Keller v. Haas

• Decision Date: 10 December 1945
• Docket Number: 37725.
• Citation: 24 So.2d 610,209 La. 343
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: KELLER et al. v. HAAS et al.

24 So.2d 610

209 La. 343

KELLER et al. v. HAAS et al.

No. 37725.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

December 10, 1945

Rehearing Denied Jan. 7, 1946.

Appeal from Twelfth Judicial District Court, Parish of Avoyelles; Lester L. Bordelon, Judge.

Anthony J. Roy, of Marksville, and Jackson &amp Mayer and Tucker, Bronson & Martin, all of Shreveport for appellants.

LeDoux R. Provosty, of Alexandria, for interveners-appellees.

Couvillion & Couvillion and LaBorde & Edwards, all of Marksville, for defendants-appellees.

KENNON Justice.

This is a suit, filed in 1939, by the plaintiffs, Annie Laura Keller (Laura Bell) and Charles L. Mayer, against W. D. Haas and the Haas Investment Company, Inc., wherein the plaintiffs seek to be recognized as the owners, in equal proportions, of an undivided three-fourths interest in a thirty-five acre tract of land in Avoyelles Parish, and to recover a like proportion of the rents and revenues received from the property since July 9, 1915, less their share of the taxes paid.

Since the filing of this suit, W. D. Haas, sometimes referred to herein as Dr. Haas and his wife, Mrs. Hattie Haas, have both died, and their heirs have become parties defendant; a portion of the interest of in tervener, Sid W. Richardson, has been transferred to Sid W. Richardson, Inc., and this corporation has become an intervener.

The plaintiffs allege that the property in controversy was purchased in 1881 by Octavia, Polly (Molly), Alva (George Alva), and the plaintiff, Annie (Anna Laura) Keller; that Polly died about 1890, leaving as her own heirs her mother, Emely Hampton Keller, and her brothers and sisters, Octavia, George Alva, Anna Laura, and Viola Keller her said brothers and sisters constituting all of the children of their mother; that on July 11, 1895, Octavia Keller conveyed to Dr. Haas an undivided one-fourth interest in the property; that Emely Hampton Keller died about 1904; that Viola Keller Evans died about 1914; that Octavia Keller died about 1916; and that Gladys Evans, the only child of Viola Keller Evans died about 1917, survived by her father, Eddie Evans.

That in 1900, the plaintiff, Laura Keller, conveyed to her brother, George Alva Keller, an undivided one-third interest in and to this land; and that she purchased back from him on July 11, 1939, all of his interest in this property, and, on the same day, conveyed to Charles L. Mayer, the other plaintiff herein, an undivided one-half of her interest therein.

That Dr. Haas, then owner of an undivided one-fourth interest, purchased the interest of his co-owners in the property at tax sale; that at the time and prior thereto, Dr. Haas had been and was in possession of said property as co-owner and enjoyed the fruits and revenues therefrom.

That at the time of filing suit against W. D. Haas and Haas Investment Company, Inc., the Investment Company was the holder of record title, having acquired same from Dr. Haas on April 18, 1927, when the said Dr. Haas conveyed a considerable number of properties to the Haas Investment Company, Inc., in consideration of 4,460 shares of its capital stock out of 5,000 authorized; the remaining 540 shares were issued to the wife and children of Dr. Haas, who was the principal incorporator, President and General Manager, and with full control of the corporation after its organization.

Exceptions of no right or cause of action were filed by both defendants.

Each defendant also filed a plea of estoppel, asserting that the plaintiffs, by their action in failing to either redeem the property or to take any action with reference to the 1915 tax title for more than twenty years, etc., are now estopped from prosecuting this suit.

Sid W. Richardson, George H. McIntyre, George H. Campbell and J. A. Hoover, intervened in this suit, claiming a lease for the mineral development of the property, and prayed for recognition thereof.

The Haas Investment Company, Inc., filed a plea of prescription of ten years based upon the tax titles of July 9, 1915 and August 5, 1922.

In December, 1940, the exceptions of no cause or right of action of the Haas Investment Company, Inc., were sustained by the district court.

The plaintiffs appealed. This Court held that the petition did state a cause of action and remanded the case for further proceedings. 202 La. 486, 12 So.2d 238.

