Corkran Oil & Development Co. v. Arnaudet

• Decision Date: 03 November 1903
• Docket Number: 14,593
• Citation: 35 So. 747,111 La. 563
• Parties: CORKRAN OIL & DEVELOPMENT CO. v. ARNAUDET et al
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

35 So. 747

111 La. 563

CORKRAN OIL & DEVELOPMENT CO. v. ARNAUDET et al

No. 14,593

Supreme Court of Louisiana

November 3, 1903

Rehearing denied January 18, 1904.

Appeal from Eighteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Acadia Conrad De Baillon, Judge.

Action by the Corkran Oil & Development Company against Laurent Arnaudet and others.Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.Affirmed.

Story &amp Pugh, Edward Benjamin Du Buisson, and Kenneth Baillio, for appellant.

Donelson Caffery & Son, J. Sully Martel, Lewis & Smith, Philip Julius Chappuis, and Gilbert L. Dupre, for appellees.

Robert Montgomery, for appelleesJ. C. Beatty and S. M. Scott.

Foster Milling, Godchaux & Sanders, for appelleePrairie Mamou Oil & Mineral Co., Limited.

J. E. Barry, for appelleesL. Stephens, J. G. Dyer, and W. R. Keever.

Martin, Voorhies & Voorhies, for appelleeDr. F. Rene Martin.

OPINION

NICHOLLS, C.J.

Statement of the Case.

The plaintiff in its petition alleged itself to be the owner of section 47, township 9 south, of range 2 west, Louisiana meridian, containing 580.90 acres, more or less; that said land was claimed by Anthony Corkran(otherwise spelt Cockran) during his lifetime, and after his death was claimed by his heirs, whose names they set out, and said claim, known as the "Corkran Grant," was finally confirmed to the heirs and legal representatives of said Anthony Corkran by private act of Congress entitled "An act to quiet title and possession with respect to certain unconfirmed and located private land claims in the state of Louisiana," approved February 10, 1897(29 Stat. 517, c. 213), and in pursuance to which a patent was thereafter issued to the said heirs and legal representatives of the said Anthony Corkran, of date November 2, 1897, and which patent, or a copy thereof, would be produced on the trial.The plaintiff then set out the manner by which it acquired title; giving the names of a great number of persons and their residences, heirs of Anthony Corkran.It alleged that Anthony Corkran was married to Margaret Watson; that he died about the year 1819, and his succession was opened in the parish of St. Landry, where he resided, and in which parish the land was then situated; that his wife died some years afterwards; that both died intestate, leaving their children inheriting the said property; that neither Anthony Corkran and wife, nor any of the heirs and legal representatives or descendants of Anthony Corkran and wife, ever sold or disposed of their rights, title, or interest in said land before their sale to plaintiff and its authors, nor had the plaintiff or its authors ever disposed of the same, except as stated in the petition, and that it was then the legal and true owner of the property; that notwithstanding its ownership a number of persons, natural and artificial, whom they named, were illegally in possession of said land, setting up ownership of the same, and others being in possession claiming to be lessees; that some of said parties were nonresidents, and curators ad hoc should be appointed to these nonresidents; that all parties be cited, and that contradictorily with them it be adjudged and decreed owner of the land, and placed in possession of the same.Plaintiff reserved the right to sue any or all of said parties for the use of the property, or for any loss, damage or injury to it on account of their occupancy.

Curators ad hoc were appointed, and the parties cited.Laurent Arnaudet, Arthur Latreille, Eugene Houssiere, and Spaencer & Co. excepted that plaintiff was a pretended corporation that had no legal or rightful existence under the laws of the state of Louisiana, there being no law authorizing the formation of a corporation for the purposes for which the plaintiff was pretended to be organized, and for this reason the plaintiff was without right or capacity to sue or stand in judgment.

(2) That the pretended plaintiff corporation was organized for no other purpose than to acquire a litigious and alleged right to and to carry on this lawsuit, the pretended individual subscribers to the stock therein being estopped to do so in their own behalf for the reasons set out; that it was not lawful or permissible for a corporation to be organized for such a purpose; that exceptors had been in possession for many years, under a title not necessary then to set up, of a tract of land now made valuable by the discovery of oil thereon: that the promoters had industriously and illegally bought up the supposed rights of the numerous so-called heirs of Anthony Corkran, and in order to enforce the pretended rights so derived.

