Case ID: mart-os_5/html/0459-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mathews, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

TODD vs. LANDRY.
    East'n District.
    April, 1818.
    If the act which gives jurisdiction to a court, in a case, be repealed, at any time before judgment is pronounced, the judgment is erroneous.
    Appeal from the parish court of Ascension.
    The plaintiff claimed from the defendant, six hundred dollars, the price of the adjudication of a new levee, ordered by the inspector of the district, to be erected before the defendant's plantation, and which was adjudged to the plaintiff, as the lowest bidder, on the 6th of March, 1817, to be completed on or before the 20th of the following month. On the 12th of May, the plaintiff, having obtained in due time, the certificate of the inspector, that the levee had been completed and received as such, brought this present action, and obtained an order of seizure and sale of the defendants plantation, which was accordingly, on the 20th, advertised for sale by the sheriff, unless cause was shewn within the legal time.
    On the 23d of June, the defendant filed his answer. The plaintiff objected to its being received, on the ground, that the time allowed by law, to the defendant had expired, 1816, 40. § 29, 2 Martin’s Digest, 618, n. 29. This objection was overruled, and the plaintiff hereon excepted to the opinion of the court.
    The case was tried by a jury, to whom the plaintiff submitted the two following issues : 1. Were not the repairs adjudged to the defendant's levee, adjudged to the plaintiff, as stated in his petition, and was he not the lowest bidder? 2. Were not the repairs completely made by him, and was not the work received, by the inspector, agreeably to the contract?
    Several issues were likewise submitted to the jury, by the defendant, in order to establish that his levee had been examined, and received by the inspector, in due time, and that, on the opinion of the inspector himself, as well as of all the neighbouring planters, it was capable of withstanding the force of the river at high water.
    
      The jury found the first issue, submitted by the plaintiff, in his favor, but added that they thought the adjudication illegal. As to the second, they found that the repairs were received by the inspector, but that they were not completed according to contract.
    They found the issues submitted to them by the defendant, in his favor.
    There was judgment for the defendant and the plaintiff appealed.
    Morse, for the plaintiff.
    The parish court erred in receiving the defendant's answer. The sheriff had advertised on the 21st of May; the legal time allowed to the defendant to answer, expired on the 20th of June: the defendant was therefore too late, in his application to be admitted to answer, on the 23d.
    This court must be aware of the great importance of the levees, to the safety and the very existence of the country, and how necessary it is, to enforce the legislation of the state, for their maintenance and preservation.
    Dumoulin, for the defendant.
    The importance of levees in this country, and the necessity of inforcing the laws of this state, in regard to them, cannot be contested. But the act, on which the plaintiff relies, was no longer a part of the laws of the state, when the inspector made the illegal adjudication, which is the ground of the present action, for the act of the legislature, approved on the 6th of February, 1817, repealed it.
    But, admitting, for argument’s sake, the act of 1816, to be still in force, yet the plaintiff is not entitled to recover. This will appear by a comparison of the facts of the case, as spread on the record, with the tenor of the act itself, especially the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 29th sections. By the 19th, it is made the duty of the inspector to inspect the levees of his district between the 16th of August and the 16th of December, of each year; and, in case the works which he may order should not he sufficiently advanced on the first of September, to afford a reasonable ground to judge that they will be finished on the 16th of December, he is directed to adjudge them to the lowest bidder ; and the 16th, 17th and 18th sections provide that, should any further repairs be necessary, they may be made by a general call on all the inhabitants of the district.
    Now, in this case, the jury found that the defendant’s was received as sound by the inspector, consequently he could no longer adjudge
    
      the levee under the 19th section, but must, if any new work was required, pursue the mode pointed out by the 16th, 17th and 18th sections.
    But the inspector and the plaintiff colluded to oppress the defendant. They knew that the law on which they rely was repealed by an act approved on the 8th of February. Within two days the repealing act might have been known in the parish. The scene of action being only seventy-five miles from the seat of government: the repeal became operative on the 16th or 17th, the repealing act having been promulgated in New-Orleans on the 9th or 10th of February. Civ. Code 4, art. 6.
   Mathews, J.

delivered the opinion of the court. The act of the legislature, on which this action is brought, in the cases for which it provides, (and of which the present is one) ex- tended the jurisdiction of the parish courts, and authorizes an appeal directly to this. But, it has been repealed in toto, by an act bearing date of the 8th of February, 1817, which was pleaded to the jurisdiction of the court below, by the defendant, and not denied by the plaintiff to be in force at the time it was pleaded.

The repealing act, being in force before the parish court gave judgment in the cause, and and the jurisdiction of that court depending entirely on the repealed one, it is clear that the latter had ceased to exist, and that the court erred in sustaining its jurisdiction in the case.

It is, therefore, ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the judgment be annulled, avoided and reversed; and this court, proceeding to give such a judgment as, in their opinion, ought to have been rendered in the court a quo, it is ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the plaintiff's petition be dismissed, with costs.