The defendants then answered, denying the ownership of the plaintiffs and admitting that Dr. Haas acquired the interest claimed by the plaintiffs by tax deed on July 9, 1915, and asserted that the tax sale was real and his acquisition bona fide. The defendants admitted the incorporation of the Haas Investment Company, Inc., and the issuance of stock to Dr. Haas, as alleged, and as to control of the corporation, submitted '* * * that the charter of said corporation is the best evidence of who was the President and General Manager of same and as to where the full and complete control of the corporation was vested after organization * * *.' They denied that any accounting was due the plaintiffs but, in the alternative, alleged that any rents due to the plaintiffs would be barred by the prescription of three, five, and ten years, which prescription was specially pleaded.

The answer set up as an additional defense that the title had passed to and through third parties through its sale by Dr. Haas to John Gremillion in 1918 and by Gremillion to Clifton Wilson two years later; that Gremillion went into possession and farmed the place in 1918; that Wilson lived on it for the following two crop years and endeavored to improve the place generally, as well as to produce crops; that Gremillion and Wilson were third parties in possession under deeds in regular course and without notice; that on August 5, 1922, a tax sale was executed to Dr. Haas by the Sheriff of Avoyelles Parish for the unpaid taxes of 1921 due and assessed in the name of Clifton Wilson; that Dr. Haas again took possession of the whole of the property and remained in peaceful possession thereof until April 18, 1927, when he conveyed same, along with 124 other items of property (valued at $500,000) to the defendant corporation; and that the corporation has had possession of said property since that date, leasing same to the interveners, as alleged.

Re-urging its plea of estoppel, it prayed that the plaintiff's suit be dismissed.

In November, 1943, after the death of their parents and their substitution as party defendants, the heirs of Dr. Haas and his wife joined the Haas Investment Company, Inc., in filing an answer substantially the same as that originally filed by the defendant corporation, setting forth in detail the possession of defendants, their tenants, and that of Gremillion and Wilson, and again pleading prescription of ten years acquirendi causa, and the constitutional prescription relative to the setting aside of tax sales; detailing the interest which Dr. Haas had in corporations other than the Haas Investment Company, Inc.

The district court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, rejecting the plaintiffs' demands, at their costs, and recognizing the title of the Haas Investment Company, Inc., subject to the mineral lease of the interveners.

The facts as found by the district court were that Dr. Haas, on July 11, 1895, purchased an undivided one-fourth interest in the property in controversy; that he acquired the remainder of the property at tax sale on July 8, 1915, under assessment to George and M. Keller; that at the time of this sale, the only co-owners with Dr. Haas were George Alva Keller, Octavia Keller, and Gladys Evans (daughter of Viola Keller, deceased), and that the plaintiff Anna Laura Keller, owned no interest in the tract at that time, nor did the plaintiff, Charles L. Mayer, whose initial interest was acquired in 1939; that on July 11, 1939, George Alva Keller conveyed all of his interest in the tract to Anna Laura Keller and on the same day, she conveyed to Charles L. Mayer, coplaintiff herein, an undivided one-half of her interest; that Dr. Haas sold the land to John Gremillion early in 1918; that Gremillion, after possessing the land and farming it during the crop year 1918, sold it to Clifton Wilson before the end of the year, and that Clifton Wilson lived on and farmed the property for two years before abandoning same; that a second tax sale under assessment to Clifton Wilson took place on August 8, 1922, to Dr. Haas; that in 1927, Dr. Haas transferred the property, together with many other items, to the Haas Investment Company, Inc.; and that the land is currently of great value due to the discovery of the Eola Oil Field.

The district court, in denying recovery to the plaintiffs on equitable grounds said, in part:

'* * * The court is rather of the opinion that this equitable doctrine is available only to the original co-owners or their heirs, and must be exercised within a reasonable time. Their transferees do not occupy, quoad the doctrine, the same position that the original co-owners did. As previously stated, these plaintiffs have stood idly by for years, silent and enactive, while W. D. Haas sold the property to John Gremillion, while John Gremillion sold the property to Clifton Wilson, while W. D. Haas reacquired it at a second tax sale and finally transferred it ot the Haas Investment Company, and while it developed into an oil field. On this suit, none of these sales are attacked as fraudulent; in fact the only one mentioned is the sale by W. D. Haas to the Haas Investment Co., Inc. The other intervening three are omitted altogether in their pleadings. These parties, during this entire period of 24 years, have allowed this property to pass through and into the hands of not one but several innocent 3rd parties. The good faith of these...