Case Name: Louise HEBERT v. FIRST GUARANTY BANK, et al.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1986-06-24
Citations: 493 So. 2d 150
Docket Number: No. CA 85 0614
Parties: Louise HEBERT v. FIRST GUARANTY BANK, et al.
Judges: Before EDWARDS, LANIER and JOHN S. COVINGTON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 493
Pages: 150–169

Head Matter:
Louise HEBERT v. FIRST GUARANTY BANK, et al.
No. CA 85 0614.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.
June 24, 1986.
Dissenting Opinion Aug. 12, 1986.
Hobart 0. Pardue, Jr., Springfield, for Louise Hebert.
Robert Rooth, New Orleans, for First Guar. Bank, et al.
Before EDWARDS, LANIER and JOHN S. COVINGTON, JJ.

Opinion:
JOHN S. COVINGTON, Judge.
This suit for damages arose out of action taken by defendant bank's officer, Raymond Schafer, a co-defendant, in "picking up" Louise Hebert's 1977 Lincoln Continental automobile in Jackson, Mississippi on May 7, 1981 without benefit of a writ of seizure and without obtaining a release of the vehicle by Mrs. Hebert.
Mrs. Hebert purchased the vehicle from an automobile dealer in Ponchatoula on January 30, 1981 for $6,350.00; she received a trade-in allowance of $1,850.00 for her old car and made a cash payment of $400.00. She borrowed the remainder of the purchase price, plus sales tax and transfer fees, from First Guaranty Bank, hereafter First Guaranty. When the dealer's attempt to re-title the traded-in vehicle failed because Mrs. Hebert had not obtained a Louisiana title, the dealer informed First Guaranty that some additional sales tax would have to be collected from Mrs. Hebert in order to straighten out the title problem. Defendant Schafer and two other bank employees tried, without success, to communicate with Mrs. Hebert concerning the problem by calling the telephone number she gave First Guaranty, calling an attorney who was handling some litigation she initiated against her children and by going to the residence listed on the loan application and where she had resided since her husband died in August, 1980.
On May 7, 1981 an employee of First Guaranty received an anonymous telephone call in which the caller informed the employee the car on which First Guaranty held a security interest was at a specified address in Jackson, Mississippi. That same day defendant Schafer and Mr. McCormick, a bank employee, went to that address and found the car and observed that it had sustained physical damage. Mrs. Hebert saw Mr. Schafer as he knocked on the door of a residence adjacent to the car and went to him. Mrs. Hebert, Mr. Schafer and Mr. McCormick went into the house and Mr. Shafer explained the sales tax and titling problem and also informed Mrs. Hebert there was no insurance in force on the car and that she had removed the vehicle from Tangipahoa Parish without permission, a condition stated in First Guaranty's unper-fected chattel mortgage. While the testimony of Mrs. Hebert and that of Messrs. Schafer and McCormick vastly differ regarding what motivated her to give the ignition key to Mr. Schafer, it is undisputed that she gave the key to him and he drove the car to Ponchatoula that afternoon, departing Jackson after 5:00 p.m.
Mrs. Hebert's trial and appeal counsel wrote a letter, dated May 18, 1981, to First Guaranty, directed to Mr. Schafer's attention, in which he stated that "you seized her vehicle in the State of Mississippi and took it without authorization" and that Mr. Schafer or his attorney should contact him "in an attempt to settle this dispute over this illegal seizure." Mr. Schafer responded to the letter by a telephone call to the attorney whom he informed that Mrs. Hebert had asked him to drive the car to Ponchatoula and that she would be there the next day to straighten out the title and other problems. In August Mrs. Hebert went to Mr. Schafer's home, where the car had been removed after having been parked in First Guaranty's parking lot a disputed period of time, and removed clothing and other personal property from the trunk of the car. No payments were made on the car loan after Mr. Schafer "picked it up."
On September 15, 1981 First Guaranty filed its petition for executory process to enforce its security interest. The petition alleged that Mrs. Hebert was "a resident of the County of Hinds, City of Jackson, State of Mississippi" and prayed that a curator ad hoc be appointed to represent "the absentee defendant." A curator was appointed and he placed a "whereabouts" notice in The Tangi Talk, a newspaper published in Amite. Neither First Guaranty nor its employees or its attorney furnished any Jackson address at which Mrs. Hebert might receive mail. The car was sold in due course, at a Sheriff's sale, to First Guaranty for $500.00. Mr. Pardue, who wrote the May 18,1981 letter to Mr. Schafer, was not contacted by anyone from First Guaranty before the suit for executory process was filed or before the car was sold at public auction. The curator received no response to his "whereabouts" advertisement which ran twice.