They prayed that this exception and estoppel be maintained for the reasons set out above, and that plaintiffs demand be rejected and its suit dismissed at its cost.They prayed for such further relief as law and equity might allow.

The defendants Arnaudet, Latreille, Houssiere, and Fitzhugh, under reservation of the exceptions filed, answered.They pleaded the general issue.They declared that true it was that Anthony Cockran or Corkran claimed during his lifetime the land claimed by plaintiff herein, and true it was that the land claimed was patented by the United States government to Anthony Cockran and his heirs under and according to the provisions of the act of Congress of date 10th February, 1897, entitled an "Act to quiet title and possession with respect to certain located but unconfirmed private land claims in the state of Louisiana."And further answering, they averred that said act of Congress was fully set out in the preamble to the patent issued thereunder to Anthony Cockran and his heirs on the 2d day of November, 1897, and that by and under the provisions of said act the United States relinquished title to about 80,000 acres of land in the state of Louisiana, and especially provided that, while the patent should issue in the name of the original claimants or his heirs, the title of the United States should be granted in fee simple to the respective owners of the equitable title thereto, and their respective heirs and assigns, and that nothing in the act should abridge, divest, impair, injure, or prejudice any valid right, title, or interest of any person or persons in and to any portion or part of the lands mentioned in the first section of said act, which first section mentioned and included all the unconfirmed, but located, private land claims in Louisiana at the date of the passage of the act, of which unconfirmed, but private, land claims the claim of Anthony Cockran to certain lands, then in the parish of St. Landry, situated on Bayou des Cannes, in the lower Mamou, in section 47, township 9, range 2 west, was one and was now the land in controversy in this suit.

That the true intent of said act of Congress was fully set out in the second section thereof, as follows: "The true intent of this act being to relinquish and abandon, grant, give and concede any and all right, interest and estate in law and equity which the United States has, or is supposed to be entitled to in said lands in favor of all persons, firms or corporations who would be the true and lawful owners of the same under the laws of Louisiana, including the laws of prescription, the absence of all said interest and estate of the United States."

That under and by virtue of the law of Louisiana all the right, title, and interest of Anthony Cockran and his heirs in and to the lands claimed by plaintiff, and patented as aforesaid to Anthony Cockran and his heirs, had been divested long prior to the issuance of the aforesaid patent, and was held in full and complete ownership long prior to the date of said patent by the author of defendants and by defendants under good, valid, and perfect titles, by and under the laws of Louisiana, including the laws of prescription.

That the authors of defendants, and defendants themselves, had acquired by true and valid title all the right, title, and interest and estate at law or equity of the United States in and to said land patented to Anthony Cockran and his heirs prior to the issuance of said patent, under and by virtue of indefeasible alienation of said land under the laws of Louisiana providing for the sale of all lands situate within its borders for nonpayment of the taxes necessary for the due operation of the government thereof, and by the alienation thereof from the purchaser at tax sale, and from such alienee, through mesne conveyances, to respondents, all of which alienations were translative of property, under which the respective purchasers went into possession, and exercised quietly, peaceably, and uninterruptedly all and every act of ownership from the time of their respective purchases and during their respective possession until the present time.That the unconfirmed but located private land claim in and to the land so patented to him and his heirs was susceptible of taxation under the laws of Louisiana, and was properly assessed and sold for taxes, as would be afterwards specially set out.Defendants set out in detail the chain of title under which they claimed; the starting point of the same being a tax sale made on the 2d day of December, 1882, which they averred was made by C. C. Duson, sheriff and ex officio tax collector of the parish of St. Landry, and "at which he sold at public sale, after due advertisement, to Henry Gellert or Gellest, viz., four hundred and eighty (480) acres of land situated in the lower Prairie Mamou, on Bayou des Cannes, being in township nine (9) south, of range two (2) west, being the property of Anthony Cockran, as per assessment roll of the state of Louisiana of the year 1881, to satisfy a debt due said state for the unpaid taxes of the year 1881, for the price and sum of twenty-five...