Case Name: Succession of Miss Edna C. HAUSSER
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1975-10-09
Citations: 320 So. 2d 614
Docket Number: No. 6956
Parties: Succession of Miss Edna C. HAUSSER.
Judges: Before REDMANN, LEMMON, GU-LOTTA, BOUTALL and SCHOTT, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 320
Pages: 614–621

Head Matter:
Succession of Miss Edna C. HAUSSER.
No. 6956.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Oct. 9, 1975.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 11, 1975.
Writ Refused Jan. 7, 1976.
Guy B. Scoggin, Legier, McEnerny, Waguespack, Kuhner & Scoggin, New Orleans, for J. Clarence Hirsch.
P. Fred Siegel, New Orleans, for Gerard Hausser.
C. Ellis Henican, Jr., New Orleans, J. Wayne Mumphrey, Chalmette, for Margaret A. Chutz, Lavinia Alice Chutz, John Alvin Chutz, II and Gerard A. Chutz.
Felicien Y. Lozes, New Orleans, for Allan Jaffe and E. Lorenz Borenstein.
Before REDMANN, LEMMON, GU-LOTTA, BOUTALL and SCHOTT, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
The legatees of the proceeds of testatrix's immovable property appeal from the dismissal of their opposition to a private sale of decedent's home in the New Orleans Vieux Carre proposed by the executor. The legatees oppose the proposed sale for $100,000 cash because $110,000 cash had been offered (about two weeks after the first offer). We sustain their opposition and reverse.
Testatrix died December 14, 1973. Her will named her "friend and long-time adviser, J. Clarence Hirsch," her executor. The will provides: "I hereby instruct my executor to convert into cash, under the circumstances which, in his judgment, seem to be most appropriate, all my real estate, and the net proceeds therefrom, I give and bequeath" to opponents (70% to one and 6% to each of the others).
Execution of the will was delayed by an attack on its validity by a niece, who was left the same 6% portion of the immovable proceeds as great-nieces and great-nephews. While that attack was pending the executor received inquiries about the property from both offerors here involved (and other persons as well), but declined to negotiate because of the attack on the will. The attack was dismissed on joint motion with prejudice on October 9, 1974.
On October 23, 1974, the attorney for interests which owned an adjacent small hotel contacted Hirsch to reassert interest in purchasing. However, the attorney explained that a "hotel moratorium" required assurance from City and Vieux Carre Commission authorities that the property could be used as intended, and for this reason a firm offer could not immediately be made. Hirsch advised this prospective purchaser to "fish or cut bait" within the remaining two days of that week. On October 29, Hirsch received and accepted (subject to court approval) the $100,000 cash offer, which was an acceptable offer in his judgment as an experienced real estate agent. On November 11, the adjacent hotel owners made an unconditional offer of $110,-000 cash in the name of a newly-formed corporation (with other terms of the offer being identical to those of the $100,000 offer, including a 10% cash deposit immediately upon acceptance).
When the executor nevertheless sought court approval of the proposed $100,000 sale, this opposition by the legatees resulted.
We first note that, as legatees (affected by the sale), opponents are expressly authorized by law, C.C.P. 3283, to oppose the sale. Accordingly this case is not affected by Succession of Senkpiel, 1955, 227 La. 516, 79 So.2d 866, and Succession of Lustig, La.App.1959, 112 So.2d 760, which held third-party offerors unauthorized to oppose a private sale. Our executor cites especially Lustig's reasoning that "the Courts would be forced to accept bids, through written oppositions, ad infinitum . . . causing great delay in expeditiously handling" the succession. As to that reasoning, we observe that in Senkpiel the opposition, although disallowed, in fact caused a higher bid by the original offeror, and that that higher bid was the price fixed by the court for the sale. Thus the supreme court in Senkpiel did not share Lustig's apprehension over auction-by-opposition. See also Succession of Voland, La.App.1974, 296 So.2d 406, writ refused, La., 300 So.2d 184, indicating that the court can authorize the sale at a higher price than that advertised. On another possible effect of disallowed opposition, see In re Standard General Realty Co. Inc., La.App.1965, 173 So.2d 862, in which testimony on value by a dismissed opponent defeated the proposed sale.
