McClelland v. Gasquet

47 So. 540, 122 La. 241, 1908 La. LEXIS 440
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedOctober 19, 1908
DocketNo. 17,327
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 47 So. 540 (McClelland v. Gasquet) 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
McClelland v. Gasquet, 47 So. 540, 122 La. 241, 1908 La. LEXIS 440 (La. 1908).

Opinion

BREAUX, C. J.

Relator .brings two demands: One to prohibit plaintiff and to prohibit the judge a quo from proceeding further with the execution of the writ of injunction sued for by Kathryn Jackson Mc-Clelland; and the other, in the alternative, to modify the injunction and confine its effects to the community property, if there is-any owned by the community between relator and his wife.

The relator and his wife, Kathryn Jackson McClelland, were married on the 25th day of May, 1908, and on July 9, 1908, Kathryn Jackson McClelland sued her husband, the relator, for a separation from bed. and board.

The grounds of action in-this suit were intemperance, ill treatment, public defamation, the infliction of blows, and the attempt to take her life.

She also charged in her petition that the defendant was expending and wasting large amounts which should have been expended for the community.

There were a number of allegations along that line.

She claims that the assets were subject to her claim; that she had a privilege and was entitled to alimony.

The purpose of the injunction, as she claimed, was to prevent her husband from unjustly and illegally disposing of the property standing in his name. She averred that if he carried out his purpose she would lose her rights and claims as a wife and her share in the community, also her lien, and that she would also lose her claim for alimony.

The property in question was described with some particularity.

The injunction which was issued seeks to prevent the husband from disposing of any of his property. The bank officers, as well as the relator, are ordered to hold the property in order that the status quo may be maintained. All of relator’s paraphernal property is taken possession of by the court, and is held subject to the exclusive order of the court.

A short time after the suit for separation from bed and board had been filed, an inventory was taken in accordance with the order of the court, and it showed over $60,-000 assets in the name of the husband.

The relator complains of the proceedings, and states at some length that he is wronged ; that he has a right to the control of his property; that he is threatened with absolute want by the absolute and sweeping order of injunction; that he has no revenues, and not the wherewithal to buy even the most necessary things of life; that he is ill and in need of medical attention, and even these will be denied to him unless he can get control of his own.

After the inventory had been taken, as before stated, the relator interposed a rule to dissolve the injunction in so far as it affected his paraphernal property. He denied that the community had any assets; and averred that if it had any it was quite small, as they had been married only about two months before the petition for separation from bed and board was filed. He de[245]*245nied that his wife has any claims or privilege on his property.

In the suit for separation from bed and board,. the wife prayed for alimony.

To this prayer, relator answered that all of his property was paraphernal, and that he could not be ordered to pay alimony from his separate property.

The rule before referred to interposed by relator was tried before the judge of division B, who sat in the place of the judge of division A, who was ill at the time.

On the trial evidence was Introduced. It consisted of an act of settlement between Mrs. Louise L. Gasquet and her children, among them the relator, on February 17, 1908. This was admitted to show his title to the property, and his contention now is that by a comparison of the inventory and the act of settlement it was made manifest that the property disposed of in the settlement and the property carried in the inventory is one and the same.

The court presided over by the judge of division B, acting for the judge of division A, declined to dissolve the injunction on the motion filed by relator to dissolve. He also declined to modify the injunction in the manner asked for by the relator.

The ground of the judge for thus declining was that the wife is entitled to an injunction as a matter of right, and that whether the property enjoined is separate, dotal, or community is to be decided on the merits; that the court had the authority to modify the injunction and consider the claim for alimony, mentioning at the same time that the cause belonged to another division of the court; the court presided over by him (that is, the judge of division B) would modify the injunction in so far as to allow the defendant, Gasquet, to receive from the property enjoined the sum of $300 per month, and to his wife he allowed the sum of $100 as alimony.

The judge left the modification to be accepted or rejected as the husband deemed advisable, and to remain in full force and effect until the judge of division A returned and directed otherwise.

Some time after the judge had thus decided, relator filed another rule to dissolve the injunction, and the plaintiff wife was called on to show cause, on the 21st of September, 1908, why the writ of injunction should not be dissolved; and she was also called upon at the same time to show cause why she should not return to the matrimonial domicile, which relator alleges she had left.

The judge of division A (the regular judge), on the 10th day of October, 1908, filed an answer before this court. It was filed after the rule nisi had been issued here, in which he stated that while away at his home ill he had been notified of the fixing of the rule to dissolve the injunction on the 28th day of September, 1908 (this was the rule filed after the decision by the judge of division B, presiding over the court temporarily). The judge states in this return that this notice was the first information that he had of the proceedings; that he had understood that in August last the judge of division B, acting for. him in his absence, had heard the rule and had refused to dissolve the injunction. He stated that he did not know that the judge of division B, acting for him, had left anything for decision by the reservation referred to in plaintiff’s petition; that he wrote to counsel that he could not reopen the question settled by the judge acting for him, but that, to facilitate counsel in having the ruling of the judge of division B reviewed, he accepted service. The judge also stated that he would be in court on October 16, 1908, to hear anything brought up for trial, if the rule to dissolve had not been finally closed, as he recently was informed was the ease.

“Before the proper time,” in substance, is the first objection urged by the plaintiff, Mrs, [247]*247Kathryn Jackson McClelland. Several decisions are cited by learned counsel representing her to support that proposition.

Learned counsel also in the same paragraph further urges that relator will have a right of appeal to set aside the refusal to dissolve the injunction, and that in consequence the writs applied for should not be issued; that it is premature application.

We will say in answer that if an error appears and is duly brought up the question of time is not all controlling. In other words, the error will not remain unquestioned to the very last only because it is urged before all the issues have been finally passed upon. The powers of the court under its supervisory jurisdiction are not thus limited.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
47 So. 540, 122 La. 241, 1908 La. LEXIS 440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcclelland-v-gasquet-la-1908.