80 So. 576 | La. | 1918
The pleadings herein were fully set forth when the case was previously appealed upon a judgment by the trial court maintaining an exception of no cause of action. See 139 La. 551, 71 South. 846. We held on that appeal quoting from the syllabus by the court:
“There is no law or jurisprudence to the effect that a donation, whether inter vivos or mortis causa, made in fraud of the law and of the rights of third persons, is any the less invalid, or any the less open to attack, when made through an interposed person than when made directly; and, when a petitioner alleges that he is the sole heir of a deceased testatrix, and that-she has made donations of her property which are void because of the incapacity of the donee to receive them, and has disguised, or attempted to disguise, the same, by apparently valid donations, in the form of a special and a universal legacy, to a person selected and. agreed upon as the intermediary for the conveyance of the property to such incapable donee, the petition discloses a cause of action for the -nullity of such prohibited donations.”
Upon this finding of law, the case was remanded to tbe lower court and. tried, and from a judgment in favor of the defendant the plaintiff has again appealed.
The record shows that Mary A. Deubler entered the demimonde when she was quite young, and that by the time she had reached mature womanhood she became landlady of several houses of ill fame in the city of New Orleans. She managed to accumulate a modest fortune and died in 1914, possessed of a good deal of property. Her brother, who is plaintiff in the present litigation, was well •aware', of his sister’s mode of living. He was married and reared a family of several children, among whom was a daughter, Anna M. Deubler.-' The deceased became very much attached • to her" niece; Anna, and undertook, while the latter was young and innocent, to rear and educate her.' She first sent her to local schools, then to Catholic convents, and finally brought her to Paris, where she entered her in another Catholic convent to complete her education, always surrounding her' with the most refined and moral influences. During all these years, Anna was absolutely ignorant of the public life which her aunt led under assumed names, and, appreciative of the many benefactions heaped upon her, she also became very much attached to her “auntie.” When Anna finished her studies in Paris, and she had reached that stage of life where, prepared by refined education, and moral training, she would naturally be expected to enter the social world, Mary A. Deubler, who had up to that time been easily able to conceal her real life from her cherished niece, was confronted with the difficulty of bringing Anna back to New Orleans without exposing herself. All that Anna knew of her aunt was that she was married to John Thomas Brady and that she was possessed of some means. Brady was known to Anna as “Uncle Tom,” and she frankly testifies that in all her intercourse with her aunt, she no more doubted her aunt’s marriage than she did that of her own father and mother. “Auntie” and “Uncle Tom” accompanied her to convent, took her to Paris, and traveled rather extensively with her in Europe, and when she was brought back to Louisiana, she was received in a home, near Covington or Abita Springs, in the parish of St. Tammany, where her supposed uncle and her aunt spent their summers. After remaining there some time, she was brought to their city home on a fashionable residence street in the city of New Orleans.
In truth and in fact Brady was a paramour of Mary A. Deubler. She used him as a shield to keep from Anna the knowledge of her life in the underworld, by conveniently representing him by her words and actions as her lawful husband.
While her niece was at school, and in fact
The plaintiff, a man without means, and his wife, spent a good deal of their time and partly lived in the city home of Mary A. Deubler and her paramour. Driven by want, they not only countenanced the mode of life of their sister, but accepted her generosity, the source of which was well known to them, and they actively connived with her in deceiving their own daughter.
Such, briefly, was the condition surrounding the parties to this litigation, when Mary A. Deubler succumbed to illness. Her illness became so severe that in her delirium she finally tore down the curtain which had concealed her inner life, and Anna for the first 'timé was shocked to learn the truth. The niece’s first impulse was to leave her aunt’s roof, but Brady, as well as her father and her mother, the only persons from whom she could reasonably seek advice, prevailed upon her to remain. The aunt’s death was momentarily expected, and would at most be only a matter of a short while. It was arranged among them that Anna would save the situation by marrying Brady, which event took place a little over one week after the aunt’s death.
It was about the year 1901 or 1902 that Mary Deubler, as Mrs. Brady, in company with Brady, took Anna Deubler to Paris. Anna returned from Europe about the year 1904. Mary Deubler made her last will and testament, constituting Anna as her special and residuary legatee, in the year 1903. In January, 1913, by act under private signature, she sold to Brady her city home and its contents in consideration of $25,000 in cash, which she acknowledged to have received at various times during the past 20 years, and from which he released her from all liability, and in addition thereto there was a consideration based upon services rendered to her, as fully set forth in said act. She died February 14, 1914, and a few days thereafter, on the 21st, Anna Deubler, her universal legatee, appeared in an act before Robert Legier, notary public, and approved, ratified, and confirmed the sale of January, 1913, by Mary Deubler to John T. Brady.
It is important to note that the will of Mary A. Deubler of June 29, 1903, vests full, complete, and unconditional title in Anna M. Deubler, her universal legatee, to all the property of the testatrix, save a special legacy to her brother, Henry Deubler, plaintiff in this suit. This complete and unconditional title became vested in Anna M. Deubler on February-, 1914, as soon as the
Judgment affirmed.