Placid Oil Co. v. A. M. Dupont Corp.

148 So. 2d 166, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2672
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 9, 1962
DocketNo. 5638
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 148 So. 2d 166 (Placid Oil Co. v. A. M. Dupont Corp.) 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
Placid Oil Co. v. A. M. Dupont Corp., 148 So. 2d 166, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2672 (La. Ct. App. 1962).

Opinion

LANDRY, Judge.

This is a concursus proceeding wherein plaintiffs, Placid Oil Company and Arkansas Fuel Oil Company, lessees in certain oil, gas and mineral leases obtained from defendants, Royalty Properties, Inc., A. M. Dupont Corporation and J. C. Dupont, Inc., have deposited production royalties accruing under said leases in the registry of the trial court and impleaded their said lessors herein to determine which of said lessors is entitled thereto.

The single issue presented is that of ownership of the following described property, to-wit:

A certain tract of land situated in the Parish of Terrebonne, Louisiana, com[167]*167prised in Section 77, Township 20 South, Range 18 East, measuring one-half (1/2) arpent front on the right descending bank of the Bayou Little Caillou by depth of survey and bounded now or formerly as follows: Above or North and Below or South of property of Royalty Properties. Said tract of land comprising the upper one-half (i/á) of Lot 42 of the Pierre Daspit Subdivision.

The Dupont Corporations answered plaintiff’s petition asserting ownership of subject property in the proportion of an undivided one-half ()4) interest each by virtue of a chain of conveyances beginning December 30, 1903, and praying to be decreed owners of the funds on deposit (as well as the property itself) in the proportions hereinabove set forth.

Royalty Properties, Inc. also answered asseverating its ownership of the property through certain conveyances commencing with a patent from the United States Government prior to 1866, and continuing by unbroken chain, to the present time.

The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the Dupont Corporations, recognizing their ownership of the disputed property in the proportion of an undivided one-half (14) interest each, and from said adverse judgment defendant Royalty Properties, Inc., has taken this appeal.

In its answer Royalty Properties, Inc. specially pleads that a necessary link in the chain of title of the Dupont Corporations is fatally defective in that a certain Sheriff sale of May 18, 1912, upon which the Duponts rely, is an absolute nullity. Accordingly appellant maintains the Sheriffs Deed in question should be adjudged null, void and of no effect; that it be can-celled and erased from the conveyance records of Terrebonne Parish; and that defendant Royalty Properties, Inc. be declared the true and lawful owner of the funds on deposit as well as the land in dispute herein.

The record contains an agreed statement of facts entered into between defendants and filed of record herein during April, 1961. Subsequently, on May 19, 1961, by supplemental and amended petition, Cities Service Oil Company was substituted as plaintiff herein in place of Arkansas Puel Oil Corporation by virtue of the former corporation’s acquisition of the latter. In the aforesaid supplemental and amended petition allegations were made concerning the creation of certain units affecting subject property. These latter allegations, however, are not before us as the supplemental and amended petition in which they were made was filed subsequent to introduction of the previously mentioned stipulation of facts and the record is devoid of any evidence or stipulation bearing upon the allegations of said supplemental and amended petition.

All claimants of subject property assert title thereto as record owners and, alternatively, ownership thereof by acquisitive prescription. The only issue, however, is the question of record title as all claimants de-raign title from a common ancestor, namely, August Benoit, and no claimant has offered evidence of adverse possession. The evidence consists entirely of recorded documents upon which the contending parties rely as establishing their respective claims of ownership.

In the year 1912 a corporation styled A. M. & J. C. Dupont, Limited, as judgment creditor of August Benoit, seized subject property then belonging to said Benoit to satisfy its judgment. Pursuant to a fi. fa. issued in the suit, subject property was sold at Sheriff sale on May 18, 1912. The two Dupont Corporations assert title to the property in question through chain emanating from the Sheriff sale of May 18, 1912. On the other hand, however, defendant Royalty Properties, Inc. claims title through a sale from August Benoit to one Ross Sterling on March 14, 1913 and from Ross Sterling to Royalty Properties, Inc. in 1938. There is no dispute between the claimants as to the status or condition of the record title either since 1913 or prior to 1912.

[168]*168It is conceded by defendant Royalty Properties, Inc. that if the Sheriff sale of May 18, 1912 is valid the two Dupont Corporations own the property at issue whereas the Duponts acknowledge that if said Sheriff sale is null and void as contended by Royalty Properties, Inc., then and in that event, Royalty Properties, Inc. is the lawful owner of the land involved in this con-cursus proceeding.

The documents of record and the stipulation between the adverse claimants reveals the facts to be largely undisputed. On May 1, 1911, A. M. & J. C. Dupont, Ltd., a corporation, obtained a money judgment in the sum of $108.75 against August Benoit. Pursuant to said judgment a fi. fa. issued ordering execution thereof on the basis of which said fi. fa. subject property (then belonging to Benoit) was seized and sold at public auction to satisfy the aforesaid judgment of said A.M. & J. C. Dupont, Ltd. At the Sheriff Sale held May 18, 1912, the property in question was adjudicated to “A. M. & J. C. Dupont”, the abbreviation “Ltd.” being omitted from the name of the purchaser.

The return on the fi. fa. issued pursuant to the judgment obtained by A. M. & J. C. Dupont, Ltd. contains, inter alia, the following:

“ * * * the said A. M. & J. C. Dupont for the price and sum of Two Hundred Dollars, of which sum the said purchasers paid into my hands in cash in payment of Costs the sum of Thirty Six 90/100 leaving a balance of say the sum of One Hundred and Sixty-three 10/100 Dollars, which balance the said purchasers retained in their hands to be devoted first to the payment of the Mortgage firstly recited in the certificate of Mortgages above refered (sic) to and whatever balance might be left to be devoted as far as it would go towards the payment of the Mortgage secondly recited in said certificate, said secobdly (sic) recited mortgage being the mortgage on which this writ was based, wherefore I have credited this Writ with said last balance in part satisfaction of same a (sic) and return this Writ in part satisfies, (sic) (For further particulars and data in full see Proces Verbal #'#'## (sic) of Sale).”

The Sheriff’s deed of May 18, 1912, however, recites:

“ * * * when A. M. & J. C. Dupont, being the last and highest bidders, said property was adjudicated to said A. M. & J. C. Dupont for the price and sum of Two Hundred Dollars, of which sum the said purchasers paid into my hands in cash in payment of costs the sum of Thirty Six 90/100 Dollars,. which sum I have destributed (sic) as follows, to wit:—
I have paid Clerk’s costs, amounting to . $10.50
I have paid costs of advertisement amounting to. 14.00
I have paid Sheriff’s costs, amounting to . 12.40

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Related

Placid Oil Co. v. A. M. Dupont Corp.
149 So. 2d 768 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1963)

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Bluebook (online)
148 So. 2d 166, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2672, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/placid-oil-co-v-a-m-dupont-corp-lactapp-1962.