Thompson v. Vance

34 So. 112, 110 La. 26, 1903 La. LEXIS 593
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMarch 16, 1903
DocketNo. 14,301
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 34 So. 112 (Thompson v. Vance) 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
Thompson v. Vance, 34 So. 112, 110 La. 26, 1903 La. LEXIS 593 (La. 1903).

Opinion

MOORE, J.

This is an appeal bv interveners and third opponents, in an executory process, from a judgment rejecting their demand to be paid by priority one-fourth of the proceeds of the sale, on the grounds: That they are creditors of a dissolved matrimonial community, which was the former owner of the undivided one-fourth (if the property mortgaged and sold; that the mortgagor acquired by conventional sale tMs portion of the property from the surviving spouse; that the sale from the surviving spouse to the mortgagor did not deprive opponents, as community creditors; of their right to be paid out of the common property; and that the right of the purchaser and his mortgage creditor is hence subordinated to theirs.

Decision of the right thus asserted by the appellants and opposed by the appellee, the mortgage creditor, and the plaintiff in the cause, turns upon the solution of three questions of law, which we may formulate thus:

First. Where minor heirs inherit from their deceased mother a paraphernal claim against the community, and their father subsequently qualities as their natural tutor, does the legal mortgage which the minors have on all the property of their tutor ■ absorb the claim of the minors as community creditors, and alter the character of their claim from one due by the community to one due by their tutor?

Second. Where the surviving partner in community sells his interest in the community property, and, as natural tutor, subsequently conveys by private sale to his vendee the interest of the minor heirs, are the latter, when seeking to subject the portion of the community property coming to their father to the payment of the debt due them by the community, estopped from so doing because, in the proceedings looking to the sale of their interest in the property, they neither set up as a defense the defeasible character of their father’s interest in the portion of the community property coming to him, and which he had previously sold, nor urged their claim as community creditors? And,

Third. Is registry of a paraphernal and commumty debt necessary in order to entitle such creditor to priority of payment out of the proceeds of the sale of the community property, no other community creditor asserting any claim to the fund?

The facts which lead up to and present these questions are as follows:

The community resulting from the marriage of S. J. Zeigler with Sallie É. Vance [30]*30.acquired, in the name of the head of the community, a certain plantation known as “Buck Hall,” containing 952 acres, 752 acres of which are in the parish of Bossier, and 200 acres in the parish of Caddo; and subsequently sold the undivided half of the entire plantation to Mrs. Sarah E. Vance, Miss Mollie B. G. Vance, and S. W. Vance, in the proportions of the undivided one-third of one-half to each.

Some time thereafter, the community was ■dissolved by the death of the wife.

Her legal heirs were Susie, Sadie, Mary Lee, and Vinnie, all minors, and issue of her marriage with S. ,T. Zeigler.

By her last will she devised to her husband an undivided one-fourth interest in her estate, the balance being left in equal proportions to her children above named.

Two of the children, Susie and Sadie, subsequently died, leaving as their sole heirs their father and their two sisters. The father inherited, under the law, one-fourth of their estate, the other three-fourths falling to their surviving sisters, Mary Lee and Vinnie.

The joint owners, therefore, of Buck Hall at this period, and the proportions owned by them (all of which were acquired either by conventional conveyances or by inheritance), were as follows:

S. E., M. B. G., and S. W. Vance, the undivided one-half, or, say..................... 64/128 S. J. Zeigler,

1st. The portion or share coming to him as surviving partner in community, the one-half of one-half, or say of the whole .................. 32/128

2d. The undivided one-fourth of his deceased wife's interest in the community, devised to him by her will........ 8/128

3d. Inherited by him from his two deceased children...... 3/128

- 43/128

The minors, Mary Lee and Vinnie, inheriting from their deceased mother 6/128 each, say.............. 24/256

And from their deceased sisters 9/256 each, say ...........................18/256

42/256 or 21/128

128/128

Zeigler had qualified as the natural tutor of the minors, Mary Lee and Vinnie, but the legal mortgage which resulted from the recordation of the abstract of inventory in the tutorship of said, minors, and which mortgage covered the father’s interest in this property, was, on the 5th of July, 1887, duly canceled by the substitution of a special mortgage on his certain separate property.

Several days thereafter, Zeigler contracted a second marriage. Thereupon, by the operation of law (Kev. Oiv. Code, art. 1755), the interest in the property which he held under his wife’s will, as well as the interest which he inherited from his two deceased children, Susie and Sadie, vested in Mary Lee and Vinnie; so that, whilst the joint ownership in the property up to this time had not changed, the respective proportions of S. J. Zeigler and of the minors were, however, disturbed. The entire property, consisting of 952 acres, then stood as follows.

The Vances owning the undivided 1/2 or undivided ......................................... 64/128

S. J. „Zeigler owning the undivided 1/4 or- undivided ........................................ 32A28

The minors, Mary Lee and Vinnie, each 16/128, or together .................................... 32/123

On the 18th June, 1888, about three years after the death of Mrs. Zeigler, and in this condition of the ownership of the plantation, the Vanees and S. J. Zeigler, individually (no account being taken of the interest of the minors in the property; they being no parties to the transaction whatsoever), entered into a notarial act of “exchange” by which the Vances agreed to take the north half and S. J. Zeigler the south half of Buck Hall. This “exchange” or partition, so-called, seems, however/ to have been subsequently disregarded by the parties thereto, and treated by them as a nullity, for on the 16th day of June. 1891, S. J. Zeigler conveyed by conventional sale to S. W. Vance “his entire interest” in the whole of Buck Hall plantation, consisting of the 952 acres, which interest is stated in the act to be 43/i28 of the whole.

Two days later, the Vances filed their petition in the district court of the parish of Oaddo, in the matter of the .“Tutorship of the Minors of S. E. Zeigler,” alleging their purchase of the undivided half of Buck Hall during the existence of the Zeigler community; S. W. Vance’s subsequent acquisition of S. J. Zeigler’s interest therein on the 16th ■June, 1891, after the dissolution of the community by the death of Mrs. Zeigler; the joint ownership of the minors, Mary Lee and Vinnie Zeigler, in said plantation, which ownership they represent to be 21/i2s; their unwillingness to hold said plantation in com[32]*32mon, and their desire to effect a partition by a private sale of the minors’ interest, pursuant to Act No. 25, p. 47, of Act of 1878.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
34 So. 112, 110 La. 26, 1903 La. LEXIS 593, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thompson-v-vance-la-1903.