Succession of Bienvenu

106 La. 595
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedNovember 15, 1901
DocketNo. 13,713
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 106 La. 595 (Succession of Bienvenu) 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
Succession of Bienvenu, 106 La. 595 (La. 1901).

Opinion

[596]*596The opinion of the court was delivered by

Breaux, J.

Both appellant and appellee complain of a judgment rendered by the District Court, ordering that a balance of nineteen hundred and eighty-eight 61-100 dollars to be paid to the opponent represented by his tutor and to the Mutual Loan and Building Company, in proportion to the value of improvements made on the land by the latter, and the naked lots which were bought with money paid over for the purpose by the late mother 'of George Buyatt, minor, who is represented by his tutor as before mentioned.

Mrs. Buyatt, widow, mother of the minor, was indebted to him in the sum of ten thousand dollars. The claim was duly recorded in 1892 and was secured by legal mortgage. In the month of July, 1893, Mrs. Buyatt applied to the Mutual Loan and Building Homestead Company for a loan. She deposited eleven hundred dollars with the company to purchase two lots of ground. With this amount the plaintiff company bought the lots, taking the deed in its name. The company had a house built upon the lots at a cost of twenty-four hundred dollars. The amount of the loan to her by the company was twenty-seven hundred dollars.

From this amount the company deducted a bonus of ten per cent, charged, we are informed, for making the advances and erecting the improvements. This left of the loan the sum of twenty-four hundred and thirty dollars. After the improvements had been made on these lots, the company transferred to her the lots and improvements for the amount of twenty-seven hundred dollars, the amount of her loan, and she executed her note for that amount, secured by vendor’s lien and mortgage.

After the death of Mrs. Buyatt, in course of the settlement of the succession, the administratrix sold the property in question, which was the only property that the deceased had owned. The proceeds of the sale amounted to two thousand seven hundred and twenty-five dollars. The administratrix paid out everything except the balance of nineteen hundred and eighty-eight 61-100 dollars which she has carried upon her account of administration to the credit of the plaintiff company. The tutor of the minor, George Buyatt, Son of Mrs. Buyatt, opposed the account of the administratrix upon a number of grounds, claiming the ten thousand dollars before mentioned and a legal mortgage against her property as dating from January, 1892; he contends that the amount due to the Mutual Loan and Building Company is subor[597]*597dinate to that due the minor, George Buyatt, and that it should be paid to him in preference to any claim of the Mutual Loan and Building Company, as the latter has no mortgage or vendor’s privilege.

He claims that the purchase made by the Mutual Loan and Building Company of the unimproved real estate before mentioned was for her account, in acordance with agreement, and with her money; that the money was deposited with the said Mutual Loan and Building Company to buy this land, the proceeds of which are to be distributed, and that the object in putting the real estate in the name of the Mutual Loan and Building Company was to evade the mortgage recorded in favor of the ward; that the property never was paid for by the Mutual Loan and Building Company and is not its property.

Opponent charges that Act 115 of 1888, the Homestead Act, is contrary to the Constitution of 1898 and the Constitution of 1879 in that this act attempts to grant to homestead associations a special and exclusive right which it does not grant to other corporations and other citizens of the State; that it infringes upon the equal rights of individuals; that it is contrary to Article 31 of the Constitution of 1898, and a similar article in the Constitution of 1879, in that it does not embrace one object, but it embraces two or more objects.

We take up for decision the first question before us in the order of the argument growing out of the contention of opponent that his' mortgage has priority because the purchase of two vacant lots conferred no title upon the company; that the property was in effect transferred to Mrs. Buyatt, and that immediately after the transfer to the company it became subject to the minor’s mortgage.

Mrs. Buyatt paid the price and not the company. This fact is not disputed. The purchase was made in accordance with her direction. The company was a transferee without a price. Such a transfer' as between the owner and the one who holds a paper title can have no vitality as a sale. The company signed its name to the deed really as her agent and representative.

In observing the form of selling the property to her, as relates to the land it held and which had been bought with her money in compliance with agreement, it only placed her in possession of her property. The company, from the date of the deed to it, held the propertv in trust. No third person acquired a right against the land while the title was in the name of the company. We take as settled that a cestui qui trust can compel the trustee to convey the property bought for the former, if third persons have not acquired any rights against [598]*598the property. There is no question here of any right or interest acquired by third persons against the property. The controversy is exclusively between the heir of Mrs. Buyatt and the company which acted in a representative capacity in buying the property. Our opinion on this point, we think, finds ample support in the following cases: Brigham vs. Newton, 49 Ann. 1539; Hodges vs. Ory, 48 Ann, 54; Ringe vs. Binns, 10 Peters, 269; Michoud vs. Girod, 4 Howard 503; McClendon vs. Bradford, 42 Ann. 160; Hobson vs. Peake, 44th Ann. 383.

The minor’s mortgage was extant upon the record when Mrs. Buyatt received the title from Fredericks and Redersheimer through the intervention or agency of the Homestead Company.

The case to which our attention is invited by counsel for the company does not sustain their contention. Succession of Latchford, 42 Ann. 529. The borrower in the cited case above, transferred her property to the company. In the case in hand, on the contrary, the company placed the title in the name of the real owner, and could not, in view of the facts, acquire title as owner, nor could it retain a mortgage and vendor’s privilege on property it held for another.

■ The improvements placed on the property by the company give rise to the next, question in the order of the argument to be considered and determined.

While the company held the lots in its name, it built improvements thereon under a special agreement with the owner. While it is true that the minor’s mortgage attached to the land, it can scarcely be held that it covered the improvements placed thereon in accordance with an agreement with the owner. If the minor’s mortgage attached to the property, he would be benefited at the expense of another who owed him no duty. He would be benefited to the detriment of the Homestead Company that acted in good- faith in placing the improvements on the lots. We have seen that the parties to the agreement had created a constructive trust under which the Homestead Company held temporarily for the real owner. Improvements (as in our case) placed on the property held in trust with the consent of the owner must be accounted for when the property is delivered to the owner. The accounting here was made by attempting to create a mortgage on the property of Mrs. Buyatt by transferring property and improvements as if all was owned by the company.

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106 La. 595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/succession-of-bienvenu-la-1901.