On May 6, 1982, Mrs. Hebert filed this suit in which she sought damages totaling $301,500.00 for loss of vehicle, loss of use of vehicle, embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish, medical expense, physical pain and suffering, permanent scarring, and permanent disability. At trial the only items of damage for which she offered any proof were embarrassment, humiliation, mental anguish, and loss of the vehicle.
After a two day bench trial the trial court took the matter under advisement and subsequently awarded Mrs. Hebert $2,634.08, representing the value of the car she traded in when she bought the subject vehicle, plus the cash down payment and the installment notes paid on the car loan. Additionally, the court awarded $15,000.00 "for the mental anguish and distress she suffered as a result of illegal seizure."
Defendants suspensively appealed the December 21, 1984 judgment.
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
Defendants assign as errors the trial court's:
1. Denying defendants' motion to disqualify Mrs. Hebert's attorney "due to his importance as a witness at trial";
2. Admitting into evidence and considering the depositions of Messrs. Virgil Hutchinson and Alvin Dinger, Jr., without first having required Mrs. Hebert prove their unavailability for testimony at trial;
3. Finding that Mrs. Hebert's "relinquishment of her automobile to First Guaranty and its employees was involuntary";
4. Finding that First Guaranty "improperly withheld information regarding the plaintiff's location and her representation by" trial and appeal counsel "from the curator ad hoc appointed" in the executory process suit;
5. Abusing its discretion in its award of damages to the plaintiff;
6. Failing to "compensate or set off against the trial court's judgment in favor of the plaintiff First Guaranty's judgment on its reconventional demand on an unrelated promissory note.
MOTION TO DISQUALIFY PLAINTIFF'S COUNSEL
Defendants assert that The Code of Professional Responsibility, notably DR 5-101(B) and DR 5-102, are authority for their proposition that plaintiff's trial counsel should have been disqualified by the trial court because "his testimony was needed at trial by both his client and by the defendants on two related subjects," one of which was "his conversations with Mr. Schafer after the alleged seizure" and the other relative to "the date when he began representing Mrs. Hebert and the scope of such representation." We have determined, from the record as a whole, that trial counsel's role was not compromised because of the conversations he had with First Guaranty's officer and find as a fact that his representation began at least on the date he wrote to First Guaranty regarding the "picking up" of the vehicle in Mississippi. Thus, we find no merit to defendants' first assignment of error.
HUTCHINSON AND DINGER DEPOSITIONS
Defendants argue that plaintiff did not prove either Mr. Hutchinson or Mr. Dinger were unavailable for testimony at trial and, under La.C.C.P. art. 1450, their depositions were improperly admitted into evidence pursuant to Mrs. Hebert's offer. The depositions were taken at the behest of defendants and the deposition subpoenae were served on both men who responded to those subpoenas. In response to defendants' interrogatory that plaintiff "identify every witness you will call or may call to testify at the trial of this matter," plaintiff supplied the names of Messrs. Hutchinson and Dinger and four other persons. The record does not contain a formal pre-trial order and we are not aware of any formal pre-trial procedure in existence in the district court of Tangipahoa Parish at the time this litigation was running its course.
The depositions were taken on September 20, 1984 at the Livingston Parish Courthouse and the trial was held on September 25 and 26,1984. Defendants' counsel argues that
. These two individuals' deposition testimony was particularly incredible, for they claimed to have eavesdropped, along with several others, on the conversation between Mr. Schafer, Mr. McCormick, and Mrs. Hebert, without their presence beipg noticed. . In short, their unbelievable testimony coupled with the defendant's (sic) difficulty in serving them with deposition subpoenae and Mrs. Hebert's use of the depositions as trial testimony smacks of contrivance and complicity.
Defendants contend that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence the two depositions, arguing that
. Because Mrs. Hebert had indicated that these two individuals would be testifying at trial and because Mr. Pardue [trial counsel] never indicated that these witnesses would be unavailable, [defendants'] undersigned counsel took the depositions for discovery purposes only. . [He] did not notice their depositions for the perpetuation of evidence. (See attached notice of deposition.) (Emphasis and bracketing are ours.)
Our examination of the record reveals that defendants' notice of depositions does not state on its face the purpose or purposes for which the depositions were to be taken. Additionally, we have noted earlier that defendants' interrogatory requesting the identities of potential witnesses did not request plaintiff to specify which of the named persons would be "may call" witnesses and which others would be "will call" witnesses. The interrogatory simply asked plaintiff to "identify every witness you will call or may call to testify at the trial ."
