Maria Margarita Volcey Souffront v. La Compagnie Des Sucreries De Porto Rico

• Decision Date: 16 May 1910
• Docket Number: No. 155,155
• Citation: 30 S.Ct. 608,54 L.Ed. 846,217 U.S. 475
• Parties: MARIA MARGARITA VOLCEY SOUFFRONT, Widow of Fleurian, Maria Elizabeth Odette Fleurian, and Maria Antoinette Ema Fleurian, Widow of Souffront, Plffs. in Err., v. LA COMPAGNIE DES SUCRERIES DE PORTO RICO and Erneste Maurice
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

217 U.S. 475

30 S.Ct. 608

54 L.Ed. 846

MARIA MARGARITA VOLCEY SOUFFRONT, Widow of Fleurian, Maria Elizabeth Odette Fleurian, and Maria Antoinette Ema Fleurian, Widow of Souffront, Plffs. in Err.,

v LA COMPAGNIE DES SUCRERIES DE PORTO RICO and Erneste Maurice.

No. 155.

Argued April 15, 1910.

Decided May 16, 1910.

Messrs. Hannis Taylor and Charles M. Boerman for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 475-477 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles Hartzell and Manuel Rodriguez-Serra for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

In July, 1906, plaintiffs in error commenced this action in the district court of the United States for the district of Porto Rico, to recover, from the defendants in error, the possession of certain described real estate, and damages from April 12, 1904, for unlawfully withholding possession thereof. The right to the relief sought was based upon the averment that one Clemente De Fleurian, at his death, on February 24, 1892, was seised in fee and entitled to the possession of the premises, and that he died intestate, leaving the plaintiffs—his widow and two children—'as his legal succession.' A demurrer to the complaint was overruled, except as to the necessity of furnishing certain information in regard to rents and profits, which was afterwards done through the medium of a bill of particulars. The defendants filed a joint answer. In addition to a general denial, they pleaded title by adverse possession of twenty years, and that plainiffs' right to recover was barred by reason of certain judgments obtained by the predecessors in title of defendants, in actions prosecuted by them in the courts of France and in the courts of Porto Rico during the Spanish regime, and by reason of a judgment of dismissal entered in favor of predecessors in title of defendants, and against the plaintiffs, in a suit in equity, brought by the latter in the trial court below, in the year 1904, to quiet the title to the premises in controversy. A motion was filed to strike out portions of the answer as alleging mere evidentiary matter, and a demurrer was also filed to the special defenses of res judicata. The motion and demurrer were overruled, the court filing an opinion, in which it detailed the substance of the matters set up in the answer, and, in effect, held that the decrees or judgments of the French and Porto Rican courts prior to the cession from Spain were res judicata as to the claims of the plaintiffs, unless their rights had subsequently arisen. After setting forth its reasons for such conclusion, the court called upon the plaintiffs 'to file a replication within ten days or such longer period as they may, if at all, be entitled to, setting up the fact whether or not the answer is true in so far as it sets out the source of plaintiffs' title, and describes or recites these proceedings in other courts regarding this property.' This requirement was followed by the statement that 'if it shall transpire that the answer has set up the real facts in the case, then, on the application of defendants, the action will be immediately dismissed at the cost of the plaintiffs.' Thereafter a replication was filed on the part of the plaintiffs, which, omitting the title and the signatures of the attorneys, is as follows:

'Replication.

'Now come the plaintiffs herein, in conformity with the order of the court, entered herein, and make reply to the answer of the defendants, as follows:

'First. They deny that the defendants have ever had any just title to the premises, or that those from whom they derived title have possessed the premises in good faith or with just title.

'Second. The plaintiffs impugn the alleged prescription either of ten years or of twenty years.

'Third. The plaintiffs deny the allegations in the answer that the ancestor, Clemente De Fleurian, has obtained the deed to the properties described in the complaint through fraud, and they allege that he purchased the said properties in good faith and for valuable consideration, and always was ready, and the plaintiffs are ready, to comply with all the conditions of the said deed of sale, and that said deed was delivered to him by the vendors and their agents.

