Roberts v. Anderson

733 F. Supp. 1040, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7309, 1990 WL 37880
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 29, 1990
DocketCiv. A. No. 88-2167
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 733 F. Supp. 1040 (Roberts v. Anderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roberts v. Anderson, 733 F. Supp. 1040, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7309, 1990 WL 37880 (E.D. La. 1990).

Opinion

ORDER AND REASONS

PATRICK E. CARR, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on (1) the motion of Stotler and Company to withdraw funds from the registry of the Court; (2) the motion of the trustees of the William Loring Ferguson III trust to withdraw funds from the registry of the Court; and (3) the motion of Ogg for creditors to be paid in order of rank.

For the following reasons, the Court now determines that half of the remaining proceeds in the registry should be disbursed to the trustees and the remaining half should be disbursed to Loring Ferguson’s creditors in the order of rank as determined by the dates they recorded their judicial mortgages in the parish mortgage records office and that the related state court case in which Loring, his trustees, and one of his creditors were parties does not bar this Court from recognizing that creditor’s claim or any other creditor’s claim to the instant registry proceeds.

I.

In June 1966, William Loring Ferguson, Jr. executed his last will and testament, wherein he left all his property to separate [1042]*1042trusts set up for each of his three children, Katharine, Loring III, and Phoebe. The will contains in pertinent part:

Each beneficiary shall receive one-half of the corpus and accumulated income of the trust when he shall reach the age of twenty-five (25) years and shall receive the remaining one-half when he shall reach the age of thirty-five (35) years, at which time his trust shall terminate.
The interest of the beneficiaries in the trusts shall not be subject to voluntary or involuntary alienation by such beneficiaries.

The will named Mr. Ferguson’s mother and two others as cotrustees for each of the three trusts.

In 1970, Mr. Ferguson died. Among the property in his estate was his naked ownership, subject to his surviving mother’s usu-fruct, in a family home in New Orleans. On April 8, 1970, pursuant to a judgment of possession recognizing the will, an undivided one-third interest in this naked ownership of the home passed to the trustees for each of the three trusts. Apparently, neither this judgment of possession nor the will was ever recorded in the Orleans Parish conveyance records.

On November 5, 1980, Loring reached the age of 25 and “requested that one-half of the trust’s principal be distributed to him in accordance with this partial termination” under the terms of the trust. In accordance with his request and pursuant to a sworn receipt and release signed by Loring, the trustees then distributed to Loring certain shares of stock and a certain amount of cash; the trustees did not, however, expressly transfer to Loring in writing any interest in the home.

In 1984, the children’s grandmother died and thus her usufruct over the home terminated. As each of the three children had attained the age of 25 by this time, each was entitled to receive from the two remaining trustees for his/her trust one-half of the trust’s undivided one-third full interest in the home. According to the trustees:

One-half of each trust’s one-third interest in the House was not distributed to [the three children] at that time because the Trustees and each of the beneficiaries desired to list the House for sale, and because they believed it would be easier to sell the House as a whole rather than attempting to arrange the sale among a number of different owners. Once the House was sold, the Trustees and the beneficiaries agreed that one-third of the proceeds from the sale would be deposited in each of the trusts, and that each trust would then distribute one-half of its respective interest in the sale proceeds (one-sixth of the total sale proceeds) to each beneficiary. Thereafter, each trust would distribute the remaining one-sixth interest in the sale proceeds to the trust’s beneficiary when the beneficiary attained the age of 35, in accordance with the terms of the Will.

The record does not reveal whether any written documents were executed by either the trustees or any of the three children to memorialize this apparent understanding. For whatever reason, the home was not sold.

By March 1988, Loring’s sister Katharine reached the age of 35 and thus her trust terminated in its entirety. By a written “Conveyance of Property,” Katharine and the trustees “acknowledged and confirmed” the termination of her trust and the trustees conveyed to Katharine her trust’s now undivided one-third full ownership interest in the home; this document was then recorded in the Orleans Parish conveyance records.

In April 1988, Katharine filed a petition in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans for a definitive judicial partition of the home by licitation pursuant to Louisiana Civil Code articles 1289 et seq. Named as defendants were the trustees for the remaining two trusts, her brother and sister individually, and seven persons who “appear to be creditors claiming liens or judicial mortgages against the interest, if any, of defendant William Loring Ferguson III in the” home and “whose claims have been made known on the public records of Orleans Parish.” These seven persons are [1043]*1043specifically the United States, on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service; Commander’s Palace, Inc.; Galatoire’s Restaurant, Inc.; Thomas A. Ogg III; Stotler and Company; Thomson-McKinnon Securities, Inc.; and Dr. Ted Reveley.

The United States removed the action to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441(a), 1444, and 2410(a)(3). On October 14, 1988, the Court granted unopposed summary judgment for a partition by lieitation and ordered that the U.S. Marshal seize and sell the property and then deposit the proceeds into the registry for subsequent distribution by the Court. On March 30, 1989, the Marshal sold the home by auction for $185,000. On May 2, 1989, after deducting his costs, the Marshal deposited $182,210 into the registry. By separate unopposed motions, the Court has permitted Katharine on the one hand and the trustees for the benefit of Phoebe on the other to withdraw their respective undisputed one-third interest in these proceeds from the registry (viz., $60,736.67, plus accrued interest thereon).

Remaining in the registry is the final one-third interest for the benefit of Loring (viz., $60,736.66, plus accrued interest). Loring’s trustees on the one hand and his creditors on the other are making competing claims to these proceeds. The trustees and two of the creditors have now moved the Court to determine the competing parties’ respective right to the remaining proceeds and to distribute the proceeds accordingly.

II.

By Minute Entry dated December 6, 1989, the Court ordered each of the creditors to submit various documents and sworn statements and advised the parties that the Court would treat failure to comply timely “as a voluntary abandonment by that person of his/its claim to any of the proceeds remaining in the registry.” 1

The record reveals the following about each creditor’s claims against Loring.

1. The United States:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
733 F. Supp. 1040, 1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7309, 1990 WL 37880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roberts-v-anderson-laed-1990.