Each deposition was preceded with the language that counsel for defendants and plaintiff stipulated that the deposition "is hereby being taken for all purposes, under Article 1421 et seq. of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, in accordance with law, pursuant to notice, ." The joint stipulations' of counsel at the depositions, in combination with the notice of depositions, convinces us that no limitations were placed on the use of the deposition testimony and defendants' argument that such testimony was for discovery purposes only is self-serving and totally without merit. We do not accept defendants' argument that Town of Church Point v. Carriere, 463 So.2d 986 (La.App. 3d Cir.1985), "shows clearly that the depositions [of Hutchinson and Dinger] should have been excluded."
In Carriere, Judge King, dissenting in part and concurring in part, dissented "from the majority holding that a deposition of a witness is admissible in evidence at the time of a trial on the merits in lieu of the presence of the witness, because of an ambiguous stipulation made at the time of the taking of the deposition, without the requirements of LSA-C.C.P. Art. 1450 being first met." 463 So.2d at 992. Judge King concurred in the result reached by the majority "even though the deposition of the appraiser was improperly admitted into evidence" because "the result would be the same" without the deposition, thus the "improper admission" was, in his view, "only harmless error."
Judge Stoker, for the majority in Carri-ere, observed that the attorneys stipulated at the deposition that "this deposition is being taken for all purposes" and, in the majority's opinion, "[t]his stipulation is ambiguous," reasoning that:
. Without the introductory clause of the stipulation the "all purposes" provision would seem to permit use of the deposition at trial, saving, of course, any objections from an evidentiary standpoint which would have been valid had the testimony been taken in court as part of the trial.
. [I]f the depositions were ruled inadmissible, the result would be the same. . Under the circumstances the Town proved its case even without the testimony of Kirney Thibodeaux; therefore, if admission of his deposition was error, it was harmless error.
463 So.2d at 989-990. (Brackets supplied.)
PROOF
In the present case, the trial court had enough live testimony to determine that Mrs. Hebert had proved her case by the required preponderance of evidence, without utilizing any of the deposition testimony. As our Supreme Court reasoned in Canter v. Koehring Company, 283 So.2d 716 (La.1973):
. [T]he reviewing court must give great weight to the factual conclusions of the trier of fact; where there is conflict in the testimony, reasonable evaluations of credibility and reasonable inferences of fact should not be disturbed upon review, even though the appellate court may feel that its own evaluations and inferences are as reasonable .
283 So.2d at 724. (Emphasis supplied.)
We observed in Sanchez v. Viccinelli, 473 So.2d 335 (La.App. 1st Cir.1985) that "[tjhedistrict judge evaluated the live testimony of witnesses for plaintiff and for defendants and his evaluation will not be disturbed unless it is found to be clearly wrong," citing Arceneaux v. Domingue, 365 So.2d 1330 (La.1978). Our scrutiny of the record fails to reveal that the trial judge committed manifest error in finding that defendants committed the tort known at common law as wrongful conversion of property, an intentional tort.
COMPARATIVE NEGLIGENCE
Defendants argue that Mrs. Hebert "proved no damages" and, in the alternative, that the damages awarded her were excessive for two reasons, the first being "her testimony of her anguish did not support the award" and the second being the trial court's failing to reduce the award "by that amount for which Mrs. Hebert was responsible due to her own comparative negligence." Applying the rationale of Arceneaux v. Domingue and Canter v. Koehring, we find no manifest error in the trial court's finding that Mrs. Hebert established she experienced mental pain, anguish, humiliation, and embarrassment because of the wrongful conversion of her property and that there was a causal connection between the wrong done and the injuries she sustained.
Defendants cite no authority for their proposition that Mrs. Hebert's damages should be reduced because she was allegedly comparatively negligent.
Restatement of Torts (2nd), § 481 (1977), and comments thereto, states, in pertinent part, as follows:
§ 481
The plaintiff's contributory negligence does not bar recovery against a defendant for a harm caused by conduct of the defendant which is wrongful because it is intended to cause harm to some legally protected interest of the plaintiff or a third person.
Comment B:
This section states that the plaintiff is not barred from a recovery against an intentional wrongdoer by his contributory negligence .
