Successions of Lissa

3 So. 2d 534, 198 La. 129, 1941 La. LEXIS 1118
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMarch 31, 1941
DocketNo. 36066.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 3 So. 2d 534 (Successions of Lissa) 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
Successions of Lissa, 3 So. 2d 534, 198 La. 129, 1941 La. LEXIS 1118 (La. 1941).

Opinions

FOURNET, Justice.

Defendant, Mrs. Adele Spiro, divorced wife of Harry A. Mathe, has appealed from a judgment decreeing her to be disinherited under the terms of the testaments of her late mother and father.

Mrs. Sarah Lissa Spiro, defendant’s mother, died testate on April 9, 1938, leaving surviving her, in addition to defendant, three children, Ruby Spiro, widow of Tobias Pick, Edward Spiro, and Joseph Spiro, issue of her marriage to Louis Spiro, who also survived her. Defendant opened her mother’s succession on June 8, 1938, praying that a search be made for her will. On June 14, by the petition of defendant’s father, Mrs. Spiro’s olographic will dated April 17, 1911, was probated, and by the provisions thereof defendant was disinherited for the reason that she married during her minority without the consent of her parents. On August 1, 1939, defendant’s father, two brothers, and sister were placed in possession of decedent’s property upon the ex parte judgment of the lower court. Defendant, not having been made a party to the proceedings, appealed from the judgment under the provisions of Article 571 of the Code of Practice, and we annulled the judgment for the reason that under the express provisions of the Revised Civil Code the depriving of a forced heir of his legitime by the effect of disinherison must .be by one of the forms prescribed for testaments and the testator must not only set forth in the will the cause for disinherison, but the other heirs of the testator must, contradictorily with the disinherited persons, prove the facts on which the disinherison is based. See Succession of Lissa, 195 La. 438, 196 So. 924. Defendant was likewise disinherited under the terms of the last will of her father who died on January 13, 1940. The will, nuncupative in form by public act dated May 30, 1939, was duly probated. The two successions were subsequently consolidated, and on March 26, 1940, this suit was filed by defendant’s sister and two brothers for the purpose of proving the facts on which her (defendant’s) disinherison was based.

*134 The defendant denied that she had married without the consent of her parents and, in the alternative, pleaded that she had been expressly forgiven by her parents, each of whom had become reconciled with her and had condoned the marriage.

The case went to trial on these issues, and the trial judge concluded, as to defendant’s first contention, that she had married without the consent of her parents while still a minor. As to her alternative plea he concluded, as was contended by counsel for plaintiffs, that since it is the mandatory requirement of the Revised Civil Code that disinherison be by one of the forms prescribed for testaments and no specific provision is made for the revocation of a disinherison, the same can only be revoked in the manner in which it is established. Consequently he was of the opinion that no other proof that the deceased condoned or became reconciled to the injury done him could be introduced and considered, although, in order to complete the record, he did admit parole testimony and referred it to the merits.

The trial judge’s conclusion that the defendant married without the consent of her parents while still a minor is amply supported by the record. This leaves for our consideration, therefore, whether or not the judge erred in his ruling on the issues raised by the defendant’s alternative plea and the weight and effect of such testimony in the event we conclude he did.

Counsel for defendant contend that since this court has never passed on the issues squarely presented under the facts of this case, and there being no specific provision in the Revised Civil Code for the manner in which a disinherison may be revoked, a thorough understanding of the causes that gave rise to the law of disinherison is essential to our decision under Article 21 of the Revised Civil Code, which provides that: “In all civil matters, where there is no express law, the judge is bound to proceed and decide according to equity. To decide equitably, an appeal is to be made to natural law and reason, or received usages, where positive law is silent.” To this end they have submitted a brief which has been of great assistance to the court because of the collection and translation of the Roman, Spanish, and French authorities on this subject, and the exhaustive review of the historical development of the doctrine of disinherison, stated in the brief to be the work of Mr. Leandre Marechal, Lecturer on Civil Law Research in the Loyola University School of Law.

In drafting from the customs of the people and antiquated legal precepts what is known today as the Twelve Tables of Roman Law, the foundation on which rests the vast and complex judicial system of the modern world, the ancient sages of Rome gave the father absolute and unquestioned power over the destiny and lives of his 'family. Under this law he could disinherit his children by making other disposition of his estate. Beginning with the Institutes of Gaius in 161 A.D., however, this Draconian right was gradually tempered as civilization progressed. The first important step in this evolution was the “querela inoflfiociosum testamentum.” By this innovation it was decreed that a man who had *136 disinherited his children did not have the necessary mental capacity to make a will and, under this pretext or fiction, the testament was annulled. The theory behind this ruling was that such an action was not consistent with the moral duty of a parent toward his child and was contrary to natural paternal sentiment and affection, not that the testator was actually insane.

Up to the time of Justinian the theories of the “querela” and of disinherison had a parallel development. He simplified and coordinated this complex system into a perfect whole in his Novels 18 and 115. Under the 18th Novel, ascendants were legally bound to leave to their descendants, by way of instituted heirship, a certain portion of their estate. This portion of which the “decujus” could not dispose was called the “legibus debita portion, legitima pars,” from which the Civil Law expression of "legitime” is derived. But Justinian also provided that the instituted heir could be disinherited for the causes, fourteen in number, enumerated in his 115th Novel. The child could be disinherited, by his father for all fourteen of these causes, or any one of them, but the commentators have invariably discussed them in two groups, the first, consisting of the first ten causes, being grouped together because they all referred to cases in which the child had done the father some wrong; the second, consisting of the last four causes, being considered from the standpoint that the testator had the right to disinherit the child because of the child’s personal unworthiness. Thus it may be seen that the law of forced heirship and the law of disinherison are both products of the Roman law, springing almost simultaneously from the same source.

Under the Roman law, however, because of the precept that a testament could only be cancelled by another testament, a provision for disinherison could only be annulled by the making of another will in which the disinherison was revoked.

The fundamental judicial conceptions and specific doctrines of the Roman or civil law have found their way into every legal system existing in the civilized world.

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3 So. 2d 534, 198 La. 129, 1941 La. LEXIS 1118, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/successions-of-lissa-la-1941.