9 So. 2d 479 | La. | 1942
The plaintiffs have appealed from a judgment of the district court in a petitory action fixing the proportionate interests of the respective coowners in a tract of approximately 1,218.75 acres of land situated in St. Mary Parish.
We have entertained appeals in this suit on three different occasions. See: Buillard v. Davis,
The appellants, on this appeal, are seeking to be decreed the owners of a certain undivided interest in 1,218.75 acres of land. On a previous appeal, the appellants sought to have this undivided interest in the lands to be decreed their property and not the property of the defendants. See: *118
The appellants are now contending that they were not plaintiffs in the Gravet and Vuillemot suits, supra. The Vuillemot suit, supra, was not instituted by the appellants, but they filed pleadings therein, urging exceptions, a plea of res adjudicata, and a plea of estoppel as a bar to the defendants' claim to this undivided interest in the lands. The appellants designated themselves in the pleadings as exceptors and plaintiffs. They prayed for the pleas to be maintained, and for such further orders and decrees necessary in the premises, and for general and equitable relief.
An intervention under Article 389 of the Code of Practice is defined as follows: "An intervention or interpleader is a demand by which a third person requires to be permitted to become a party in a suit between other persons; by joining the plaintiff in claiming the same thing, or *119 something connected with it, or by uniting with the defendant in resisting the claims of the plaintiff, or, where his interest requires it, by opposing both."
Under the provisions of Article 390 of the Code of Practice, the right to intervene is dependent upon whether or not the intervenor has "an interest in the success of either of the parties to the suit, or an interest opposed to both."
The pleadings filed by the appellants in the Vuillemot case were definitely opposed to the defendants. They were not opposed to the plaintiffs, but on the contrary, the appellants aligned themselves with the originally named plaintiffs in an attempt to defeat the defendants' claim to this same undivided interest in the lands. The appellants designated themselves, therein, as exceptors and plaintiffs. They joined together with the other plaintiffs with the view of recovering an interest in their common ancestor's estate which the defendants claim to own. Moreover when we entertained the third appeal in this case, wherein the present appellants and the plaintiffs were the appellants, we specifically decreed the defendants to be the owners of this same undivided interest in the estate. See:
The appellants further contend, in event they are decreed to have been plaintiffs in the Vuillemot suit, that the appellees are estopped by previous decrees in this case, which have become final, from urging this point. Counsel for the appellants states that after the court remanded this case to the district court under the decree reported *120
in the
We see no merit in this contention, for the reason that the appellants who are plaintiffs in this suit were also appellants in the appeal passed on by us in this case reported in the
For the reasons assigned, the judgment is affirmed.
O'NIELL, C.J., is recused.