Prosser & Keaton on Torts (5th Ed., 1984), § 65, states the inapplicability of contributory negligence to an intentional tort as follows:
The ordinary contributory negligence of the plaintiff is to be set over against the ordinary negligence of the defendant, to bar the action, but where the defendant's conduct is actually intended to inflict harm upon the plaintiff, there is a difference, not merely in degree, but in the kind of fault; and the defense has never been extended to such intentional torts. Thus, it is no defense to assault or battery. The same is true of that aggravated form of negligence, approaching intent, which has been characterized variously as "willful, " "wanton" or "reckless" as to which all courts have held that ordinary negligence on the part of the plaintiff will not bar recovery. Such conduct differs from negligence not only in degree but in kind, and in the social condemnation attached to it. At page 462. (Emphasis supplied.)
Our research fails to reveal any Louisiana case law applying either contributory negligence or comparative fault in the context of an intentional tort setting. The case law of most jurisdictions does not allow either contributory negligence or comparative fault as a defense to an intentional tort. See Woods, Comparative Fault, infra. Wrongful conversion is an intentional tort and recovery therefor is not barred by contributory negligence. Comparative negligence, which has taken the place of contributory negligence in Louisiana, is likewise not applicable to reduce the damages to which the victim of an intentional tort is entitled. Woods, H., Comparative Fault, § 7.1 and 7.2. (The Lawyers Co-Operative Publishing Co., 1978).
Defendants' third and fifth assignments of error, therefore, have no merit.
INFORMATION WITHHELD/PLAINTIFF'S WHEREABOUTS
The trial court found as a fact that On September 8, 1981 First Guaranty Bank filed an executory process suit against Louise M. Hebert, asking that a curator be appointed because the whereabouts of Mrs. Hebert were unknown. The bank [neither] made [an] effort to give the curator any information as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Hebert nor did [it] . notify the curator that Mrs. Hebert had been represented by Mr. Hobart Pardue, Jr. despite the fact that the bank had received a letter from Mr. Pardue on May 18,1981 indicating that he did represent Mrs. Hebert.
(Brackets supplied.)
Based on the record as a whole, we are unable to say that the trial judge was manifestly erroneous in finding that First Guaranty and its employees, including defendant Schafer, improperly withheld information regarding Mrs. Hebert's whereabouts and her representation by Mr. Par-due. Accordingly, the fourth assignment of error is without merit.
OFFSET FOR JUDGMENT ON RECONVENTIONAL DEMAND
On December 22, 1983 First Guaranty filed a pleading styled "Supplemental, Amending, and Superseding Petition and Reconventional Demand," virtually all of which set out its reconventional demand seeking payment of a promissory note made by Mrs. Hebert on December 31, 1980, "made payable to the order of the bank . on February 30, (sic) 1981," in the original amount of $1,049.64. The recon-ventional demand was served by mail on Mr. Pardue, Mrs. Hebert's counsel in the main demand. Judgment by default was read, rendered, and signed on February 23, 1984 by District Judge Gordon E. Causey.
First Guaranty argues that it was error for the trial court not to offset its judgment which had a value of $1,926.78 on December 21, 1984, the date of the judgment in favor of Mrs. Hebert in the amount of $17,634.08, with legal interest from date of judicial demand.
The code articles governing compensation or offset, in force when both judgments were rendered, were La.C.C. arts. 2209 and 2210. Article 2209 stated, in pertinent part, as follows:
Compensation takes place only between two debts, having equally for their object a sum of money, or a certain quantity of consumable things of one and the same kind, and which are equally liquidated and demandable.
Former Article 2209 has been modified, expanded, and redesignated as Article 1893 by Act 331 of 1984, effective January 1, 1985. Article 1893 states, in pertinent part, that:
Compensation takes place by operation of law when two persons owe to each other sums of money or quantities of fungible things identical in kind, and these sums or quantities are liquidated and presently due.
In such a case, compensation extinguishes both obligations to the extent of the lesser amount.
Article 2210, redesignated as Article 1894 by Act 331 of 1984, provided, in part, that "Compensation takes place, whatever be the causes of either of the debts, except in case: 1. Of a demand of restitution of a thing of which the owner has been unjustly deprived."
In Tolbird v. Cooper, 243 La. 306, 143 So.2d 80 (1962), the Supreme Court, per Hawthorne, J., treated the subject of compensation, in pertinent part, as follows:
That there are legal compensation and compensation by reconvention, or judicial compensation, has been expressly recognized in at least one case in Louisiana, . In a case then where there is a main demand and a demand in reconvention and the judge finds for each party and renders judgment for the difference between the amounts found to be owed, he thus effects compensation — a judicial compensation — whereby two payments are avoided.