'Fourth. The plaintiffs admit that the judgments mentioned in the answer as a third defense to the complaint have been rendered, but the suits in which said judgments were rendered have been instituted against Clemente De Fleurian while he was insane and out of his mind, and without any curator or guardian or committee of his person being named by the court; and that the defendants herein were neither parties nor privies to the said judgments and suits and appeals, and therefore said judgments cannot bar this action.

'Fifth. The plaintiffs admit that the judgment mentioned in the answer as a fourth defense to the complaint has been rendered, but the plaintiffs state that the court which rendered said judgment had no jurisdiction in the subject-matter and said judgment, being of a foreign court without jurisdiction, is not binding; and the plaintiffs further allege that the defendants herein were neither parties nor privies to the said judgment and suit, and therefore said judgment is not a bar to this action.

'Sixth. The plaintiffs, further replying, say that the judgment or decree mentioned in the answer as a fifth defense to the complaint was rendered not upon the merits of the case, and without any proof being taken, but only upon a demurrer to the complaint for want of equity and for laches,—both purely equitable defenses, available only in suits in equity, and the plaintiffs state that this decree is not a bar to this action.

'Wherefore the plaintiffs pray judgment thereon.'

Thereupon the following entry of dismissal was made:

'Now come the plaintiffs, by their attorneys, Boerman & Llorens, and file a replication to the answer in this cause, and upon consideration thereof it appears to come within the rule laid down in the court's opinion on the demurrer to the answer of the defendants, filed June 1st. Now, upon application by Hartzell & Rodriguez, the attorneys of said defendants, the cause is dismissed at the cost of the plaintiffs, to be taxed by the clerk, for which execution may issue.

'Plaintiffs except to the dismissal hereof.'

From this judgment of dismissal the appeal now before us was taken. In addition to assigning as error the overruling of the demurrers to the respective defenses of res judicata, it is set up that 'the court erred in rendering judgment against the plaintiffs in said cause, upon the pleadings in said cause, and that said judgment is contrary to the law and facts as stated in the pleadings in said court.'

As upon the overruling of the demurrer, the court in substance made it a condition for granting leave to reply to the answer, that such reply should disclose that the answer had not set up the real facts in the case, which condition was manifestly not complied with in the replication, we shall review the action of the court upon the hypothesis that the order overruling the demurrer had also absolutely decreed a dismissal of the complaint. On this assumption we proceed to examine the defense setting up as res judicata the judgments of the Porto Rican courts, rendered during the spanish regime, to determine whether the court properly held that they barred recovery.

The defense in question covers twenty-six pages of the printed record, the judgment of the court of first instance embracing seventeen, and that of the supreme court of Porto Rico seven pages. The judgments establish the following, among other, facts: The real estate, the subject of controversy, was a sugar plantation known by the name of Serrano. The plantation was owned in 1879 and prior thereto by David Laporte and others, and Clemente De Fleurian, through whom plaintiffs claim title, was the manager of the plantation. On October 9, 1879, what is termed a 'private contract of sale' of the plantation to De Fleurian was executed in France. In November following, the owners of the property brought suit in the civil court of Nimes, France, to annul the contract. On February 18, 1880,—the day after the return of De Fleurian to Porto Rico,—although the contract of sale was not of record in Porto Rico, De Fleurian mortgaged the plantation to one Labastide, to secure the payment of 36,811 pesos. The civil court of Nimes, on May 10, 1880, entered a decree of nullity in the suit brought by the Laportes, and this decree, upon the appeal of De Fleurian, was affirmed by the court of appeals of Nimes on March 24, 1885, and by the court of cassation on May 17, 1886.

Pending the litigation just referred to, the Laportes, in the proper district in Porto Rico, 'instituted possessory proceedings for the said property,' in which Labastide and his wife were summoned 'as abutting owners,' and, they not making opposition, the title of the Laportes was duly registered. Thereafter, the Laportes, by public instrument of October 16, 1883, 'sold the property to Don Juan Forgas and to Don Jose Gallart, free of all encumbrances, the vendors binding themselves to guarantee the title to the same, as well as to answer for all obligations for which the said property might be liable.'

In the defense we are considering,...