Title: City of New Orleans v. Christ Church Corporation

State: louisiana

Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court

Document:

81 So. 2d 855 (1955) 228 La. 184 CITY OF NEW ORLEANS v. CHRIST CHURCH CORPORATION (Episcopal), et al. No. 42304. Supreme Court of Louisiana. June 30, 1955. *856 J. Richard Reuter, Jr., New Orleans, for appellant. Henry B. Curtis, Charles E. Cabibi, Chaffe, McCall, Toler & Phillips, and Edmund McIlhenny, Lemle & Kelleher, and Harry B. Kelleher, Ferdinand F. Stone, Robert W. Polchow, Warren M. Faris, and John T. Cooper, and Hunter C. Leake, II, New Orleans, for appellee. MOISE, Justice. The curator-ad-hoc, in the exercise of his duties, resisted this suit and appeals from a judgment of expropriation, which adjudicated to the City of New Orleans for its uses and street purposes two certain pieces or portions of ground of the Girod Street Cemetery, situated in the First Municipal District of the City, for a consideration of $1.50 per square foot, or a total sum of $30,745.41 to be paid to Christ Church Corporation (Episcopal). This judgment contained the following condition: Title should pass to the City of New Orleans only after: 1. The payment to Christ Church Corporation (Episcopal) of the sum of $30,745.41. 2. The registration of the judgment in the Conveyance Records of Orleans Parish. 3. Disinterment and reinterment elsewhere of all the human remains presently interred therein, subject to the supervision and further orders of the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Giving a loyal allegiance and faithful service to the call of duty, the curator-adhoc also appeals from a declaratory judgment which: 1. Condemned the Girod Street Cemetery and ordered its abandonment as a burial ground and prohibited its further use for burial purposes. 2. Decreed that upon the disinterment and reinterment elsewhere of all human remains located within the Girod Street Cemetery, Christ Church Corporation (Episcopal) be decreed the owner in fee simple against the world, including the City of New Orleans, and all prior owners, their heirs, transferees or assignees, of the Girod Street Cemetery, together with all improvements, etc., thereon. 3. Ordered that all human remains presently interred in the Girod Street Cemetery be disinterred and reinterred elsewhere, with perpetual care, without any cost or obligation to the interested parties and relatives, except such as may be voluntarily incurred, at the cost and expense of Christ Church Corporation, all subject to the supervision and further orders of the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. 4. Reserved to each burial certificate owner the right to claim as a personal rather than a real right any consequential loss or damage occasioned thereto, but limited to the cost of disinterment and reinterment elsewhere under like or similar conditions, depending upon the present state of decay or depreciation of each such tomb, vault, or other burial place. The above judgments were in conformity with the petition of the City of New Orleans. Defendant, Christ Church Corporation, did not resist the expropriation, the request for a declaratory judgment, nor the order of removal. It acquiesces in the judgments. *857 No appeal has been prosecuted by interested parties who filed interventions, and it is presumed that they have acquiesced in the judgments. The trial judge appointed a curator-adhoc to represent all unknown, absent and interested parties, other than the intervenors, who might be possible heirs, legatees, devisees, administrators, executors, or assigns of those who may hold or possess possible outstanding claims or interests in portions of the Girod Street Cemetery in compliance with Article 56 of the LSA-Civil Code which reads: The curator-ad-hoc assigns the following errors to the trial court's judgments: 1. In holding that the City of New Orleans had the right to expropriate cemetery property for street widening purposes. 2. In fixing the value for expropriation purposes at $1.50 per square foot. 3. In holding that the City could demand removal of the cemetery to another location by virtue of its title reservation and/or by virtue of the cemetery's constituting a public health menace. 4. In holding that title to the cemetery property became vested in the Christ Church Corporation rather than in the holders of the plot certificates, the City of New Orleans, or in the vendors of the property to the City of New Orleans. A discussion of the history of the cemetery is proper before discussing the curator's allegations of error. The City of New Orleans acquired the land, which has been used as the Girod Street Cemetery, on March 22, 1821 from Marie Ursule Moquin, wife of Francois Marie Perilliat, Jr. On September 7, 1822, the City transferred the cemetery plot to the Congregation of Christ Church Corporation (Episcopal), a religious corporation created by Acts, approved July 3, 1805 and May 2, 1806, of the Legislative Acts of the Territory of Orleans. The sale contained the following provision: The cemetery, located in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Square bounded by South Liberty, Magnolia, Cypress and Perilliat Streets, is a large rectangular tract measuring approximately 593 by 200 feet. The City of New Orleans alleged that the cemetery was in an unsanitary condition and in a state of ruin and decay. The record conclusively shows this to be true. The trial judge, after personally visiting the cemetery, aptly described the condition as follows: The following description of the cemetery as contained in the book, "Gumbo Ya-Ya," compiled by Lyle Saxon, Edward Dreyer, and Robert Tallant, published in 1945, is quoted from defendant's brief: Thus we have a logical conclusion of abandonment by relativesabandonment by those whose obligation and duty it was to maintain the vaults in a proper state of repair. The wording of the cemetery deeds provide for such. So does section three of Ordinance No. 3174 of the Common Council of the City of New Orleans, approved December 26, 1856. The Church was in no way responsible for the upkeep of individual tombs, which had always been by private agreement between the sexton and the interested