City of New Orleans v. Christmas

• Decision Date: 13 May 1889
• Citation: 9 S.Ct. 745,131 U.S. 191,33 L.Ed. 99
• Parties: CITY OF NEW ORLEANS v. CHRISTMAS et al. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

131 U.S. 191

9 S.Ct. 745

33 L.Ed. 99

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS v. CHRISTMAS et al.¹

May 13, 1889.

This is a bill filed by Myra Clark Gaines against the city of New Orleans to recover the amount, with interest, of the fruits, revenues, and value for use of certain lands in the city of New Orleans, containing about 135 arpents, which the complainant had recovered from various persons claiming title under the city. The charge is that the city is liable as grantor of the land, as well as guarantor of the title, and ought to respond for all the rents and revenues of the property actually received by itself or its grantees, or which might have been received by a judicious and provident use of the property. The bill was filed August 7, 1879, and on the 5th of May, 1883, a decree was rendered in favor of the complainant for the sum of $1,925,667.83, with interest on $950,110 from January 10, 1881. From that decree the present appeal is taken.

A brief outline of the history of this litigation will conduce to a better understanding of the case. Daniel Clark, a prominent citizen of New Orleans, of large wealth and possessions, died there on the 16th of August, 1813, without leaving any known heirs at law nearer than his mother, who was residing at Germantown, near Philadelphia. A will was found among his papers, sealed up in a package bearing the following inscription in his own hand: 'This is my olographic will. New Orleans, 20th May, 1811. [Signed] DANIEL CLARK.' The will was short, containing only the following words, to-wit: 'In the name of God, I, Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, do make this my last will and testament: Imprimis. I order that all my just debts be paid. Second. I leave and bequeath unto my mother, Mary Clark, now of Germantown, in the state of Pennsylvania, all the estate, whether real or personal, which I may die possessed of. Third. I hereby nominate my friends Richard Relf and Beverly Chew my executors, with power to settle everything relating to my estate, [Signed] DANIEL CLARK.' This my estate. [Signed] DANIEL CLARK.' This testamentary were granted to the executors named therein. The executors proceeded to take possession of the estate, and disposed of a large part of it. There were some outlying lands in the suburbs of the city, bordering on St. John's bayou, that were not disposed of until 1821; among others the lands now in controversy. Relf and Chew, e sides being executors of Clark's will, held a power of attorney from Mary Clark, his mother, dated October 1, 1813, by which, styling herself to be heir, devisee, and legatee of Daniel Clark, she appointed them, (Relf and Chew,) naming them as merchants of New Orleans, and executors of the will of Daniel Clark, jointly and severally, as her lawful attorneys, for her and in her behalf, to take possession of the real and personal estate of Clark; to manage, sell, let, occupy, and sue for the same, or any part thereof; to collect moneys, debts, and effects belonging to her as sole legatee, devisee, or heir at law of said Clark; to make all necessary and proper acts and deeds for conveying any of the property, and generally to do everything that she could do in the premises. This power was deposited of record with John Lynd, a notary public of New Orleans, on the 22d of April, 1817. By an act of sale dated 30th of October, 1821, Relf and Chew, in the name of Mary Clark, and by virtue of said power of attorney, after having put up the property at auction, sold and conveyed to one Evariste Blanc, the highest bidder, for the sum of $4,760, a piece of land described as situated on the Bayou St. John, containing about 135 superficial arpents, (equal to 114 acres,) adjoining the road of the Navigation or Carondelet canal, the lands of E. Cauchoit, the Broad street and Bellechasse street, etc., in conformity with a plan drawn by Joseph Pili e, city surveyor, on the 20th of August, 1821; and they subrogated the purchaser to all the rights of property that Mary Clark had in the land, with right of seisin in the same.

