the writ, seized the property March 7, 1909, and sold it on April 24, 1909, at public sale.

Plaintiffs, claiming to be judgment creditors, attack the proceedings under which the property was sold as being absolute nullities, and they make the mortgage debtor party defendant. At the time of the judicial sale the amount due to these ordinary creditors was about $12,250.

Plaintiffs allege that:

“On or about April 1, 1909, George L. Roger proposed to Ms ordinary creditors a settlement in part cash and balance in notes.”

They accepted the cash and received the notes. These creditors may have been judicial mortgage creditors also previous to that time, although they are referred to as ordinary creditors in the petition. If they were, their judgments were satisfied on or about that date by their receiving one-third thereof in cash from Roger, and his notes at one and two years for the balance.

[963]*963The petition does not state that petitioners were the creditors referred to, nor does the petition state when the plaintiffs became creditors of George L. Roger, unless it' be about April 1, 1909, when they received his notes upon which they sued him in 1914 and obtained judgments which they had recorded, and thus became judicial mortgage creditors of Roger the same year in which this suit was brought. Continuing to quote from the petition:

“That the said George L. Roger, having thus quieted for the time being petitioners herein, quietly sat down and permitted his mortgage creditors, H. & C. Newman, Limited, to attempt to take from him (to the great injury of the petitioners) the real estate he, George L. Roger, owned at the time.”

But plaintiffs, the ordinary creditors of Roger, had “been quieted” not before, but after, the seizure by Newman.

The petition admits that the H. & C. Newman, Limited, mortgage had attached to the property seized, and that Newman took possession of the property after the sale.

Plaintiffs attack defendant’s title on the grounds:

(1) The original petition and order of seizure and sale were not filed by the clerk of court of St. Landry parish (although they admit that the said clerk issued the writ under the said petition and order).

(2) The sheriff of St. Martin parish gave no notice to defendant, Roger; did not take physical possession of the premises seized; and appointed no custodian.

They allege that at the time of the adjudication of the said property they were the creditors of Roger. They allege that II. & C. Newman, Limited, was in bad faith, because the proceedings for the enforcement of Newman’s mortgage were conducted illegally. But that is not bad faith on the part of defendant.

Newman went regularly into court through his lawyers; and the failure of the clerk of Court of St. Landry to file the petition and order of court and the failure of the sheriff of St. Martin to seize the property did not constitute bad faith on the part of H. & C. Newman, Limited.

The assertion of bad faith is merely a conclusion of plaintiffs. It is not based on any allegation showing actual bad faith. The irregularities complained of show, if anything at all: (1) A mistake on the part of the St. Landry clerk of court; (2) a mistake on the part of the sheriff of the parish of St. Martin — with which mistakes, however, Newman had, or could have had, no connection.

George L. Roger, the original owner of the property, the seized debtor, had not complained, and is not complaining, of any informality in the proceedings filed in the name of Newman, holder of the mortgage attaching to the property, and by virtue of which proceedings he (Roger) has been dispossessed, and Newman placed in possession.

Whether or not the petition for the seizure of the Roger property was marked “Filed” by the clerk of court, whether or not the sheriff of St.

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Bluebook (online)
77 So. 891, 142 La. 959, 1918 La. LEXIS 1468, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lowenberg-marks-co-v-h-c-newman-ltd-la-1918.