11 La. 419 | La. | 1837
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff alleges that he is a judgment creditor of Sebastian Castigo, deceased, insolvent; that the present defendant, his wife, had entered with him into a fraudulent combination to place his property beyond the reach of his
In an amended petition the plaintiff further prays, that the defendant’s judgment against her husband, and all proceedings thereon, be annulled, or that the land so received by her at one hundred dollars, be decreed to be sold and its proceeds after paying her one hundred dollars, applied to pay the plaintiff’s judgment, or that she be adjudged to pay him five hundred dollars, she having, even supposing no fraud to have been committed, received that sum over and above what was due her by her husband. This amended petition also concludes with a prayer for general relief.
The defendant denies her liability to pay any debt of her late husband. She alleges, that the plaintiffs had full notice of the claims she had upon her husband by her marriage contract, and that notwithstanding the opposition of the plaintiff and other creditors, she obtained a judgment on the
So far as the object of the present suit is to avoid the judgment recovered by the defendant against her husband, and the assignment of property to her, in pursuance of it, as in fraud of the plaintiff’s rights, we can regard it in no other light than as a revocatory action, by which, according to the code, creditors may cause to be annulled any contract or transaction, so far as they may have been injured by it. Every device, contrivance or machination,' by which a creditor may have been prejudiced, may form the subject of this action. The assignment made to the wife, of property, though made by the parish judge and experts, in conformity to the judgment, in presence and by the express consent of the parties, must be considered as essentially a contract: a datien en paiement. A contract of that description, in consideration of the dotal and paraphernal rights of the wife, is, perhaps, authorized by the code; but, like all other contracts, it is liable to be attacked, as in fraud of other creditors of the husband. The action is, however, prescribed by one year, to run from the date of the judgment which the attacking creditors may have obtained. Louisiana Code, 1989.
The evidence does not, in our opinion, authorize a judgment against the defendant, for any thing as personally liable for the debt. But the District Court thought, that as it appeared in evidence that the plaintiff had a judicial mortgage on the slaves transferred to the defendant under her judgment, he was entitled to have them seized and sold, and rendered judgment accordingly, under the prayer for general relief.
No objection was made to the introduction of tbe evidence, and it is contended that, according to the well settled doctrine of our jurisprudence, parties are to recover according to their proofs. The plaintiff shows a judicial mortgage on the slaves set over to the defendant, and it does not appear to us she has shown a better right. The mere acknowledgment in a marriage contract of the receipt of money by the husband, is not conclusive against his creditors. There is no proof that the two thousand five hundred dollars, alleged to have been given as a marriage portion, ever was paid to the husband, and the tract of land for which she recovered six hundred dollars, remained her property, notwithstanding the estimation in the contract.
But the District Court went further than merely ordering the slaves to be seized and sold to satisfy the mortgage, and pronounced the nullity of the judgment and transfer. In this respect we think its judgment ought to be reformed. We are bound to consider the defendant as owner of the property set over to her under her judgment, but that the previous mortgage of the plaintiff still subsists on the slaves, and they are liable to be seized and sold to pay the amount.
It is, therefore, ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the judgment of the District Court be annulled, avoided and reversed; and proceeding to give such judgment as ought to have been rendered below, it is further ordered and decreed, that the slaves Charles, Agatha and her children Eugene, Zenon and Marie, and also a mulatress named Marie, be seized and sold to satisfy the plaintiff’s judgment, to wit: the sum of eight hundred and fifty dollars, with interest, at five per cent., from the 25th of March, 1824, and costs, together with the costs of the District Court, those of the appeal to be paid by the plaintiff and appellee.