Case Name: ESTOPINAL v. VOGT et al.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1908-06-22
Citations: 121 La. 883
Docket Number: No. 17,008
Parties: ESTOPINAL v. VOGT et al.
Judges: BREAUX, O. J., concurs.
Reporter: Louisiana Reports
Volume: 121
Pages: 884–886

Head Matter:
(46 South. 908.)
No. 17,008.
ESTOPINAL v. VOGT et al.
(June 22, 1908.)
1. Elections — Votees—* ‘Residence. ’ ’
The term “residence,” used by the Constitution in fixing the qualification of voters, does not mean domicile.
[Ed. Note. — For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 18, Elections, §§ 67-74.
For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, vol. 7, pp. 6151-6161; vol. 8, p. 7788.]
2. Same.
The object of requiring the voter to have resided for a time at the place where he offers to vote is that he may be afforded an opportunity to acquire the information necessary for an intelligent vote and become identified with the interests of the locality, and also to prevent the colonization of voters.
3. Domicile — Evidence.
In the absence of proof that a person otherwise qualified has acquired a residence elsewhere, he must be considered to be a resident of the parish where his work requires him to stay, where he was born, and where he has always lived and voted; and it makes no difference that he has never had in said parish any other home than a boarding house, while he has had in another parish a home where he has kept his wife and children, whom he has visited as often as he could.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Appeal from Twenty-Ninth Judicial District Court, Parish of Plaquemines, Nemours Henry Núñez, Judge.
Separate actions by B. F. Estopinal against George Vogt, George Zibilich, Louis Zettwock, Peter Vogt, George W. Loga, and W. P. Loga, consolidated on appeal. Judgments for plain•tiff, and defendants appeal.
Affirmed as to W. P. Loga, and set aside as to the other defendants.
John Dymond, Jr., for appellants. Warren. Doyle, for appellee.

Opinion:
PROVO STY, J.
Six separate suits against as many defendants have been consolidated in this appeal, and have been submitted without brief. The object of the suits is to have the defendants stricken from the registration roll of the parish of Plaquemines fot the alleged reason that they are not residents of the parish. The defendants, except W. P. Loga, are river pilots, plying their vocation between the head of the passes at the mouth of the Misssissippi river and the city of New Orleans. To be at hand when needed, they have to remain constantly, when off duty, at the head of the passes, at Pilot Town, a sort of village. The place is next to uninhabitable; the land being low and marshy, and most of the time covered by water, and also exposed to the storms from the Gulf. On that account the pilots keep their families in New Orleans, while they themselves live at Pilot Town in a boarding house, or home, which they maintain at common expense. What proportion of their time is spent with their families the record does not show.
The defendants Geo. W. Loga, Louis Zettwock, and Geo. Zibilich are shown to have been born in the parish of Plaquemines, and are not shown to have ever resided or voted elsewhere. The defendant Geo. Vogt has for the last 15 years resided in the parish of Plaquemines, except during two years, when he was serving his apprenticeship as a river pilot. It is not shown of what place Peter Vogt is a native; but he had lived at Pilot Town four or five years before becoming a river pilot.
W. P. Loga is not one of the pilots. He was cook for the Pilot Association for a while, and during that time had a home below Pilot Town, where he owns a piece of property. Where he lived before that the record does not show. At the time of the trial of this •suit he had been gone from the parish of Plaquemines for two years, and no one knew his whereabouts, except that it was thought he was in Texas on a government dredge boat.
Upon this evidence, for the reasons assigned in the case of B. F. Estopinal v. Bernard Michel, Jr., et al. (this day decided) 46 South. 907, we think that all the defendants, except W. P. Loga, are shown to be residents of the parish of Plaquemines.
The judgments appealed from are therefore affirmed as to W. P. Loga, and are set •aside as to the other defendants; and as to these other defendants the suits of plaintiff •are dismissed, with costs in both courts.
BREAUX, O. J., concurs.
ante, p. 879.