Case ID: la_5/html/0026-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Martw, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SOULIE vs. SOULIE.
    Easters Dis.
    December, 1832.
    APPEAE PROM THE COURT OP THE PARISH AND CITV OF NEW-ORLEANS.
    The Probate Court cannot entertain jurisdiction of a suit against the curator of an absentee.
    This suit was brought to recover certain sums of money deposited™. the bank, and others in the possession of defendant. The defendant was sued as the curator of an absentee. The money claimed had been received upon certain promissory notes, which the absentee had formerly taken as agent of the plaintiff, and while in the employ of the latter.
    The defendant excepted to the jurisdiction of the court, and then pleaded to the merits.
    The court sustained the exception, and the plaintiff appealed. The court considered the Probate Court to have no powers but those specially delegated; that the power of deciding on claims against the estates of absentees, is not included in the 924th article of the Code of Practice; and the 14th section of the act of March 25, 1828, entitled u An act further amending certain articles of the Civil Code and of the Code of Practice,” makes no change in the Code of < 7 0 ** Practice'in relation to the estates of absentees.
    „ The Probate jtlSf1
    Seghers, for appellant.
    The Court of Probates has jurisdiction in this case. Code of Practice, arts. 935, 963,964. Civil Code, art. 53.
    Schmidt, for appellee.
    The Court of Probates has no jurisdiction of the matter in controversy. Code of Practice, arts. 925,924, act of March 25,1828. The judgment should, therefore, be confirmed.
   The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Martw, J.

The plaintiff is appellant from a judgment sustaining the defendant’s plea to the jurisdiction of the court, on the grounds that he was sued as the curator of Rillieux, an absentee, for a debt of the latter, and the action could not be brought in any other than the Parish or District Court.

The appellant has relied on the Code of Practice, 925, 963 and 964. The Civil Code, 53, and the 14th section of the act of Assembly of 1828, p. 156.

It appears to us that the court did not err. The Code of Practice, 963, vests in Courts of Probates, exclusively, the appointment of curatorsof absentees; the next article prescribes to other courts in which an absentee has a suit, to ■appoint him a curator ad hoc, and we find nothing that can avail the plaintiff in article 925. The Civil Code, in the part cited, imposes on curators of absentees, all the obligations, responsibilities and mortgages, to which tutors are subjected. Hence they are to render an account of their administration in the Court of Probates. It would be, in our- opinion, too forced a construction of the Code, to infer from this circumstance, that they are sueable in that court. It is not shown, that tutors are, except in cases of debts of their minors, resulting from the compliance of a successor, with the benefit of an inventory.

The act of 1828, cited, relates only to curators of vacant if there could be any doubt of this, it would vanish on a recurrence to the French text, of the 14th section, which uses the words, curafeurs des successions.

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