Tujaque v. McClure

194 So. 2d 775, 1967 La. App. LEXIS 5743
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 30, 1967
DocketNo. 6863
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 194 So. 2d 775 (Tujaque v. McClure) 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
Tujaque v. McClure, 194 So. 2d 775, 1967 La. App. LEXIS 5743 (La. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

LOTTINGER, Judge.

This is a petitory action instituted by the petitioners wherein they allege ownership of the following described property situated in the Parish of St. Tammany, Louisiana.

Lot No. 2 in Section 14, Township 9' South, Range 13 East, Greensburg District of Louisiana, contains 22.21 acres. Also the fractional North West one-fourth of Section 14 and the fractional North East one-fourth of Section 15 both in Township 9 South, Range 13 East, Greensburg District of Louisiana containing 70.81 acres.

In their original and amended petitions, the petitioners pleaded the chain of title upon which they rely. In their answer, the defendants denied the plaintiff’s title, but admitted their alleged possession of the subject property. The defendants also admitted that they claimed title to a portion of the property described in plaintiff’s petition, and in their answer set forth the chain of title by which they claim, said chain being the same as the chain of title of the petitioners up to a point, at which point defendants’ title separates from that of plaintiff by means of a tax sale in the year 1915. In their answer, the defendants de-raign their title from this tax sale in 1915 from their author in title, to their father in 1929 and the judgments of possession in the successions of their mother in 1943 and their father in 1961. In their answer the defendants also set forth that their father went into possession of the property from the time of his acquisition, and that said possession was evidenced by the erection of buildings, drilling of oil wells, trapping for fur bearing animals, raising of mink, lease of the land and improvements to third parties, execution of mineral leases, payment of taxes and in general alleged that they had exercised every conceivable sort of actual, physical, corporeal and civil possession of the premises. The defendants alternatively pleaded the prescription of ten years and thirty years.

After a trial on the merits, the Trial' Judge rendered judgment in favor of the - defendants and against the plaintiffs, de[777]*777creeing defendants to be the owners of the subject property. Plaintiffs have appealed.

In his reasons for judgment, the Trial Judge found that the plaintiffs had alleged and proved a clear chain of title from the United States of America to date, and stated that the defendants based their claim on a tax sale for unpaid taxes for the year 1915, made in the name of Rhita DeArmas to E. P. Kinchen, and that Mr. Kinchen had transferred the property to Henry Keller in 1929. The defendants are the heirs of the late Henry Keller, et ux, and their lessees.

The appellants assign three specifications of error. The first is that the Trial Court erred in finding that the defendants proved possession of thirty years when, as alleged by appellants, there is absolutely no evidence of possession prior to 1939. The second assignment of error is that the Trial Court erred in ignoring the knowledge of Henry Keller as to the ownership of property in question as he allegedly purchased same from a party who had absolutely no title whatsoever. Thirdly, appellants urge that Henry Keller was not a purchaser in good faith when he purchased the subject property from E. P. Kinchen, because as owner of property all around the subject property, he knew that the said property really was owned by Joseph Bienvenu.

Mrs. Viola A. Curry, one of the defendants, who was 71 years old at the time of the trial, testified that she was familiar with the subject property, as well as property which adjoined that property to the north and which Henry Keller had acquired from one Edward Doucet in 1925. She testified that Joe Fogg and Louis Oreglia had trapped that portion of the subject property and adjacent property which lay along Bayou Paquet. She testified that she recalled when her father disposed of the Doucet property in 1939 and further recalled that Mr. Oreglia was occupying the property at that time. She testified that after the sale a house was built on the subject property by a Mr. Oscar Grice, and that Oreglia occupied the house for several years. After Oreglia’s departure from the house around 1947, another family moved in and occupied the house until 1952. She testified that the house was vacant during a portion of 1952 and all of 1953, but that from 1954 up to the time of the filing of this suit, the house was in fact occupied. Some of these persons who occupied these premises during this period did so as caretaker and trapper, and others as tenants. She testified that in 1949, Joe Fogg had built another house on the property and occupied it with his family in the capacity of trapper and caretaker for her father. This house was also occupied by numerous people, finally terminating in occupancy by the son of the defendant lessee. She testified that her father had never been disturbed by anyone claiming to own the subject property until sometime in 1960, when Mr. McClure, the tenant, had informed her father that someone was claiming ownership to the property.

Mrs. Joe Fogg testified that she and her husband had lived on the Doucet tract commencing in 1931 and continuing for a period of three or four years, at which time her husband was employed by Mr. Keller as a trapper and forester. She testified that when she and her husband lived on the Doucet tract, they utilized a portion of the tract in litigation for a hog pen and garden.

Albert J. Doucet testified that he had been born in the neighborhood, that he had been employed by Mr. Keller from 1945 to about 1951 as a trapper, and that to the best of his knowledge Mr. Keller had always owned the property in question. Part of the property which Mr. Doucet trapped for Mr. Keller was the subject property. He testified that he recalled that at the time that a house was first built on the subject property, that Mr. Oreglia occupied it. He reiterated that throughout the area the property had always been known as Mr. Keller’s property.

Mr. Leonard Cousin testified that he was familiar with the property owned by Mr. Keller and that he had worked for Mr. [778]*778Keller previously as a trapper and timber cutter from 1922 until 1956. A portion of the property which he trapped was the subject property; however, he said that he only trapped it for a couple of years, at which time it began to be trapped by Mr. Oreglia’s brother, who was dead at the time of the trial. He testified that he began to trap the subject property “somewhere around between 1929 and 1930”. He confirmed the fact that the houses built upon the subject property had been erected by employees of Mr. Keller and that as a matter of fact he had helped in their construction on occasion.

‘' Mr. Oreglia, who was 67 years of age at the time of the trial, confirmed the fact that he had trapped and forested for Mr. Keller, first occupying what is known as the Doucet tract. He confirmed the fact that during the time he lived on the Doucet tract he maintained a garden and hog pen on the subject property, and the fact that he had left the Doucet property after it was sold by Mr. Keller, and commenced to occupy the house on the subject property. He testified that he remained on'this property until the latter part of 1943. He confirmed the fact that Mr. Fogg had also built a house on the property, and the fact that his deceased brother had at one time trapped the subject property for'Mr. Keller. Mr. Oreglia testified that about eight acres of the 23.44 acres contained in the subject property were trapped.

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200 So. 2d 504 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1967)

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Bluebook (online)
194 So. 2d 775, 1967 La. App. LEXIS 5743, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tujaque-v-mcclure-lactapp-1967.