Sadler v. Henderson

36 So. 549, 112 La. 518, 1904 La. LEXIS 427
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedApril 11, 1904
DocketNo. 14,754
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 36 So. 549 (Sadler v. Henderson) 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
Sadler v. Henderson, 36 So. 549, 112 La. 518, 1904 La. LEXIS 427 (La. 1904).

Opinion

NICHOLLS, C. J.

The plaintiff alleged that he purchased from the defendant on the 16th of July, 1889, certain described property for $6,000 — 81,000 cash, the balance represented by 6 interest-bearing promissory notes, payable in 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months after date; that he had paid the price of the property to his vendor; that he had purchased the property under the belief into which he had been led that he had been legally divested of the ownership of the property, and that the defendant was the owner thereof, and not knowing that he was himself the owner of it at the time of his purchase, and still less that he had been defrauded of the same; that he was in ignorance of the situation up to the institution of the present suit. He seeks in this action to recover from his vendor, the •defendant, the sum of $0,000 so paid to him, with interest from the date of his purchase and attorney’s fees, and prays additionally that a certain mortgage which he refers to of date of June 24, 1874, and “its subsequent litigation,” be decreed null and void in so far as it affected him.

The grounds upon which this relief is asked are: That “his father, John Sadler, died in New Orleans on the 27th of September, 1873, leaving him, his only child, sole heir to all his estate, which amounted at that time, in movables, immovables, and credits, to more than $40,000, and trifling debts. That at the time of his father’s death he was eight years old. That at the time of his father’s death the property which he himself bought subsequently from the defendant belonged to his father, John Sadler, and vested in him as his heir. That it had belonged to his father’s separate estate. That it was highly improved property, and very valuable. That there was some other property belonging to the community which existed between his father and mother. That on the 24th of April, 1874, his tutrix petitioned the court to enable her to borrow $4,000 (yet she alleged debts to be due only to. the amount of $3,650 upon her community properties, and not on the separate property of his father). That the alleged debts were not one-fourth of the amount stated, and these debts, if paid at all, were not paid with funds received under the mortgage; that not a dollar had been received either by his father’s succession or himself under said mortgage. That payment of various amounts were made without authorization, which the mortgagee had not accounted for.

“That on the 24th of June, 1874, a fraudulent mortgage was given on the properties so bought by him from defendant by William J. Oastell without the authority or consent of the natural tutrix, nor of a duly qualified under-tutor, and for no consideration, besides being given on the separate property of his lather in order to defraud him. That his mother did not make the mark ‘X’ on the alleged mortgage of June 24, 1874. That she did not have rheumatism in her hands, arms, or any part of her body on said date, but was entirely under the influence of intoxicating liquors. That at that time he was unrepresented by a duly qualified under-tutor; and that all the parties who composed the different family meetings in the succession of his father had claims and interests adverse to him.

“That William J. Oastell, who was the instrumental notary who executed the fraudulent mortgage of June 24, 1874, and who was then administering (in fact) the succession of his father, was at the time of said mortgage the regularly employed notary of John Henderson, Jr., in whose favor the mortgage was given, and acted on his behalf in the matter of said mortgage.” The mortgage in favor of John Henderson, Jr., was evidently foreclosed by him on the property, and purchased by himself on the 9th of December, 1876, though the foreclosure and purchase are referred to in a very general and insufficient manner in the pleadings. In respect to that matter plaintiff alleges that he [521]*521was not legally represented in the “aforesaid suit of foreclosure” (not before mentioned); that “his tutor ad hoe did not take the requisite oath; that his mother was no longer his tutrix, having lost the tutorship by a marriage after her appointment as tutrix.” Plaintiff averred “that James A. Kelly was totally incompetent, morally and otherwise, to be the tutor of petitioner, or administrator of the succession, as was fully known to those who put him there; that no account had been rendered to petitioner of his father’s succession by either his tutor or tutrix; that the properties were illegally sold on December 9, 1876, ‘en bloc,’ for account of John B. J. Henderson, for less than one-fourth of their actual value: that there were many persons at said illegal sale of December 9, 1876, with ready money to pay $2,000 cash for any one of the five pieces of property then sold, even for that of the five of least value.”

Plaintiff filed subsequently a supplemental petition in which he alleged that the judgment obtained by Bayle J. Henderson, subsequently confirmed by the Supreme Court, reported in 35 La. Ann. 826, was obtained by fraud, false documents, etc., as would more fully appear by its records made part of that petition and on the trial of the cause; that X>etitioner was not a party to that suit, nor made such according to law; that the defendant, Thomas J. Henderson, was a purchaser in bad faith when he acquired petitioner’s said i>roperties as described in his original petition. This petition was filed without leave of court, and was never served.

The defendant pleaded the exception of no cause or right of action, the prescription of one, two, three, four, five, and ten years, estoppel, and res judicata; it being averred in respect to the latter exceptions that the matter and things set forth in plaintiff’s petition had been finally and irrevocably adjudged in the matter entitled “Succession of John Sadler v. Bayle J. Henderson,” affirmed on appeal, and reported in 35 La. Ann. 826.

The district court sustained the pleas of prescription, res judicata, and estoppel. In his opinion in the case the district judge said: “The dates of the proceedings attacked as the basis of plaintiff’s claim date back in the seventies, and the date of the purchase made by him which he seeks to undo in order to recover the'price was made in'1889, and this suit was filed September 3, 1902. Prescription secures an absolute bar to every cause of action alleged. The judgment in Sadler v. Henderson, reported in 35 La. Ann. 826, held the sale from the succession of plaintiff’s father to Henderson to be good and valid, and therefore the title of the succession; and, as a consequence, the rights of plaintiff as heir were lost. Many of the grounds alleged in that suit in behalf of the succession are identical in effect with those alleged here. To recover in this suit plaintiff must establish first of all that the sale to Henderson (Bayle J. Henderson) under the, mortgage attacked in that case (35 La. Ann. 826) was an absolute nullity, and that the title did not pass from the succession of plaintiff’s father. The negative of this was adjudged in that case contradictorily with plaintiff’s dative tutor. It is the ‘thing adjudged,’ then, that when, in 1889, plaintiff bought from defendant Henderson (Thomas, J. Henderson) said properties, and paid the $6,000 price which he seeks to recover in this suit on the ground that he was in error, buying what belonged, not to Henderson, his vendor, but to the plaintiff himself, the title of his father’s succession had been lost, and therefore, as his father’s heir, he was not the owner.

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Lindquist v. Maurepas Land & Lumber Co.
36 So. 843 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1903)

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Bluebook (online)
36 So. 549, 112 La. 518, 1904 La. LEXIS 427, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sadler-v-henderson-la-1904.