Landry v. Landry

• Decision Date: 01 March 1888
• Docket Number: 10,119
• Citation: 3 So. 728,40 La.Ann. 229
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: AMELIE LANDRY ET AL. v. JOSEPH AND CHRISTOPHER LANDRY ET ALS

3 So. 728

40 La.Ann. 229

AMELIE LANDRY ET AL. v. JOSEPH AND CHRISTOPHER LANDRY ET ALS

No. 10,119

Supreme Court of Louisiana

March 1, 1888

APPEAL from the Twenty-third District Court, Parish of Iberville. Talbot, J.

C. P Moore and Alex. Hebert, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Samuel Matthews, for Defendants and Appellees.

OPINION

POCHE J.

The purpose of this suit is to annul a sale of an immovable made by Mathurin Landry, plaintiff's grandfather, to his sons the defendants herein, in April, 1867.

The conveyance is assailed as a simulation, in which no price was paid, and the action is mainly predicated on the provisions of Article 2444 of the Civil Code, which reads as follows:

"The sales of immovable property made by parents to their children may be attacked by the forced heirs, as containing a donation in disguise, if the latter can prove that no price has been paid, or that the price was below one-fourth of the real value of the immovable sold at the time of the sale."

The defense is substantially that the true consideration of the transfer was the obligation undertaken by the defendants to provide for the maintenance and support, during the balance of their lives, of their aged father and mother, who were then helpless and unable to support themselves, owning no property but the tract of land thus disposed of by them; and that in compliance with said obligation they had supported their father for four years, and their mother for thirteen years, to the date of the death of both, expending in the discharge of that obligation more than the amount of the price stipulated in the sale, which was the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars.

Hence they aver that if not good as a sale, said conveyance should be legally viewed and maintained as an onerous donation inter vivos, and that as such the donation cannot be reduced below the expenses which they had incurred in performing the charges imposed thereby.

That defense having prevailed in the district court, plaintiffs have appealed.

The first contention made on the trial grew out of plaintiffs' objection to parol testimony offered by defendants to show the alleged true consideration of the disputed conveyance, and turns upon the argument that parol evidence cannot be admitted against or beyond what is contained in the acts. C. C. 2276.

We find no error in the ruling which admitted the proffered testimony. It finds ample support in our jurisprudence and in Art. 1900, Civil Code, which provides that:

"If the cause expressed in the consideration should be one that does not exist, yet the contract cannot be invalidated, if the party can show the existence of a true and sufficient consideration."

The construction which this article has uniformly received at the hands of this Court clearly authorized the admission of parol evidence to prove that by the stipulation of a price paid cash in the sum of $ 3500, the parties understood what was to them equivalent thereto, the obligation of the purchasers to support the vendor and his aged wife during their natural lives. Delabiguarde vs. Municipality, 3 Ann. 130; Brown vs. Brown, 30 Ann. 966.

In the recent case of Dickson vs. Ford, Clerk, 38 Ann. 737, we took occasion to make a thorough and extended review of our jurisprudence on this subject, by which we were confirmed in our opinion of the necessity and wisdom of such a rule, and in consequence of which we were induced to make the following reflections:

"The reason or the philosophy of the rule which, as an exception, flows logically from the very terms of the general rule, is that parol evidence, in such cases is admitted, not against or beyond what is contained in the acts as a contradiction of the clear recital or legal meaning of the stipulations contained therein, but on the contrary, to give effect to the contract arising therefrom, or to ascertain the true intent of the parties when the same is not clearly expressed or described therein."

"As thus understood and construed, the rule is not amenable to the charge that it tends to destroy or impair the sanctity or binding forc of authentic acts, but on the contrary, it tends directly to enhance the validity and efficacy...