Case Name: Miss Kate Nugent vs. John McCaffrey
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1881-03
Citations: 33 La. Ann. 271
Docket Number: No. 6834
Parties: Miss Kate Nugent vs. John McCaffrey.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 33
Pages: 271–275

Head Matter:
No. 6834.
Miss Kate Nugent vs. John McCaffrey.
On Motion to dismiss.
En the absence of any name as payee of the Bond of appeal, this Court will consider the Bond payable to the person to whom the law makes it so, to wit: the Clerk of Court; „ and will not dismiss the Appeal on that ground.
On the merits.
.An action for the recovery of real estate and damages, is liable to seizure.
'Notice of seizure of such an action, to the Clerk of the Court, in which the suit is pending, to the defendant in the suit and to the plaintiff therein, is proper and sufficient, and constitutes a valid seizure.
’The appraisement in a case of such seizure, should be as in other cases of seizure of incorporeal rights.
'The advertisement of the Sheriff for the sale of such a claim, should be during thirty days, as for the salo of immovables.
"The purchaser of the claim in such a case, being the defendant himself against whom the action is brought, has the right to plead Confusion, in a Buie against the plaintiff in the action, taken for'the purpose of having the suit dismissed.
APPEAL from the Fourth District Court, parish of Orleans. Houston, J.
W. B. Lancaster and F. A. Flanagan for Plaintiff and Appellant:
•First — A right of action to annul a sale of real estate and for damages thereunder, is not such appreciable right as can be seized, appraised and sold. Both rights are strictly personal to the original holder and are not such as can be exercised by his creditors without his consent.
“Second — Such seizure, if at all, cannot be made in the hands of the clerk of the court in which the suit is pending, especially by a mere notice, as in this case; it would have to be made in the hands of the debtor.
'Third — A judgment creditor cannot cause the sheriff to seize money, or a money claim, due by himself to his judgment debtor. By the mere fact of law the two debts, so far as they co-exist, are already mutually extinguished by compensation.
. ¡Fourth — Although a third person may seize a suit belonging to his judgment debtor, and have it appraised by experts according to their opinion of its chances for success, as between tlie parties to tlie suit, this cannot be done. The law has provided for the appraisement in such case by the judgment oí a court; of justice, after full trial. The plaintiff has by law, as between himself and defendant, an absolute right to a jury.
3Tifth — An action for the recovery of an immovable is itself an immovable by intendment oí law, and cannot be sold, after seizure, without an advertisement of thirty days.
Sixth — The plea of confusion must be made by peremptory exception or by answer — not by rule.
Seventh — The plea of confusion, made by defendant, essentially implies an admission that the debt against himself, which he avers to have been thus extinguished, had a real existence.
Cutler & Dibble on the same side.
J. O. Nixon, Jr., for Defendant and Appellee.

Opinion:
On Motion to Dismiss.
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Spencer, J.
Defendant and appellee moves to dismiss this appeal, on three grounds.
First. Because the bond names no one as payee.
Second. Because the bond is signed Kate A. Nugent instead of Kate Nugent.
Third. The bond does not sufficiently identify the judgment appealed from.
The bond is in the usual form, declaring that appellant and her surety, naming both, " are held and firmly bound unto-- executors, administrators and assigns, in the sum of $150," etc.
Then follows the condition of the bond, reciting "that Kate A. Nugent has this day filed motion of appeal from a final judgment, rendered against her in the suit of Kate Nugent vs. John McCaffrey, No. 43,543, in the Fourth District Court for the parish of Orleans," etc.
'It is manifest that Kate A. Nugent is the Kate Nugent "against " whom judgment was rendered in the suit No. 43,543. The bond so declares expressly. The judgment appealed from is sufficiently described.
In the absence of any name as payee of the bond, we will supply it, by considering it as payable to the person to whom the law says it shall be made payable, to wit: the Clerk of the Court — just as in the absence of an amount being stated, we will supply it by reference to the order of appeal. See "Gibbs vs. Lum," 29 A. 526. This ease differs from that of Marks vs. Herman, 21 A. 756, where the bond was payable to the plaintiffs.
The motion to dismiss is overruled.