This is a suit brought by an overseer against his employer, for the amount of bis salary. The petition states, that the defendant, Shields, owes the plaintiff the sum of $900, for his services, as an overseer on Shields’ plantation, during the year 1841 ; that said plantation has been lately transferred and delivered into the possession of R. R. Barrow, the other defendant, who has it in his possession, as well as the whole crop raised thereon during the year 1842; and that the petitioner has in law, alien on the crop taken off in 1842, as well as on all the stubble cane which may be in the ground, to secure the payment of his claim. He prays, that the crop of 1842, and the stubble cane growing on the plantation, to a value sufficient to satisfy his claim, may be sequestered ; and that he may have judgment, with privilege on the property sequestered, &c.
Shields did not answer, and a judgment by default'was taken against him. The other defendant, Barrow, joined issue, alleging that he purchased the plantation and crop of his co-defendant, in the year 1842; that the plaintiff has no lien or privilege on ¡he crop and stubble cane sequestered ; and that if the plaintiff ever had any privilege, it is lost and prescribed, &c.
Judgment was rendered below in favor of the plaintiff, against Shields, for the sum of $900; and the plaintiff’s claim against Barrow was rejected, denying him the privilege prayed for. From this last judgment, the plaintiff has appealed.
The decision of this cause depends, in a great measure, on the construction of art. 3184, § 1, of the Civil Code, which is in these words : “ The debts which are privileged on certain moveables, are : 1st, the appointments or salaries of the overseer for the year last past, and so much as is due of the current year, on the product of the last crop, and the crop at present in the ground.” This article supposes, that there may be cases in which an over- ' seer, who has made a crop on a plantation, may continue to be employed on the same plantation for a part of the following year. In sucha case, where his salary has not been paid for the preceding year, and any part of his wages for the current year be due, the law allows him a privilege on the proceeds of the last crop, and on the crop which is in the ground at the time that his services are interrupted or ended. 3 Robinson, 216. This is exactly the case under consideration, except that in this case, the privilege is sought to be exercised against a third person, who during the second year, not only purchased the plantation,, but also the crop then in the ground. Hence, the question is presented, can this circumstance deprive the plaintiff of the privileges which he had legally acquired, at the time of the sale of the place ? Besides the general object of the law, which is to secure to overseers the payment of their salaries, there are certain circumstances which show, that the right set up by the plaintiff is resisted on mere technical objections, and that advantage is sought to be taken of his situation, and of the confidence which he may have had in his new employer. If this be true, equity, at least, cannot permit that his
With this view of the question, we must come to the conclusion, that the plaintiff did not lose his privilege by the transfer of the place to another person; that the defendant, Barrow, purchased the crop, subject to the right previously acquired by the plaintiff; and that the inferior court erred in not allowing the latter the exercise of his privilege.
As to the dilatory exception insisted upon by the defendant’s counsel, we think it cannot avail him. It was filed too late, as a judgment by default had been previously entered. Act of 20th March, 1839, § 23. Bullard & Curry’s Digest, p. 157.
It is, therefore, ordered, that, as it respects the defendant, Bar-