We second note that opponents did not propose that a substitute sale be made, to the offeror of $110,000 (whose offer by its terms was irrevocable only through November; the trial court hearing was November 29, and judgment was December 19). However, if it be preferable for opponents whose opposition is based solely on a higher offer to ask the court not only to refuse approval of the lower offer but to grant approval for acceptance of the higher offer (as in Voland, thus avoiding Lustig's concern over auction-by-opposition), we find no authority obliging opponents to do more than simply oppose on the basis of the higher offer. To the contrary, In re Standard General Realty Co. Inc., supra, rejected a proposed private sale because the price was too low, while also rejecting attempted oppositions from third parties who wanted to offer higher prices.
We therefore consider the question to be whether the sole legatees of property's proceeds can successfully oppose a private sale at one price by showing only that a higher price has since been offered (although by the time of this appeal that offer has expired).
We deem it a basic and self-evident principle, founded on due process concepts, that interested heirs, legatees or creditors may not be forced to suffer a loss by a private sale of succession property by the succession representative for the lower of two prices offered on otherwise identical terms. This principle cannot be affected by the testatrix's direction to her executor to sell "under the circumstances which, in his judgment, seem to be most appropriate."
The executor's interpretation of his testamentary authority to support the lower-priced sale is defeated by C.C. 1573:
"The custom of willing by testament, by the intervention of a commissary or attorney in fact is abolished.
"Thus the institution of heir and all other testamentary dispositions committed to the choice of a third person are null, even should that choice have been limited to a certain .number of persons designated by the testator."
Because of art. 1573, a testator cannot directly authorize his executor to donate the testator's property to undésignated persons ; and the testator cannot indirectly do so, by authorizing his executor to "sell" property (to undesignated persons) at whatever price pleased the executor, irrespective of market value. Such an authorization would allow the executor to select a donee of part of the value of that property, by "selling" at, say, 10% of value, by which device the executor would effectively donate 90% of value to the "purchaser" (or, selling for 90%, thus donating 10%)- (Compare Succession of Baldwin, La.App.1975, 309 So.2d 808, annulling a will's provision that "checking account [and two savings and loan association certificates] be handled as [the executrix] sees fit.")
In our case, the testatrix herself named several legatees to receive only 6% each of the cash proceeds of her property: if her instructions to the executor are interpreted to authorize him to sell for $100,000 [why not $75,000? or $50,000?] in the face of a $110,000 offer, then that authorization enables him to select a stranger to be a beneficiary of $10,000 of value from the succession ($110,000 of property for $100,000) — and that $10,000 is more than the 6% that some legatees named by the testatrix herself will receive from the property.
Therefore we reject the executor's interpretation of the testamentary language as an authorization to him to sell for whatever price (or even whatever reasonable price) he wishes, and specifically for the lesser of two prices offered on otherwise identical terms.
The executor — himself a real estate broker by profession — expressed concern that he copld not consider a later offer after having accepted (subject to court approval) an earlier offer. In our view, that the succession representative had already conditionally accepted the first offer prior to receipt of the second is immaterial. He owes no obligation to the first offeror other than to present the offer to the court, and he owes this obligation only in his capacity of succession representative. The succession representative, unlike a broker, does not become the agent of both seller and buyer, but remains the representative of the succession exclusively, obliged only to the succession, and for the benefit of its creditors, heirs and legatees. "A succession representative is a fiduciary with respect to the succession . . . ," C.C.P. 3191, who "cannot in his personal capacity or as representative of any other person make any contracts with the succession . . . ," art. 3194 (emphasis added). Thus, even after conditionally accepting an offer, the succession representative cannot have any contractual relationship as the representative of the offeror. If, as in our case, a more advantageous offer is received after a first offer has been conditionally accepted, the succession representative has no obligation to the first offeror to reject the second offer. (One evident alternative, ordinarily, is to accept the second offer on the condition that the court both reject the first and approve the second offer.)
It could occur that a second offer should be rejected, because the second of-feror is irresponsible. Even if the higher offer promises a 10% cash deposit immediately on acceptance and the deposit is actually made, it is supposable that the succession could lose by accepting the higher offer. In our case, for example, the forfeit of an $11,000 deposit might not overcome áctual loss, if no other $100,000 offer could later be obtained and the property had ultimately to be sold for less than $89,- 000. (But query, whether such a loss is of any concern to the executor, when the legatees are all competent and unanimously oppose the $100,000 offer.)
