Manhattan Land & Fruit Co. v. Buras

• Decision Date: 12 February 1942
• Docket Number: No. 131.,131.
• Citation: 43 F. Supp. 361
• Parties: MANHATTAN LAND & FRUIT CO. et al. v. BURAS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

43 F. Supp. 361

MANHATTAN LAND & FRUIT CO. et al. v. BURAS et al.

No. 131.

District Court, E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

February 12, 1942.

Spencer, Phelps, Dunbar & Marks and Esmond Phelps, all of New Orleans, La. for Manhattan Land & Fruit Co.

Tinsley Gilmer, of Lake Charles, La., for Humble Oil & Refining Co.

Alex F. Smith, of Shreveport, La., for Gulf Refining Co.

Cullen R. Liskow, of Lake Charles, La., for Tide Water Associated Oil Co.

John R. Perez, Porteous, Johnson & Humphrey, F. Carter Johnson, Jr., and Clay & Kohlman, all of New Orleans, La., for defendants.

William A. Porteous, Jr., of New Orleans, La., for defendant Lyle L. Buras.

CAILLOUET, District Judge.

This action was instituted by the Manhattan Land & Fruit Company, a corporation citizen of the state of New York, joined by the Humble Oil & Refining Company, a corporation citizen of the state of Texas, and by Gulf Refining Company and Tide Water Associated Oil Company, both corporation citizens of the state of Delaware, against La-Plaq Realty Inc., a corporation citizen of Louisiana, and the heirs of Cyprien Napoleon Buras and his widow, all citizens of said state; subsequently, one of the defendants (made so by substitution for a deceased original defendant) was satisfactorily shown to be a minor and otherwise unrepresented in this action, and for that reason, there was duly appointed by the Court as guardian ad litem, to protect said minor defendant's interests, an attorney of this Bar.

The first named plaintiff alleged itself to be the owner (subject to a certain mineral lease hereinafter mentioned) of "all ores, oil, gas and minerals of whatever name or nature in, on and under" certain lands in the complaint fully described as being situated in Township 21 South, Range 30 East, Southeastern Land District (Louisiana), Parish of Plaquemines; with the right to enter upon, use and possess said lands for the purpose of extracting and reducing to possession and ownership whatever minerals might be found on, in and under the same.

The said plaintiff, joined by its three co-plaintiffs, furthermore alleged an original title in said Manhattan Land & Fruit Company existent on July 17, 1905, derived by mesne conveyances back to the State of Louisiana in 1895 and 1894, all duly recorded in the conveyance records of said Parish of Plaquemines, La.

It was further alleged by the four plaintiffs that the said Manhattan Land & Fruit Company having so become the owner of said lands in 1905, it did sell and transfer the same in 1927 with the express exception and reservation, however, of all ores, gas, oil and minerals of whatsoever name or nature, together with the rights of ingress and egress and use and possession, etc., for the purpose of development and production of said reserved minerals property; and that the whole of said reserved property was made the subject of an oil, gas and mineral lease thereafter granted, in 1928, by said Manhattan Land & Fruit Company to one Hugh L. Harry, back to whom, by and through sundry assignments detailed in the complaint, the three other plaintiffs acquired the rights which, jointly with said Manhattan Land & Fruit Company, they seek to protect from what they allege to be the unwarranted creation and maintenance, by the defendants, of a cloud upon the title to said minerals and mineral rights.

The plaintiffs particularly alleged that, as so constituting said cloud on title, the defendants did place of record in the conveyance records of the Parish of Plaquemines, Louisiana, a certain instrument dated August 10, 1937, whereby and whereunder all of the defendant Buras heirs did purport to convey to the defendant La-Plaq Realty, Inc., a one-half interest in and to all of the lands described in the complaint, including all mineral rights pertaining thereto, in consideration of said corporation's promised effort to establish the claims of defendants to said lands and mineral rights by the institution and prosecution of litigation directed to that end.

The plaintiffs' prayer is for recognition of their several claimed rights and that they be quieted in their respective titles and possession; that the adverse claims of the defendants be decreed to be a cloud upon plaintiffs' said titles, and that all of the said defendants, and any and all persons claiming under them, be forever and permanently enjoined and restrained from asserting any right, title, interest, claim or demand, adverse to or in conflict with said recognized rights of plaintiffs; and, finally, that all recordations now existing in the public records of the parish of Plaquemines, Lousiana, under which the defendants, or any persons claiming under them, assert or claim any such adverse or conflicting interest, be ordered forthwith cancelled and erased, insofar as the same affect the rights of plaintiffs asserted in this action.

The defendants set up title to a larger area of land, in said Township 21 South, Range 30 East, and in an adjoining township, alleging that there were contained in said area the particular lands described in plaintiffs' complaint, and out of which the minerals property claimed by the plaintiffs was originally excepted and reserved by the Manhattan Land & Fruit Company, as aforesaid.

That asserted title was no more nor less than one of thirty years' prescription acquirendi causa, under the provisions of the Louisiana Revised Civil Code (Arts. 3499-3503).

The said asserted prescriptive title was based upon the allegation that there was done by Cyprien Napoleon Buras all such acts as are required by law for the making out of the 30 years' prescription (during a period of 28 years, beginning with the year 1860 and ending at his death in 1888), coupled with the continued doing, thereafter, of such acts by his widow and heirs; as well as upon the fact that in 1898, said widow and heirs were recognized as such, by an ex parte judgment of the state court exercising jurisdiction in and for the parish of Plaquemines, La., as appears by reference to the record of the decedent's succession.

During the whole of said Cyprien Napoleon Buras' alleged occupancy and possession of said larger area, upon which is predicated, in the main, defendant's claimed title by the 30 years prescription acquirendi causa, the legal title to the whole of said area as lay in Township 21 South, Range 30 East, was vested, however, in the State of Louisiana as sovereign, and was, therefore, imprescriptible.

"* * * No one can acquire title from the state by prescription. It is a condition precedent to the acquisition of title by prescription acquirendi causa that the property should have been severed from the public domain, and transferred to that of private property, at the date such prescription commenced to run. * * *" (Emphasizing supplied.) State v. Buck et al., 1893, 46 La.Ann. 656, 15 So. 531, 533.

It is an undisputed fact that this cited case, which was so decided in 1893, has direct reference to the very lands (amongst others) which are described in the complaint herein, and from which was excepted and reserved the minerals property alleged to be beclouded by defendants' setting up of the alleged title by 30 years' prescription acquirendi causa.

The legal title to the particular lands under discussion in this action remained in the State until dates subsequent to said Louisiana Supreme Court's decision, or that is to say, until 1894 and 1895, respectively, so that none of the alleged period of occupancy and possession by Cyprien Napoleon...