Stanfill v. Johnson

258 So. 2d 141, 1972 La. App. LEXIS 6132
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 1, 1972
DocketNo. 11764
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 258 So. 2d 141 (Stanfill v. Johnson) 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
Stanfill v. Johnson, 258 So. 2d 141, 1972 La. App. LEXIS 6132 (La. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

HEARD, Judge.

This is an action by Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill and George W. Wise to annul certain deeds to immovable property and to have the sales set aside as simulations. Defendants are Jake Wise Johnson, Milton S. Johnson, Martha Jake Johnson Beatles and Bobbie Lou Johnson Yauger. The latter three defendants answered the petition asserting that they have no knowledge of the matters contained in the petition, and further, that they have no interest in the property in dispute. Jake Wise Johnson answered asserting that the sales were not simulations, but rather were supported by consideration in the form of an exchange of property. Assuming the position of plaintiff in reconvention, Jake Wise John[142]*142son prayed that if the sales to her were declared simulations then her sale to George W. Wise likewise be declared a simulation.

The trial judge rendered judgment declaring a sale from Mattie Wilkinson Stan-fill to Jake Wise Johnson to be a simulation. Further, the trial court found a sale from Carolyn Wilkinson Weathersby, Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill and George W. Wise to Jake Wise Johnson to be a simulation. The judge further held that the sale from Jake Wise Johnson to George W. Wise was a simulation. Mattie Wilkinson Stan-fill, George W. Wise and Jake Wise Johnson perfected appeals from this judgment.

Both sides to this litigation raised the issue of res judicata. The basis of their argument that the other’s claim is res judicata is a prior suit styled “George W. Wise v. Jake Wise Johnson” 241 So.2d 534, La.App.2d Cir. 1970, writ refused, 257 La. 604, 243 So.2d 273 (1971). This prior suit involved the same deeds under attack here. Further, the proposed an-nullment of the deeds in the prior suit was based on the same cause of action asserted here. However, the parties to the prior suit were not the same as those here. Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill, although a witness in the prior suit, was not a party litigant. George W. Wise, although a party litigant in the prior suit, appears in this suit as a transferee of Carolyn Weathersby’s interest in the disputed property rather than as vendor of the disputed property. LSA-C.C. Art. 2286 states

“The authority of the thing adjudged takes place only with respect to what was the object of the judgment. The thing demanded must be the same; the demand must be founded on the same cause of action; the demand must be between the same parties, and formed by them against each other in the same quality.”

The demands in this suit are not between the same parties formed by them against each other in the same quality. Thus, we hold that the trial judge was correct in overruling Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill’s and George Wise’s exception of res judicata, and further, that the trial judge was correct in denying Jake Wise Johnson’s motion for summary judgment based on a claim of res judicata.

On the other hand, we hold that the trial judge committed manifest error when he held the sales to be simulations. It is the well settled law of Louisiana that in the absence of any allegation of fraud or error, conditions and stipulations beyond those expressed in an authentic act, and what may have been said before, or at the time of, or since the execution thereof, can be proved only by means of a counter-letter or by use of interrogatories on facts and articles. Lawrence v. Claiborne, 215 La. 785, 41 So.2d 680 (1949); Franton v. Rusca, 187 La. 578, 175 So. 66 (1937); American Creosote Co., Inc. v. Springer, 257 La. 116, 241 So.2d 510 (1970). There were no allegations of fraud or error in this case. No counterletter was introduced. Jake Wise Johnson’s answers to interrogatories deny that the instruments under attack were simulations and not supported by consideration. On the contrary, her answers to interrogatories disclose her contention that there was a consideration different from that expressed in the instruments. The following two interrogatories were propounded to Jake Wise Johnson by Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill and George W. Wise:

INTERROGATORY NO. 1
WHEREAS, in act passed before John S. Stephens, Notary Public, dated April 14, 1967, filed for record April 17, 1967, and of record in Conveyance Book 110, page 428, it is recited that you paid to Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill, George W. Wise and Caroline Wilkinson Weathers-by $1,000.00 cash as the consideration for the purchase by you from them of the property described in the deed. Is it a fact that you did not pay any cash at all for the said property?
[143]*143INTERROGATORY NO. 2
WHEREAS, in act passed before John S. Stephens dated April -, 1962, filed for record April 17, 1962, and of record in Conveyance Book 110, page 429, records of Red River Parish, Louisiana, it is recited that you paid Mattie Wilkinson Stanfill $250.00 cash as consideration for the property described in the deed. Is it a fact that you did not pay any cash at all for the property ?

Jake Wise Johnson’s answers to the above two interrogatories as follows:

1. Yes, but there was equivalent consideration given in the form of the transfer by me and by others of undivided interests in the Wise Department store lot to George W. Wise.
2. My answer to this question is the same as my answer to No. 1 above.

Her answers to interrogatories do not disclose a simulated sale. Therefore, the trial judge committed manifest error in annulling the deeds from Mattie W. Stan-fill to Jake Wise Johnson and from Carolyn W. Weathersby, Mattie W. Stanfill and George Wise to Jake Wise Johnson.

As we hold that these sales are not simulations, there is no need to consider Jake Wise Johnson’s reconventional demand as this was conditioned on the success of Mattie W. Stanfill’s and George Wise’s original demand.

The judgment of the trial court is reversed, and it is ordered, adjudged and decreed that there be judgment herein in favor of defendant, Jake Wise Johnson, against plaintiffs, Mattie Wilkinson Stan-fill and George W. Wise, rejecting the plaintiffs’ demands. The property affected by this judgment (C.C.P. 2089) being:

The house and lot formerly occupied by Mrs. Mattie Wilkinson and being the same property acquired by Dr. W. T. Wilkinson, Sr., from Jno. D. Wilkinson, et al, as per deed recorded in Conveyance Book “Y”, page 622, less portion traded to T. M. Armistead, which property is described as follows, to-wit:
Beginning at a point on the East side of the Public Road leading from Cou-shatta to Ringgold, La., where said road crosses the North line of the J. C. Per-rault Grant, run thence North with said road 17Yz degrees East 377 feet, run thence South 14 degrees East 454 feet, run thence South 80 degrees West with said Perrault Grant 600 feet to place of beginning, lying and situated in Southeast Quarter of Section 13, Township 12 North, Range 10 West, Red River Parish, Louisiana.
And beginning at said iron stob situated on the North line of the John C. Per-rault Grant where the same intersects the South side of Ringgold Avenue, and run thence in the direction of Ringgold and on South side of Ringgold Avenue a distance of 18 feet; thence at right angles to said Ringgold Avenue to the northwest corner of lot belonging to Miles Pylant, all for a place of beginning, and from which point of beginning run in an Easterly direction along the line heretofore dividing the property of T. M.

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Related

Durham v. Evans
377 So. 2d 423 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1979)
City of Monroe v. Noe
340 So. 2d 616 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1976)
Stanfill v. Johnson
260 So. 2d 316 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1972)

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Bluebook (online)
258 So. 2d 141, 1972 La. App. LEXIS 6132, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stanfill-v-johnson-lactapp-1972.