Leseigneur v. Bessan

• Decision Date: 01 December 1899
• Docket Number: 13,213
• Citation: 26 So. 865,52 La.Ann. 187
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: ROLAND LESEIGNEUR ET ALS. v. MRS. ELINA BESSAN AND HUSBAND

26 So. 865

52 La.Ann. 187

ROLAND LESEIGNEUR ET ALS. v. MRS. ELINA BESSAN AND HUSBAND

No. 13,213

Supreme Court of Louisiana

December 1, 1899

CERTIFIED from the Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, by the Judges thereof applying for instructions.

Petitory action to recover immovable property in the town of New Iberia, which defendants held by deeds from the State under tax proceedings against plaintiff's ancestors, which proceedings plaintiff's averred to be null and void conferring no title. From adverse judgment in the District Court plaintiffs appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Rehearing being granted, the Court under Article 101 of the Constitution, attaching the pleadings and the original opinion of the Court of Appeals.

The following answers were given by the Supreme Court and ordered to be certified back to the Court of Appeals for its instruction and guidance:

Foster & Broussard, for Plaintiffs.

L. O Hacker, for Defendants.

OPINION

NICHOLLS C.J.

Article 101 of the Constitution declares that the "judges of the Court of Appeals shall have power to certify to the Supreme Court any question or proposition of law arising in any cause pending before them concerning which they desire the instruction of that court for its proper decision, and, thereupon, the Supreme Court may either give its instruction on the questions or proposition certified to it, or it may require that the whole record be sent up for its consideration, and, thereupon shall decide the whole matter in controversy in the same manner as if it had been on appeal directly to the Supreme Court."

It is obvious, from the reading of the article, that the questions or propositions submitted to the Supreme Court are questions predicated upon the specific facts of the particular case then pending before the Court of Appeals, and that it is not the duty of the Supreme Court to ascertain or fix the facts and conclusions of fact. For the purposes of expressing an opinion it has to take, as true, the facts of the case as found by the Court of Appeals.

That this must be so is evident from the fact that the parties to the action are not bound by the findings of the Court of Appeals so found, but are entitled, under the concluding clause of the article, to apply to the Supreme Court (if dissatisfied with the judgment rendered) for a writ of certiorari, to have the record certified up to it for review and determination.

If the application be granted, this court should find itself in a situation to pass upon the facts and law of the case as if it had been carried before it directly by appeal from the District Court, and not be confronted by its own findings of fact, fixed and declared by anticipation.

While the findings of the Court of Appeal are to be taken as true by the Supreme Court for the purpose of expressing an opinion at the request of that court, the Supreme Court must stand uncommitted as to the actual facts of the case, and also as to the law thereof, if the facts should be ultimately to be found otherwise than as declared by the Court of Appeals, and should that difference carry with it a change in the law of the case as applicable to the actual state of facts.

We understand the Court of Appeals to inquire of this court: 1st. -- Whether the fact that the list of delinquent taxes and tax payers, filed in the State Auditor's office, under Act No. 42 of 1871, may have been recorded tardily in the office of the recorder of mortgages of the parish where the land is situated, or filed tardily in the Auditor's office, would carry with it, as a result, the preventing of the vesting in the State of the titles of the lands so returned as provided in that statute, when but for this fact the said titles would have so vested.

We answer that it would not have that effect.

We...