parties. In determining the right of the City of New Orleans to expropriate, the following law is applicable: An examination of the testimony of the City Engineer and the Director of the Planning Commission of the City of New Orleans shows that the particular portion of land herein involved is vitally needed for street purposes. We are convinced that the expropriation cannot be diverted from that proposed by plaintiff without great loss and inconvenience. LSA-R.S. 19:2(1); LSA-R.S. 19:3; City of New Orleans *859 v. Crawford, La.App., 9 So. 2d 82; Motion adopted by the Commission Council of the City of New Orleans, July 30, 1953, providing for the expropriation of the instant property. The curator-ad-hoc argues that public policy and good morals require that an area once dedicated as a cemetery should remain so dedicated and should not be expropriated. In the case of Humphreys v. Bennett Oil Corporation, 195 La. 531, 197 So. 222, 229, we stated: We believe that there are reasons why property which has been dedicated and used for public purposes does not become so dedicated in perpetuity. Particularly is this true when the ground so dedicated has become an abuse rather than a holy use. The expropriation of a cemetery for the use, comfort, welfare and health of the living is not unreasonable, unnatural, impolitic or unjust. Choppin v. Dauphin, 48 La.Ann. 1217, 20 So. 681, 33 L.R.A. 133; Duplantis v. Chauvin, 182 La. 281, 161 So. 610; Reichelt v. St. Vincent De Paul Cemetery Association, 10 Orleans App. 100. We again quote from the reasons for judgment given by the learned judge of the Civil District Court: In the case of In re Board of Street Openings and Improvements, etc., 133 N.Y. 329, 31 N.E. 102, 104, 16 L.R.A. 180, the court stated: In the case of United States v. Sixty Acres, More or Less, of land in Williamson County, Ill., D.C., 28 F. Supp. 368, 374, we find the statement: "It is true, and universally recognized, that cemeteries and grounds for the burial of the dead are sacred places entitled to respect and to public and private defense against unwarranted trespass and invasion. Indeed, every *860 civilized state, including Illinois, has laws, both civil and criminal, calculated to protect these homes of the dead from invasion and desecration. Nevertheless, both on principle and authority, the law seems to be that the use of a tract of land as a public cemetery or private burial ground cannot preclude the taking thereof by state or nation by power of eminent domain for a necessary public use or by a state in the reasonable exercise of its police power, even though such taking may require the removal of the bodies. Scanlan's Treatise on The Law of Church and Grave, p. 458; Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law (2d ed.) Col. 5, p. 783; 6 Cyc. 715; 14 C.J.S., Cemeteries, § 25, p. 85; Bessemer Land & Improvement Co. v. Jenkins, 111 Ala. 135, 18 So. 565, 56 Am.St.Rep. 26; Partridge v. First Independent Church, 39 Md. 631, 637; In Matter of Board of Street Opening, etc., 133 N.Y. 329, 31 N.E. 102, 16 L.R.A. 180, 28 Am.St.Rep. 640; Campbell v. Kansas City, 102 Mo. 326, 13 S.W. 897, 10 L.R.A. 593." We see no need to discuss the contention that $1.50 per square foot was not a sufficient valuation for the property. The undisputed testimony is that $2.00 a foot is the value for the highest possible use. For the purpose here involved, both the City and the Church have agreed to a price of $1.50 per square foot for the 20,496.94 square feet to be taken. All remains will be reinterred elsewhere with perpetual care, thus imposing no monetary loss upon those the curator-ad-hoc represents. The third assignment of error is that the City could not demand removal of the cemetery to another location by virtue of its title reservation and/or by virtue of the cemetery's constituting a public health menace. The act of sale by which the City sold the property to Christ Church contains a stipulation that the City Council reserved the right to change the location of the cemetery. Burial certificates read as follows: All parties herein involved, under the above deeds and stipulations, were apprised of the conditions of the sales. The City in its proprietary and governmental municipal capacity has chosen to exercise its power of expropriation which had been previously acknowledged by contract. "The ownership of tombs and burial lots is acquired under such regulations and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by the owners of the *861 cemetery, and are not subject to the general laws, relative to the transfer of real estate." Petit v. Depass, 5 La.App. 40; Syllabus by the Court. In the case of Reichelt v. St. Vincent De Paul Cemetery Association, 10 Orleans App. 100, the Court stated: It is urged that the original contract of sale to the City of New Orleans contained a resolutory condition. Articles 2013 and 2045 of the LSA-Civil Code. The curator-ad-hoc relies upon the following condition: To support his contention, the curator-ad-hoc cites the case of Board of Trustees of Columbia Road Methodist Episcopal Church of Bogalusa v. Richardson, 216 La. 633, 44 So. 2d 321. In that case, which involved a donation, we held that a donee of land was bound to execute the charges imposed on him by the act of donation. In the instant case, we have an outright sale of property for a cash consideration. The act of sale recited that the vendee intended to use the land for cemetery purposes. No perpetuity was attached to the purpose which was carried out by the vendee. No statement was made that the condition was mandatory. We agree with the trial judge that the condition was permissive and precatory. It was with a prophetic eye that the poet of the day saw the dawning of a great transition period, and so he exclaimed to the world to ring out the old and to ring in the new. The old has been rung out, and the new rung in by keeping in step with progress and development. We cannot allow any determent of expansion by a beating of the living with the bones of the dead. For the reasons, assigned, the judgments of the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans are affirmed. HAMITER, J., concurs in the decree. McCALEB, J., recused.