Case ID: so2d_399/html/1253-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BOUTALL, Judge. SAMUEL, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Mildred Badie, wife of Nolan Ambrose MARSHALL, v. Nolan Ambrose MARSHALL.
    No. 11308.
    Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
    June 2, 1981.
    
      Baldwin & Haspel, Robert R. Rainold, Robert R. Rainold, Jr., New Orleans, for Mildred Badie, w/o Nolan Ambrose Marshall, plaintiff-appellant.
    Joseph W. Rausch, Stassi & Rausch, and Lisa Waggoner Wall, New Orleans, for Nolan A. Marshall, defendant-appellee.
    Before SAMUEL, GULOTTA and BOU-TALL, JJ.
   BOUTALL, Judge.

On the application of Nolan A. Marshall for writ of certiorari or review of an adverse decision of this court, 390 So.2d 1365, the Supreme Court ordered the following, 396 So.2d 1329:

“Granted. The case is remanded to the Court of Appeal to consider the plea of prescription filed and received by this Court and to consider any other relief appropriate."

In consideration of the plea of prescription filed and received by the Supreme Court, we refer to Code of Civil Procedure, Article 2163 which provides that “The appellate court may consider the peremptory exception filed for the first time in that court * * * * (emphasis ours)”. Although we interpret that article to mean that the appropriate appellate court in which the exception is filed is the one that may consider the exception, apparently by virtue of this order, the Supreme Court has either amended Article 2163 or has interpreted it in some manner beyond the plain wording of the Article. Nevertheless, that Court does have supervisory jurisdiction over this Court and we certainly do not presume to pronounce upon the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Accordingly, we shall consider the plea of prescription filed in the Supreme Court in accordance with that mandate.

At the outset, we have considered our prior decision on the question of prescription, and we conclude that it is correct, and that it is in accordance with existing law. Referring however to the plea of prescription as if it were filed in this court, or in the trial court, we conclude that the evidence shows that there were no payments of alimony or child support made by Nolan Ambrose Marshall to Mildred Badie Marshall from April, 1973 to the date of trial of the rule for back alimony. Since Civil Code Article 3538 provides a three year prescriptive period for such a claim, the claimant is entitled to recover alimony due in the period three years prior to filing of her rule.

The amount of alimony was set in a judgment of July 15, 1960 payable to “his wife, for her support and the support and maintenance of the minor children, alimony in the sum of $155.00 per month, payable in equal installments of $77.50 on the 2nd and 17th days of each month. In addition the husband to pay Homestead Installments promptly when due.” The trial judge noted that the Homestead note was $90.57 making a total of $245.57 per month. However the trial judge also attempted to apportion the 1960 judgment into one third of the amount to the wife and two thirds for the children. He then concluded the wife’s share to be $81.86, with 39 months due as of the date of the rule, awarding accrued alimony in the amount of $3,192.52. In our previous judgment we have stated that the trial judge could not so apportion the alimony and that, there being no agreement between the parties to change, the alimony must stand at the rate of $245.50 per month. Dubroc v. Dubroc, 380 So.2d 672 (La.App. 1980); Halcomb v. Halcomb, 352 So.2d 1013 (La. 1977); Howell v. Howell, 391 So.2d 1304 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1980).

We conclude then that Mrs. Marshall is entitled to the sum of $9,577.23, representing the sum of $245.57 a month for 39 months, and that the judgment of the trial court, as well as our prior judgment, should be amended accordingly.

In response to the second part of the mandate to the Court of Appeal: “To consider any other relief appropriate.”, we do not consider any other relief appropriate.

Accordingly, we amend our prior decree to read as follows:

“For the reasons assigned above, the judgment of the trial court is hereby amended insofar as to provide past due alimony executory in the amount of $9,577.23, plus legal interest beginning from the date when each alimony payment was due until paid, plus $1500 in attorney’s fees to the appellant and to provide future alimony in the amount of $500 per month, and as amended the judgment is affirmed.”

AMENDED AND RENDERED.

SAMUEL, J., dissenting.

SAMUEL, Judge,

dissenting.

I do not disagree with the correctness of the conclusions reached in the majority opinion. However, those conclusions are concerned only with the issue raised by the filing of a defendant exception of prescription in the Supreme Court (apparently in connection with defendant’s application for writs) and, in my view, this court is without jurisdiction to consider that exception. No such exception was filed in the trial court, and although one was filed in this court, it was filed only after the case had been submitted for a decision and after our opinion and decree had been handed down.

Under C.C.P. Art. 927, prescription is a peremptory exception which must be specially pleaded, and we are prohibited from supplying the objection raised thereby. The first paragraph of C.C.P. Art. 2163 reads:

“The appellate court may consider the peremptory exception filed for the first time in that court, if pleaded prior to a submission of the case for a decision, and if proof of the ground of the exception appears of record.” (Emphasis ours).

The above quoted portion of Article 2163 plainly states we may consider the peremptory exception (including prescription) filed for the first time in this appellate court. But, with equal clarity, it prohibits such consideration unless that exception is pleaded prior to submission of the case for a decision. Here, as has been pointed out, the exception was filed for the first time in this court and then not only after submission, but after the case had been handed down. Thus, while the Supreme Court may very well have jurisdiction to hear the exception filed in that court, we do not.

As courts obtain their jurisdiction over all matters only by virtue of our constitution and legislative acts, the Supreme Court’s “general supervisory jurisdiction over all other courts” does not include authority to confer on other courts jurisdiction not granted by the constitution or the legislature. Here, we not only do not have jurisdiction, the legislature has prohibited us from exercising jurisdiction.

For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. 
      
      . See LSA-C.C.P. Art. 2.
     
      
      . Braswell v. Heartwell, La.App., 234 So.2d 197. Thompson v. Couville, La.App., 372 So.2d 579, is to the contrary, but the Thompson court did not consider or notice C.C.P. Art. 2163.
     
      
      . Article 5, § 5(A), La.Const. of 1974.