Tucker v. Kelly

506 So. 2d 730
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 14, 1987
DocketCA 86 0098, CA 86 0996
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 506 So. 2d 730 (Tucker v. Kelly) 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
Tucker v. Kelly, 506 So. 2d 730 (La. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

506 So.2d 730 (1987)

Sylvio C. TUCKER and Sam J. Tucker
v.
Harold KELLY, et al.

Nos. CA 86 0098, CA 86 0996.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

April 14, 1987.

*732 Samuel C. Cashio and Richard J. Ward, Jr., Marinqouin, for plaintiffs-appellees defendants, Sylvio and Sam Tucker.

William L. Kimball, Port Allen, for Zito, Comstock, Bergeron and Edith Pearl.

William F. Wessel, Wessel, Bartels & Ciaccio, New Orleans, for Raymond Comstock and Sammy Ray Zito.

Francis A. Smith, Jr., New Roads, for Bertha M. Poirier, et al.

John Wayne Jewell, New Roads, for Rita Kelly, et al.

Before GROVER L. COVINGTON, C.J., and LANIER and ALFORD, JJ.

LANIER, Judge.

This litigation commenced with a petition for partition by licitation of immovable property located in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, filed in 1978. In 1980, judgment was rendered in the trial court ordering the property partitioned by licitation, excluding the mineral interests. No appeal was taken from this judgment, and the property was sold at public auction (Sheriff's sale) on September 3, 1980, to Sammy R. Zito and Raymond J. Comstock (two of the parties to the suit) for $188,500. Subsequently, the partition notary filed a proces-verbal in which he set forth what he determined to be the ownership interests and requested homologation. The ownerships listed in the proces-verbal differed in some respects from the parties listed in the suit for partition. Zito and Comstock opposed the homologation. On July 25, 1983, Zito and Comstock filed a petition to rescind the partition of the property. Two of the defendants in this suit to rescind, Sylvio C. Tucker and Sam J. Tucker, filed two peremptory exceptions raising the objections of no right of action, no cause of action and prescription. The trial court sustained the objection of no cause of action raised in the peremptory exception and dismissed the petition to rescind. Zito and Comstock took this devolutive appeal. Subsequently, the trial court rendered judgment homologating the proces-verbal submitted by the notary. Zito and Comstock took a separate devolutive appeal from that judgment, and that appeal has been consolidated with the prior appeal herein.

NO CAUSE OF ACTION

In McGowan v. Ramey, 484 So.2d 785, 790 (La.App. 1st Cir.1986), appears the following:

The objection of no cause of action raised in a peremptory exception tests the legal sufficiency of the petition and all the allegations of the petition are accepted as true; an objection of no cause of action is sustained only where the law affords no remedy to plaintiff under the allegations of his petition.... If a petition states a cause of action on any ground or portion of the demand, the objection of no cause of action must be overruled.... The purpose of sustaining an objection of no cause of action is to dismiss the entire cause of action, not a part of it.

In their petition to rescind, Zito and Comstock contend they are entitled to rescission of the partition sale because it did not convey merchantable title to all of the property. They assert in brief the title is not merchantable because (1) all co-owners were not cited and/or served in the suit, (2) there are numerous unopened successions in the chain of title, and (3) "the parties to the partition did not hold their interests in common, as some held mineral rights in the property while others did not."

Property may be held in indivision and owned jointly (in common) by more than one person; each person owns an interest in the whole and does not own any particular part. Steele v. Denning, 456 So.2d 992 (La.1984). However, no one can be compelled to hold property in indivision with another; anyone who owns in indivision with another has a right to the division or sale of the thing held in common by the action of partition. La.C.C. art. 1289. Partition *733 is described as a sort of exchange where one gives up his right in a thing to another for the right of the other in the thing one takes. La.C.C. art. 1382. The right to partition is substantively defined in Chapter 12—Of the Partition of Successions, of Title I—Of Successions, of Book III—Of the Different Modes of Acquiring the Ownership of Things, of our Civil Code. La.C.C. arts. 1289-1414. Although these rules are found in the law of successions, they have general application to all instances where there is co-ownership of property. La.C.C. art. 1308; Bernardi v. Chesson, 451 So.2d 145 (La.App. 1st Cir.1984).[1]

The causes for rescission of partitions are set forth in La.C.C. arts. 1397-1414. These causes are the radical vices of violence (duress), fraud and error (La.C.C. art. 1397), lesion of more than one-fourth part of the true value of the property (La.C.C. art. 1398), and failure to join a co-owner (La.C.C. art. 1412).

Failure to Join All Co-owners

Prior to 1952, it was uniformly held that the failure to properly join any co-owner in a partition proceeding invalidated the proceeding as to all co-owners. La.C.C. art. 1412; Johnston v. Burton, 202 La. 152, 11 So.2d 513 (1942); Amerada Petroleum Corporation v. Reese, 195 La. 359, 196 So. 558 (1940); Latham v. Glasscock, 160 La. 1089, 108 So. 100 (1926). Act 403 of 1952 enacted La.R.S. 13:4985-4990, which provide, in pertinent part, as follows:

La.R.S. 13:4985:
Where real property is partitioned, either in kind or by licitation, by either judicial or conventional partition the fact that one or more co-owners are not parties thereto shall not affect the validity of such partition as to the co-owners who are parties thereto or their heirs or assigns; provided that the rights of any co-owner not a party to such partition shall not be affected thereby and the interest of such co-owner in the property partitioned shall remain the same as if the property had not been partitioned.
La.R.S. 13:4987:
The term `co-owner' as used in R.S. 13:4985 through R.S. 13:4990 is defined as the owner of any interest in the real property partitioned or any interest affecting such real property which renders such co-owner a proper party to a partition thereof.
La.R.S. 13:4988:
The provisions of R.S. 13:4985 through R.S. 13:4990 shall be effective as to all parties including absentees, minors, and interdicts.
La.R.S. 13:4989:
Nothing in R.S. 13:4985 through R.S. 13:4990 shall prevent any court in any judicial proceeding in which real property is sought to be partitioned, upon proper motion or exception, from ordering that any co-owner not then a party be joined as a party thereto.[[2]]

The purpose of Act 403 of 1952 is discussed in Note, Partition—The Effect of R.S. 13:4985 on Partitions Made Without Representation of All Co-owners, 24 La.L. Rev. 122, 124-125 (1963), as follows:

The Louisiana courts have consistently held a partition in which all of the co-owners are not represented to be absolutely null and with no effect on any party to the partition. Thus any co-owner, even a party to the partition, could have it set aside upon proving that some other person with an interest in the property had not been a party to the partition. This rule undermined the stability of land titles in Louisiana. The courts have continually held that since the partition is null, any sale made under it is null and `the purchaser at such a sale is not protected by the decree for a partition.'

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Bluebook (online)
506 So. 2d 730, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tucker-v-kelly-lactapp-1987.