On the 26th day of September, 1834, Evariste Blanc sold and conveyed the same and other adjoining lands, amounting in all to 240 arpents, (equal to nearly 203 acres,) to the city of New Orleans for the sum of $45,000, making the cost of the property in question about $25,000. This purchase was made by the city for the purpose of controlling the laying out of the streets and other public improvements in that district, in conformity with the general plan of the city, and more for the public advantage. No one at that time had any serious question about the validity of the title. Mrs. Gaines, then Mrs. Whitney, it is true, had, with her husband, in June preceding, filed a petition in the probate court in a pending proceeding on the part of a creditor of Daniel Clark, claiming to be his daughter and heir, and Relf had been cited to answer it; but it was regarded as a visionary claim, and made no public impression. The city reserved four or five blocks of this purchase for public purposes, (the erection of drainage works, etc.,) and in March, 1837, sold off most of the balance in building lots. This happened at a time when real estate in New Orleans had suddenly risen to the most inflated and fictitious prices. The real estate craze, indeed, had infected large portions of the country. These sales were afterwards mostly annulled for defects of title, or never carried out, and it would probably have been impossible for the purchasers to have responded for the extravagant prices agreed to be paid. In some cases they were six or seven times the normal value of the property. According to the proces verbal of the auctioneers, the adjudications amounted to the enormous sum of over $600,000, and the sales of the lots and squares involved in the present case amounted to $553,460; but, as before remarked, the whole transaction, except with regard to a few parcels, fell through, and the property came back into the city's hands. Yet the amount of these sales forms the basis of the exceedingly large decree in this case. The same property, afterwards, about 1848, was again put up at auction, and the property now in question brought only about $100,000, including some of the original sales not annulled,—being less than one-fifth of the nominal amounts bid at the first sale. This property afterwards, by a long process of litigation, was recovered by Mrs. Gaines as h e heir and devisee of Daniel Clark under a late discovered will, and the tenants were ousted, and this suit was brought, as before stated, to recover from the city the entire rents and revenues of the property from the time of its purchase from Evariste Blanc. The decree in the case, where there was no proof of actual rents and revenues received by the city or its grantees, (as was the case wherever, and as long as, the particular property was unimproved,) charges the city 5 per cent. per annum on the amount of the sales of 1837, from that time to the date of the decree, (46 years,) and interest on that yearly at 5 per cent. from the time it accrued making the amount of revenues in many cases more than 400 per cent. of the said sales. In this way the amount of rents and revenues on unimproved property, with the interest thereon to the 10th of January, 1881, is figured up at $1,348,959.91; in addition to which the decree awards the complainant the sum of $576,707.92 for the revenues of the improved property, while in the hands of grantees of the city; making a total decree of $1,925,667.83, with interest to accrue from January 10, 1881, on the sum of $950,110 (the assumed principal) until paid. The master had allowed but 70 per cent. of the amount of the sales of 1837 as the basis of calculation, but the court in its final decree deemed it proper to add on the other 30 per cent.

The connection of Mrs. Gaines with this property arose as follows: In the early part of the present century one Samuel B. Davis, generally known as Col. Davis, resided in Mew Orleans, and in 1812 removed to Philadelphia, and afterwards to Wilmington in the state of Delaware. In the war of 1812 he had some command in the defense of the Delaware coast. One of the members of his family was a young girl, named Myra, who passed as his daughter; but some of Daniel Clark's intimate friends, including Col. Davis, were aware that the girl was acknowledged by Clark to be his daughter,—natural daughter, as generally supposed. She had been born in New Orleans in 1805 or 1806, and placed in Devis' family, who was an intimate friend of Clark. Her mother was nee Zulime Carriere, but at the time of the child's birth was called Madame Des Grange, having been married to a man of that name. In 1802 she had had a previous child by Clark, named Caroline, who was born in Philadelphia, and educated there and in Trenton, at Clark's expense, his partner and agent in Philadelphia, Mr. Daniel W. Coxe, having charge of her. This daughter afterwards married a man by the name of Barnes. After the birth of her first daughter, Zulime, or Madame Des Grange, returned to New Orlens, and Myra was born there. This child was taken into the family of Col. Davis, as before stated, and passed as his daughter. On the 13th of September, 1832, she was married to Mr. William Wallace Whitney at Delamore Place, state of Delaware, (Col. Davis' residence,) as the daughter of Col. Davis.² Mr. Whitney having died in 1837, she afterwards, in 1839, married General Edmund P. Gaines. She always asserted that, up to the time of her marriage to Whitney, she was wholly ignorant of her true paternity. Her claim to be entitled to the property of Daniel Clark rests on two grounds: First, that she was his legitimate daughter; second, that he made a will shortly before his death in 1813, (which, however, was lost or destroyed,) in which he declared her to be his legitimate daughter, and bequeathed to her all his estate, subject to the payment of certain legacies. The first claim—that she...