Case Name: Agricole Armant, Testamentary Executor, vs. New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1889-12
Citations: 41 La. Ann. 1020
Docket Number: No. 10,397
Parties: Agricole Armant, Testamentary Executor, vs. New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 41
Pages: 1020–1022

Head Matter:
No. 10,397.
Agricole Armant, Testamentary Executor, vs. New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company.
1. Tho dccrco of a court of competent jurisdiction appointing a testamentary executor who has duly qualified stands as prima facie valid; and an exception to the capacity of the executor, not putting at issue tint regularity of his appointment and qualification, hut based on grounds extraneous to the. probate proceeding, throws on flic exceptor the burden of proving them, and, in absence of prooí', the exception, is properly overruled.
2. Dividends declared on stock in corporations, like irregular deposits in. banks, are payable on demand, and until demand and refusal, prescription does not begin to run against tlie l>crson entitled.
3. Where the stock of an expiring corporation is merged, into the stock of a new one, organized as its successor, acquiring its franchises and assumiug its obligations, a provision inserted in the charter of the new company forfeiting dividends not claimed within three years from the time when declared, is not binding upon the old stockholders except from the time when, expressly or by implication, they consent thereto by assuming the quality of stockholders in the new company. An old stockholder who has been ignorant of liis rights and of the transfer and who claims his dividends as soon as informed of their existence, cannot be affected by such provision except in futuro.
APPEAL from the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Rkjhior, J,
T. J. Semines cD Legendre for Plaintiff and Appellee :
A debtor cannot inquire into the validity or invalidity of bis creditor’s will. Heirs and creditors alone can attack contracts and donations made to their xmojudice. The debtor of an estate cannot object to an administration of it on the ground that it owes no debts. Heirs alone can urge that objection. A decree appointing an administrator or executor cannot be attacked collaterally. 28 Ann. 807; 30 Ann. 269.
A precarious possession cannot serve as the basis of prescription acquirendi cama.. To acquire property by prescription one must possess as owner. C. O. 3510.
Prescription against an action to recover dividends on stocks runs only from demand on the corporation for payment of same. 34 Ann. 576; 30 Anil.486; 32 Ann.483; 20 ^nn. 381 ; 23 Ann. 300; 11 Pennsylvania 417.
The act of incorporation of the How Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company, granted by the Legislature in 1833, and accepted by the stockholders thereof, is a contract.
Rights acquired under it cannot bo impaired or destroyed. 32 Ann. 1069: Morawetz on Corporations, sections 53, 196,191; Angelí on Corporations, sections 333, 335; Field on Corporations, sections 75, 76.
Under Article 3 of the Charter of 1882 the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company, defendant herein, expressly assumed the debts, contracts and obligations oí' the company organized in 1833.
John M. .Bonner for Defendant and Appellant:
Where a succession has been fully administered-and whore there are no debts to be paid a dative testamentary executor should not be appointed twenty-eight years after the death of the testator to bring suit, but the action should be brought in the names of the heirs.
An action to recover di\ idends on certificates of stock issued by a corporation is a personal action and is prescribed by ten years. R. C. C. 3544; 32 A nn. 488; 34 Ann. 825.
The charter of a eorporetion constitutes a contract between the corporation and its stockholders, and an art-iclo of the charter providing that dividends not called for in three years shall revert, to the company is valid and binding* on the stockholders.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered hy
Fenner, J.
An exception was filed to the right of plaintiff to stand in judgment as testamentary executor on the grounds that the will under which he was appointed is invalid; that, if invalid, it is not shown that it has not been completely executed; and that, as there are no debts due by the succession, in this State, there is no necessity for an executor or administrator.
Tiie exception does not deny that the plaintiff has been regularly appointed and qualified as executor under the decree of a court of competent jurisdiction. Such a decree must be treated as prima facie valid; and even il' it were conceded, argv,mentí gratia, that defendant, a. mere debtor of the succession,- could attack it in this collateral way. yet as the grounds of the attack are matters extraneous to the probate proceeding, the burden of proof would lie on him, and he has offered no evidence whatever on the subject.