The maxim "A party despoiled ought first of all to be restored" is as applicable to this kind of compensation for obvious reasons as it is to the legal compensation in the Code. The motive of equity is equally evident here. Where the plunderer sets up his opposing claim by way of reconvention, here also nothing ought to hinder the one plundered from being first of all restored. Here also it primes all other considerations. . There should be no balancing of the amounts found to be owed to avoid two payments. The party despoiled is entitled to be restored above all, and in this case two payments are necessary.
143 So.2d at 85. (Emphasis supplied.)
In Neff v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 347 So.2d 1228 (La.App. 1st Cir.1977), this Court rejected Ford's contention that the trial court erred when it "failed to consider Ford's claim raised in its supplemental answer that it is entitled to a 'set-off' for the remaining unpaid balance due on the note . at the time the executory proceedings were instituted ." Judge Cole (now Justice Cole), for the Court, reasoned, in part, as follows:
. Ford's claim for a "set-off," or compensation raised by affirmative answer is in reality a reconventional demand for a deficiency judgment. See La.-C.C.arts. 2207-2216; La.-C.C.P. arts. 2771, 2772. However, Ford is not entitled to a deficiency judgment because of its failure to follow the formalities of service of the notice of seizure upon the plaintiff as required by the provisions of executory proceedings. .
Additionally, the debt which appellant [Ford] seeks to interpose against the damages awarded is not compensable. La.-C.C. art. 2210(1) .
The present suit is for the restitution, or value, of a thing of which Ms. Neff has been unjustly deprived and falls within the exception provided for by this provision of law [La.-C.C. art. 2210(1) ]. It is well settled that a set-off or compensation is not allowable in a suit for tortious or wrongful conversion. See Hitt v. Herndon, 116 La. 497, 117 So. 568 (1928); Tolbird v. Cooper, [supra].
347 So.2d at 1232. (Brackets and emphasis supplied.)
The present case is one of tortious or wrongful conversion for which defendants were cast in judgment, not only for the value of the automobile used as a trade in, the cash down-payment, and the two installments made on the loan, but also general damages compensating Mrs. Hebert for the mental pain and anguish she experienced as a result of the tortious conversion of her property. Therefore, we hold that First Guaranty's argument that it is entitled to off-set its judgment obtained in its reconventional demand for the December 31, 1980 promissory note is without merit. The sixth assignment of error is without merit.
QUANTUM
Defendants argue that "an award of $15,000.00 for general damages in a wrongful seizure or tortious conversion case is simply too high when compared to other similar Louisiana cases."
In Reck v. Stevens, 373 So.2d 498 (La.1979), the late Justice Albert Tate, Jr., for the Court, reiterated the well-established principle found in the Civil Code that in the assessment of general damages "much discretion must be left to the [trial] judge or jury," citing and characterizing Gaspard v. LeMaire, 245 La. 239, 158 So.2d 149 (1963) as "the fountainhead decision of modem jurisprudence interpreting and applying this [article 1934(3)] code provision." 373 So.2d at 499. Justice Tate observed in Reck that the Supreme Court had "elaborated on the methodology of appellate review of awards for general damages in Coco v. Winston Industries, Inc.," 341 So.2d 332 (La.1977), and reasoned, in part, as follows:
Before a trial court award may be questioned as inadequate or excessive, the reviewing court must look first, not to prior awards, but to the individual circumstances of the present case. Only after analysis of the facts and circumstances peculiar to this case and this individual may a reviewing court determine that the award is excessive [or inadequate].
Thus, the initial inquiry must always be directed at whether the trier court's award for the particular injuries and their effects upon this particular injured person is, a clear abuse of the trier of fact's "much discretion," . in the award of damages. It is only after articulated analysis of the facts discloses an abuse of discretion, that the award may on appellate review, for articulated reason, be considered either excessive, ., or insufficient, . Only after such determination of abuse has been reached, is a resort to prior awards appropriate under Coco for purposes. of then determining what would be an appropriate award for the present case.
373 So.2d at 501. (Brackets, elipsis and emphasis supplied.)
Based on our analysis of the record, we find no abuse of the trial court's "much discretion"' in awarding general damages of $15,000.00. We therefore are not required to "resort to prior awards" in determining the question of general damages. Defendants' fifth assignment of error is without merit.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed in all respects. Defendants are cast for costs of this appeal.
. AFFIRMED.
EDWARDS, J., concurs in the result.
LANIER, J., dissents and assigns reasons.