Case ID: so2d_346/html/0280-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "REDMANN, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Succession of Joseph Peter FERRAND.
    No. 8096.
    Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
    May 17, 1977.
    
      W. Larry Floyd, James J. Durio, Favret, Favret & Demarest, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellee.
    Frank P. Letellier, II, New Orleans, George W. Giacobbe, Kenner, for defendant-appellant.
    Before REDMANN, SCHOTT and MORIAL, JJ.
   REDMANN, Judge.

Because there is testimony from two neighbors that decedent and his legatee were living together in a sexual relationship a year before his last illness and from a number of witnesses that the legatee sought to defeat an eviction proceeding by testifying that she was the “common-law wife” of decedent, the trial judge’s conclusion of open concubinage is supported by the record and we cannot substitute our judgment for his; Canter v. Koehring, La. 1973, 283 So.2d 716.

The fact that the legatee maintained her apartment in a public housing project (using it also for some of her work as a cosmetician) cannot of itself defeat the concubinage’s openness. A simple conflict of evidence does not prevent a conclusion of open concubinage by the trial judge; Succession of Battiste, La.App. 4 Cir. 1962, 145 So.2d 668, cert. denied.

Affirmed.