Matter of Succession of Vice

385 So. 2d 554
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 21, 1980
Docket7627
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 385 So. 2d 554 (Matter of Succession of Vice) 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
Matter of Succession of Vice, 385 So. 2d 554 (La. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

385 So.2d 554 (1980)

In the Matter of Succession of Joseph Clevlanc VICE, Sr.
Marie Leone Woods VICE, Surviving Spouse in Community, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Marie Brandon VICE, Administratrix, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 7627.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

May 21, 1980.
Rehearing Denied July 16, 1980.

*556 J. Minos Simon and Gerald J. Block, Edward J. Milligan, Jr., Lafayette, for plaintiff-appellant.

Lester J. Gauthier, Jr., Lafayette, Funderburk & Conque, J. Isaac Funderburk, Abbeville, for defendants-appellees.

Before DOMENGEAUX, GUIDRY and LABORDE, JJ.

DOMENGEAUX, Judge.

In this succession dispute the decedent's fourth wife and surviving spouse, Marie Leone Woods Vice (appellant), appeals from an adverse judgment alleging the trial court committed reversible error in:

(1) Granting the issuance of a preliminary injunction and continuing all protective orders issued prior to the trial of this matter;

(2) Holding that all immovable property and improvements thereon were acquired by the decedent prior to his marriage to Leone Woods Vice and constituted the separate property of appellant's former husband, the decedent;

(3) Holding that there was no valid donation of the certificates of deposit as well as interest paid on the said certificates and further rejecting appellant's claim to the certificates and interest as a dation en paiement;

(4) Holding that appellant was not entitled to restitution of her separate and paraphernal property expended for the benefit of the community of acquets and gains existing between appellant and her former husband, the decedent; and

(5) Holding that plaintiff was not entitled to restitution of expenses of last illness *557 and funeral expenses on behalf of Clevlanc Vice, Sr., for the reason that these expenses were paid with commingled funds.

For the following reasons we reject all but the first of appellant's assignments of error.

This particular dispute arose during the course of the succession proceedings when appellees, Marie Brandon Vice, decedent's third wife and executrix of his estate, and decedent's two sons, his forced heirs, filed a motion to traverse the proces verbal of the public inventory of the succession property.

After a trial on the merits of appellees' motion to traverse, the trial court characterized the movable property as either separate or community,[1] found certain immovable property to be the separate property of the decedent, and found the six certificates of deposit currently in the name of Mrs. Clevlanc Vice, Sr. (Marie Leone Woods Vice, appellant) and deposited in Guaranty Federal Savings & Loan in Lake Charles, to be community property and ordered one-half of the principal amount of the certificates and one-half of the interest to be delivered to the Clerk of Court in Vermilion Parish. Various claims made by appellant for reimbursement of her separate funds allegedly used for the benefit of the community were rejected by the trial court. Finally, the trial court enjoined appellant and Guaranty Federal from alienating or transferring the certificates of deposit to any person other than the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court in compliance with the judgment. This appeal followed.

1. PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

Appellant asks this Court to award her damages including attorney's fees for having to obtain the dissolution of a temporary restraining order issued September 7, 1978, and extended on four occasions—September 15th, September 25th, October 4th, and October 20th, 1978.[2] This order was made final in the trial court judgment.

Appellant submits that the temporary restraining order of September 7, 1978, and extensions thereof, were issued improperly and should be dissolved.

La. C.C.P. Art. 3601 provides in part:

"An injunction shall issue in cases where irreparable injury, loss, or damage may otherwise result to the applicant, or in other cases specifically provided by law...."[3]

The courts of this state have repeatedly defined irreparable injury, loss, or damage as:

"... that injury, loss or damage for which the injured party cannot be compensated adequately in damages or for which his damages cannot be measured by a pecuniary standard. City of Lake Charles v. Lake Charles Ry., Light & Waterworks Co., 144 La. 217, 80 So. 260; Louisiana State Board of Medical Exam. v. Tackett, La.App., 70 So.2d 207."

Amacker v. Amacker, 146 So.2d 672, at 675 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1962). See also National Pacific Corporation v. American Commonwealth Financial Corporation, 348 So.2d 735 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1977).

La. C.C.P. Art. 3603 provides that a temporary restraining order will be granted *558 where it "clearly appears from specific facts shown by a verified petition or by supporting affidavit that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result ..."

All that was alleged by appellees in their motion to obtain a restraining order was: Decedent's estate had a possible claim to six certificates of deposit totalling $100,000.00 deposited in Guaranty Federal Savings & Loan in Lake Charles; Mrs. Clevlanc Vice, Sr. (appellant) had the power to withdraw all sums represented by the six certificates of deposit on deposit in Guaranty Federal; petitioner (Marie Brandon Vice, appellee) had "reason to believe" that the appellant would withdraw the funds; for her to have done so would have been prejudicial to the estate and would have resulted in irreparable injury, loss, or damage. On the basis of these allegations of fact and of two affidavits, one by one of decedent's sons, the other by appellees' attorney, which concluded that irreparable harm would result if the temporary restraining order was not issued, the trial court granted the order.

From the facts alleged by appellees, it is clear that the only injury which could be sustained is the loss of a sum certain in money, an injury which could, if inflicted, be readily compensated in money and easily measured by pecuniary standards. Not only does appellees' motion for a temporary restraining order fail to aver that a judgment against appellant would be valueless either because of her insolvency or for other reasons but also the record convincingly establishes the financial ability of the appellant to respond in judgment in the event she is cast herein.

Amacker v. Amacker, supra, is squarely on point in this respect. There the court found the plaintiff was not entitled to injunctive relief because of the reasons above expressed in the preceding paragraph and because he was entitled to the legal remedy of sequestration. (See La. C.C.P. Article 3501, et seq.) Since plaintiff had an adequate remedy at law (sequestration) the Court declined to impose the harsh remedy of injunctive relief. Using the same rationale, the Second Circuit in Danzie v. Rutland, 232 So.2d 303 (La.App.2nd Cir. 1970), reached a similar result. For the same reasons,[4] we find that the temporary restraining order originally issued on September 7, 1978, and subsequent extensions thereof, were improvidently and improperly granted and must be dissolved.

La. C.C.P. Article 3608 provides in part that attorney's fees are recoverable when a temporary restraining order is dissolved after a trial on the merits. Roy v. Union Bank, 347 So.2d 286 (La.App.3rd Cir.

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385 So. 2d 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/matter-of-succession-of-vice-lactapp-1980.