Case ID: la_7/html/0562-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Martin, J.,\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

FAGOT ET ALS. vs. PORCHE.
    Eastern Dist.
    
      February, 1835.
    APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF THE SECOND JUDICIAL DISTRICT, THE JUDGE THEREOF PRESIDING.
    Evidence of a claim in compensation and re-convention, will be rejected, when the demand is not equally liquidated with the claim of the plaintiff.
    ' The liquidation of a partnership claim, cannot be pleaded in compensation or re-convention, against a demand on a note of hand.
    The absence of all connection between two demands, is an insurmountable ■ objection and obstacle to a demand in compensation or re-convention.
    This is an action on two promissory notes, executed by the defendant in favor of Pierre Caseaux, deceased, the ancestor of the plaintiffs. Fagot sues as tutor of his children, who are minor heirs of the deceased, claiming the amount of said notes, which together make the sum of five hundred and twenty dollars ninety-one cents; that one of them, for four hundred and thirty-two dollars ninety-one cents, is secured by a mortgage on a slave, which he prays may be seized and sold to pay said sum.
    The defendant pleaded a general denial, and set up a large claim, amounting to one thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, in re-convention against the plaintiffs, as due by their ancestor, for the purchase, advances and increased value of a plantation, which he alleges he owned in partnership with the said P. Caseaux, in his life-time,,and which his said heirs, the plaintiffs, have caused to be sold as a part of his succession.
    On the trial, the district judge rejected the testimony of the defendant, offered in support of his re-conventional demand, on the ground that the claim was not liquidated, and was not connected with, or incidental to the demand of the plaintiffs. The defendant’s counsel excepted to the opinion of the court, rejecting the evidence,
    
      Judgment was given in favor of the plaintiffs, for the amount of their claim. The defendant appealed.
    
      Nicholls, for the appellant,
    insisted the court erred, in rejecting testimony to establish the plea in compensation. Compensation takes place of right between two debts, having for their object a sum of money, and equally liquidated and demandable. La. Code, 2205.
    2. To establish this right of compensation, it is necessary to show, first, that the claim is for a sum of moneysecond, that it be equally liquidated with the one to which it is opposed, and third, that it be equally demandable.
    3. The document offered as testimony to support the plea, is an account rendered by the ancestor of the plaintiffs, to whom the notes sued on were given, in which he acknowledges the plantation to be partnership property, debits defendant with the amount of the purchase money, expenses of the crop, negro hire, and strikes a balance in his own favor. The account is signed by both parties, and is an acknowledgment on the part of Caseaux that half of the plantation is the property of the defendant. ,
    4. Under these circumstances, the latter is entitled to the money he has paid, as the heirs have had the plantation sold. This then, is a claim for a sum. of money due, which establishes the first part of the plea in compensation.
    5. The claim is equally liquidated, for the sum claimed on account of the plantation is specified in the account offered in evidence.
    The. claim of the defendant is equally demandable with that sued on. The interest in the plantation belonging to the defendant, has been received by the plaintiffs, in having it sold as part of the succession of their ancestor. The sum due for this interest, is specified in the account offered in evidence, and more than compensating the sum sued for.
   Martin, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant being sued on two promissory notes, executed in favor of the ancestor of the plaintiffs, pleaded the general issue, and set up a claim in compensation and . re-convention, for a much larger sum than that for.which the notes sued on were given. Judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs, and disregarding the defendant’s claim, from which he appealed.

crnm^in^compensation and re-convention will be rejected, mami ishnotdequaiiyliquidated with the claim oi the

The liquidalion of apartnership claim, cannot be pleaded in compensation tíon, ^gains'T'a note^fhand *

The absence between two deXmountohieln" objection and obstaole to a demand in comve-ooSrentiom”'1

His counsel complains in this court, that the judge a quo, rejected written and parole evidence offered by him, in support of the claims pleaded in compensation and re-convention. These claims were grounded on the allegation, that the plaintiffs’ ancestor, and who was the payee of the notes sued on, took in his own name, the title to the plantation which he and the defendant had-bought in partnership, and the defendant advanced a large sum towards the purchase, and made great advances for the cultivation and improvement of the land ; that at the death of the plaintiffs’ ancestor, his heirs possessed themselves of the land, which has since been sold as part of the succession. The defendant aiso avers, he has a further and large claim, on the score of . , , _ . . . . , the increased value of the land since the purchase.

The introduction of the evidence was rejected, on the grounci that the defendant’s claim was not equally liquidated = i , 1 witlmthat of the plaintiffs, and was absolutely unconnected , . , therewith.

appears to us, the decision of the District Court was rf - ’ . , correct. The liquidation of a partnership concern, such as that now sought, is universally a much more tedious opera-^011) t^lian required to ascertain the validity of a claim of the payee óf a note of hand. The liquidation of the claim of the defendant, could not well be asked from a plaintiff whose claim was already liquidated by the defendant, before he subscribed the note. There was no room for compensation.

The absence of all kind of connection between two claims, is an insurmountable obstacle to a demand in compensation or re-convention.

The plea of re-convention is unsupported.

It is, therefore, ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the judgment of the District Court be affirmed, with costs.