Coleman & Sharpe v. Teddlie

• Decision Date: 01 January 1901
• Docket Number: 13,535
• Citation: 30 So. 99,106 La. 192
• Parties: COLEMAN & SHARPE v. E. S. TEDDLIE AND J. M. NUGENT
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

30 So. 99

106 La. 192

COLEMAN & SHARPE v. E. S. TEDDLIE AND J. M. NUGENT

No. 13,535

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 1, 1901

Rehearing refused.

IN RE E. S. Teddlie and J. M. Nugent applying for certiorari, or writ of review, to the Court of Appeal, Third Circuit, Parish of Grant, State of Louisiana.

William C. Roberts, A. B. Clark and J. T. Wallace, for Applicants.

J. A Williams, for Respondents.

OPINION

WATKINS J.

In the original suit, plaintiffs sought to recover a money judgment for the sum of $ 700.00 on a mortgage note, and accompanied their demand with an application for a writ of attachment, based upon the charge "that the defendants are now about to mortgage, assign, or dispose of their property, rights or credits, with the intent to defraud their creditors, or give an unfair preference to some of them; that they have converted, or are about to convert (same), into money or evidences of debt, with intent to place it beyond the reach of their creditors," etc.

Under the writ, an improved tract of land was seized, and a third person intervened and claimed the bona fide ownership of a part of same, accompanied with actual possession thereof.

By the District Court, the attachment was dissolved, judgment for the debt and mortgage rendered against defendants, and the intervention went out of court; and from that judgment the plaintiffs appealed to the court of the respondents, and it amended same by sustaining the attachment, rejected the demand of the intervenor for the part of the land he claimed, but gave him judgment for the sum of $ 950.00 as the value of the improvements he had placed thereon.

It is of the judgment of the Court of Appeal that the defendant, E. S. Teddlie, and the intervenor, J. M. Nugent, complain, as being contrary to the principles of law and the jurisprudence of this court.

The following extract from the brief of the relators' counsel puts their case very clearly:

"This case commenced by suit on a note and mortgage against E. S and E. W. Teddlie, coupled with an attachment.

"The attachment was levied upon the property mortgaged, and upon forty acres of land -- other property, as the property of E. S. Teddlie.

"E. S. Teddlie sold part of this forty acres by a verbal contract sometime before the attachment was levied to J. M. Nugent, and a portion to one, Seiss, no deed being passed; and by consent of Seiss, Nugent and Teddlie Nugent was substituted as the vendee of the portion that was intended to be conveyed to Seiss.

"Nugent intervenes and claims to be the owner of the forty acres of land described in his petition. Before answering, defendants excepted and moved to dismiss the attachment on the ground that the allegations of the petition were too vague to support the same, and that the grounds in the attachment are stated in the alternative. This exception was tried and overruled, whereupon, the defendant filed a general denial, specially denying that there was any ground for the attachment; prayed for its dissolution and for $ 75.00, attorney's fees, as damages.

"The case came on for trial in the District Court. The court recognized the mortgage, gave judgment for the amount of the note, but dissolved the attachment and dismissed the intervention of J. M. Nugent as in case of non-suit.

"On appeal to the Circuit Court, that court sustained the attachment, gave judgment in favor of Nugent against Teddlie for $ 950.00 for improvements placed on the land claimed by...