In fact our higher offer did come from an "irresponsible" offeror, in the sense that the offeror was a newly-formed corporation without assets of its own. However, the uncontradicted testimony of its agent was that he had a cashier's check for the $11,000 deposit from his mother, the corporation's sole shareholder, who was also prepared to provide the balance of the price. In the absence of a showing that the two offers of $100,000 and $110,000 were substantially above market — a showing of a likelihood that a later sale would bring a price of less than $89,000 — the fact that the corporation which would have deposited $11,000 was otherwise judgment-proof does not by itself suffice to authorize the executor (or the trial court) to reject the $110,000 offer.
Much less should the higher offer be rejected when all the interested legatees are legally competent and unanimously oppose the sale at the lower price, and no creditor's interest is affected.
Although the $110,000 offer expired while the rule was under advisement in the trial court, the legatees by this appeal have unanimously persisted in their opposition to the $100,000 sale. They do run a risk of ultimate loss if they defeat this $100,-000 sale, and the property cannot later be sold for an equal or greater price. But it is their risk, and not the executor's risk nor any creditor's risk.
We may even assume that the trial court disbelieved the testimony of the corporate offeror's agent that he had an $11,000 cashier's check from the corporation's sole shareholder. The same reasoning applies: the risk is that of the legatees.
There may be limits on legatees' or heirs' rights to defeat a proposed private sale by the succession representative. Presumably the existence of creditors entitled to prompt payment might require approval of a sale at a price the heirs deem low. Presumably a showing that the property had been advertised for a lengthy period and that no better offer had been made might similarly justify approval of a sale opposed by the heirs, in order ultimately to bring the succession proceeding to a reasonably prompt conclusion. Even the necessity to pay death taxes, if shown despite the available procedures of estimate and extensions, might overcome the heirs' opposition. And, of course, lack of unanimity or competency among the heirs would eliminate entirely the argument that the heirs have the right to take the risk of losing a certain sale in the hope of a better sale.
None of these circumstances were shown to be present here. The legatees are competent and unanimous; death taxes were not shown to be pressing (although 12 months had passed since the death) j the property had been on the market only 20 days after termination of the will contest; there are no unpaid creditors (we do not decide how the will charges debts, to movables or immovables). We find no justification in our circumstances for rejecting these legatees' unanimous opposition to this private sale.
We finally add that, despite argument on the point, we do not consider whether the executor is entitled to a real estate agent s commission (either in addition to, or in lieu or as a measure of, executor's commission; see C.C.P. 3194, 3351 and 3353). The parties agreed on oral argument that this question would be decidable upon final account.
The judgment appealed from is reversed, and the opposition to the executor's application for authority to sell under the October 29, 1974 agreement is sustained.
SCHOTT, J., dissenting with written reasons.
. Evidently at some ultimate time the death tax collectors themselves might cause the sale of succession property to pay the taxes, despite any objection by the legatees, and arguably the executor's obligation to pay the taxes might give him a derivative right to override the wishes of the legatees. But that ultimate time does not occur 20 days after the will contest ends. The tax collectors could not themselves have forced a sale so swift: and the executor cannot claim entitlement to do so in the name of paying taxes.
. We note also that O.C.P. 3031 — 3033 entitle residuary legatees to be placed in possession even over the opposition of the executor. The term "residuary legatees" in the Code of Civil Procedure includes legatees under a universal title, C.C.P. 2826, and therefore includes legatees of all or a proportion of all of the immovables, C.C. 1612. Every legacy is "either universal, under a universal title, or under a particular title," C.C. 1605, and since a legacy of the sale proceeds of all or a portion of all the immovables seems to be neither universal nor under a particular title, it appears to be a legacy under a universal title, as is the legacy of the immovables themselves. (Compare Succession of Meyer, 1941, 198 La. 53, 3 So.2d 273, concluding that a legacy of the disposable portion is one under a universal title.) Thus the legatees of the proceeds of all the immovables might be entitled on their joint demand to be placed in possession even over the opposition of the executor, under C.C.P. arts. 3031-3033 (if all residuary legatees accepted the succession unconditionally, art. 3031). (The executor's entitlement to compensation is protected by art. 3033.) In such a case, the legatees might therefore have the right to prevent any sale at any price by demanding possession. This greater right would include the lesser right of preventing a proposed sale at a price they deem too low.
We also observe that unanimous legatees might insist that they themselves be allowed to "buy" or take on the basis of the price proposed by the executor and — since the net price belongs to themselves — pay nothing but the allocable charges.