79 So. 860 | La. | 1918
The defendant appeals from a judgment decreeing that the plaintiffs are the owners of a tract of land in defendant’s possession.
The land was granted by the Spanish government to the plaintiffs’ ancestor, Jean Lavergne, in 1771. He died in 1774; and his grandchildren, the children of his only son, Nicholas Lavergne (deceased), were recognized as the owners, by inheritance, of the property, by a decree affirmed by this court in 1841. See Lavergne’s Heirs v. Elkins’ Heirs, 17 La. 220. The plaintiffs in this suit are the heirs and legal representatives of the Lavergnes, who were then declared the owners of the property, and who are now dead.
The title asserted by defendant emanates from a sale made by the sheriff of the parish of Orleans, on the 20th of July, 1863, by virtue of a writ of fieri facias, in a suit entitled Commissioners of the First Draining District v. Heirs of Lavergne, in the Third District Court of New Orleans. Defendant avers that the title of the Lavergne ■ heirs was, by the sheriff’s deed, transferred to the hoard of commissioners of the draining district; that the land was transferred from the board of commissioners in trust to the city of New Orleans, by Act No. 30 of 1871, p. 75; was sold by J. Ward Gurley, receiver, appointed by the United States Circuit Court, to liquidate the trust of the city of New Orleans, and bought by Dr. C. A. Gaudet, at an auction sale made on the 27th of February, 1S92, under orders of said court, in the suit of Peake v. City of New Orleans; and was sold by Dr. Gaudet to the defendant on the 16th of February, 1893.
In view of the objection to the introduction of the sheriff’s deed without the judgment, and in view of the settled jurisprudence that a sheriff’s deed, without the writ and judgment or order of court authorizing it, is not sufficient evidence of a transfer of title, we are constrained to assume that there was no valid judgment to authorize the seizure and sale of the property of the heirs of Lavergne. In fact, the plaintiffs afterwards introduced in evidence a judgment rendered on the 27 th of January, 1887, in a suit by the heirs of Lavergne against the city of New Orleans, decreeing the plaintiffs to be the owners of the land sold by the sheriff, because of the nullity of the
The defendant pleaded also the prescription of 6, 10, and 30 years; but the pleas seem to have been abandoned, for the defendant offered no evidence of possession of the land, and no argument has been made, either orally or in the briefs, in support of the pleas of prescription.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed.