Bondurant v. Watson

• Decision Date: 01 October 1880
• Citation: 26 L.Ed. 447,103 U.S. 281
• Parties: BONDURANT v. WATSON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

103 U.S. 281

103 U.S. 281

26 L.Ed. 447

BONDURANT v. WATSON.

October Term, 1880

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Samuel R. Walker for the appellant.

Mr. Edwin T. Merrick and Mr. George W. Race, contra.

MR. JUSTICE WOODS delivered the opinion of the court.

Daniel Bondurant died seised of a large plantation in the parish of Tensas, in the State of Louisiana. His estate descended to his three sons, Albert, Horace, and John, and to Walter E. Bondurant, his infant grandson.

In 1852, upon petition of the sons for a partition of the plantation, a decree of sale was made, under which it was sold, and struck off to them for the price of $150,000. Of this sum, Walter, the grandson, was entitled to one-fourth, namely, $37,500.

The sheriff, on Dec. 4, 1858, executed a deed to the sons, reserving therein a special mortgage and privilege on the lands in favor of Walter E. Bondurant for his share of the purchasemoney.

In the act of sale, which was executed both by the sheriff and the purchasers, the latter bound themselves not to alienate, deteriorate, or incumber the property to the prejudice of the mortgage, an agreement known in the local jurisprudence of Louisiana as the pact de non alienando. The mortgage was recorded Dec. 6, 1852. The law of Louisiana required it to be reinscribed within ten years from that date. It was not reinscribed until September 1865. The three sons of Daniel Bondurant divided the plantation between them. The part which is in controversy in this suit was set off to John Bondurant, who, in 1854, conveyed it to one Augustus C. Watson, Sen.

On Jan. 30, 1866, Walter E. Bondurant began an action against his uncles, Albert, Horace, and John Bondurant, in the District Court for the Parish of Tensas, to recover judgment against them for his part of the purchase price of said plantation, and to enforce his mortgage and privilege thereon. The court rendered a judgment in his favor for the sum of $37,500, with interest, and ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the authentic act of mortgage, which was the basis of the action, should be, and the same was thereby, rendered executory and ordered to be executed, and that the land described therein should be seized and sold to satisfy said judgment.

Upon this judgment a fieri facias was issued, directed to the sheriff of the parish. By virtue thereof he advertised for sale the plantation described in the mortgage, and struck off and sold it to Walter E. Bondurant, and executed to him a deed therefor.

Walter E. Bondurant thereupon brought an action in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Louisiana against Augustus C. Watson, Sen., to recover possession of that part of the plantation which had been sold to him by John Bondurant.

He recovered judgment for the land against Watson. That judgment was taken, by writ of error, to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it was reversed on the sole ground that there had been no actual seizure of the premises by the sheriff before the sale. See Watson v. Bondurant, 21 Wall. 123.

In the mean time Walter E. Bondurant died. The judgment in his favor in the District Court for the Parish of Tensas was revived in the name of his widow, Ella F. Bondurant, his testamentary executrix and the tutrix of his minor son.

At her instance another fieri facias was issued on the judgment of the District Court for the Parish of Tensas, and placed in the hands of the sheriff of that parish. By virtue of the writ he seized that part of the plantation which had been sold to Augustus C. Watson, Sen., and advertised the same for sale. Thereupon Frank Watson, the appellee, on June 25, 1875, filed his petition in the District Court for the Parish of Tensas against the sheriff and Ella F. Bondurant, executrix and tutrix. He averred that his 'immediate author,' Augustus C. Watson, Sen., acquired the land in question by a good and valid title translative of property from John Bondurant, on Nov. 30, 1854; that said Augustus C. Watson, Sen., held said lands by notorious public and uninterrupted possession, in good faith as owner, from Nov. 30, 1854, until Aug. 5, 1872, when he transferred his title and possession, by deed of that date, to the petitioner, Frank Watson, and his brother, A. C. Watson, Jr., and that by deed dated Feb. 6, 1875, A. C. Watson, Jr., conveyed all his estate in said land to the petitioner, Frank Watson.

He further averred that the sheriff of Tensas Parish, acting under a writ of alias fi. fa. issued on the said judgment recovered by Walter E. Bondurant against Albert, John, and Horace Bondurant in the District Court of said parish, had illegally seized the tract of land which was held and claimed by the petitioner under the deeds of conveyance already mentioned, and would advertise and sell the same, unless restrained by injunction.

The petition further alleged that said act of Dec. 4, 1854, which reserved the mortgage and privilege on said plantation in favor of Walter E. Bondurant for $37,500 had not been reinscribed within ten years from the date of its original registry in the mortgage records, and it had, therefore, ceased to have any force or effect as a mortgage and privilege on said tract of land; that at the time of the institution of the suit of said Walter and others, in which the judgment was recovered by virtue of which said fieri facias was issued, said Augustus C. Watson, Sen., was and for many years previous had been in public possession of said property as owner, yet he was not made a party to said suit, which was via ordinaria, nor were any demands or notices given him as third possessor.

The petition, therefore, claimed that the seizure of the property by the sheriff was illegal, and prayed an injunction against Ella F. Bondurant, executrix and tutrix, and against the sheriff, restraining them from proceeding any further with the said writ of fieri facias, so far as it related to the lands claimed by the petitioner.

The injunction prayed for was granted by the court in which the petition was filed, after notice to the sheriff and Mrs. Bondurant.

Thereupon, on Oct. 18, 1875, Mrs. Bondurant filed her petition, verified by her oath, in which she prayed for a removal of the cause to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Louisiana. In her petition she averred that she was a citizen of the State of Mississippi, and was, in her capacity as tutrix and executrix, defendant in a civil suit pending in that court, in which the matter in dispute exceeded, exclusive of costs, the sum of $500, and in which Frank Watson, who was a citizen of Louisians, was plaintiff.

This petition was accompanied by a bond in the penal sum of $250, conditioned according to law, and executed by the petitioner and two sureties.

The petition for removal was denied by the State court. Nevertheless Mrs. Bondurant, within the time required by law, filed in the United States Circuit Court a transcript of the proceedings of the State court, beginning with the issuing of the fieri facias, which the petition of Watson was filed to enjoin.

The Circuit Court took jurisdiction of the case and directed it to be placed on the equity side of the docket. Thereupon Mrs. Bondurant filed her answer and amended answer, to which the petitioner, Watson, filed his replication. Upon the issue thus made, voluminous proofs were taken, and upon final hearing the Circuit Court made perpetual the injunction which had been granted by the State court. That decree is now here on appeal taken by the defendant, Mrs. Bondurant.

The District Court for the Parish of Tensas, claiming that the cause still remained in that court, notwithstanding the attempt of the defendant to remove it to the United States Circuit Court, proceeded with the cause to final hearing, and also made perpetual the injunction which it had granted. This decree was affirmed on appeal by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. See Watson v. Bondurant, 30 La. Ann. 1, pt. 1.

The defendant brought up that decree also by writ of error to this court.

By agreement of counsel, the records in both cases have been submitted and argued together. Watson, the complainant in both cases, claimed that the suit was not a removable one, and that there was no effectual removal thereof to the Circuit Court, and that the State courts alone had jurisdiction. The defendant denied the jurisdiction of the State court, and insisted that the case was a removable one, and had been removed to the Circuit Court, which thereafter alone had jurisdiction. The case brought here from the State Supreme Court having been dismissed for want of a writ of...