Case Name: Louis Honoré Préjean et al. vs. Aimée Lecompte et als.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1889-07
Citations: 41 La. Ann. 747
Docket Number: No. 1,346
Parties: Louis Honoré Préjean et al. vs. Aimée Lecompte et als.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 41
Pages: 747–749

Head Matter:
No. 1,346.
Louis Honoré Préjean et al. vs. Aimée Lecompte et als.
Where neither tho principal nor tlie reconventional demand involves an amount in dispute exceeding two thousand dollars, neither is appealable to this court.
Tlie amounts involved in both cannot be cumulated to establish jurisdiction.
APPEAL from the Twenty-ffftb District Court, Parish of Lafayette. De JBaillon, J.
O. O. & J. Mouton for Plaintiffs and Appellees:
The law considers marriage purely as a civil contract. C. C. 86; Toullior & Duvorvier Droit Civil Trancáis, Yol. I, Tíos. 488 to 494, inclusive.
The party seeking to recover should establish the marriage as conolusivoy as any other fact. Where there is no consent there is no marriage.
Children born out of marriage can be legitimated only by an acknowledgment, and subsequent marriage, under provisions of Article 198, C. C., when the parent has legitimate descendants.
Doth parents must concur in the acknowledgment.
Esüllette & Du/pré for Defendants and Appellants:
A mother may accept a donation for lior child. An act of donation if nofc good as donation may he good ns an acknowledgment .of an illegitimate child, if ifc embodies what is required for an acknowledgment.
An illegitimate child duly acknowledged by the father is entitled to alimony. C. C. 242.
Whatever relates to the forms of the marriage is directory' and not indispensable to its validity.
A marriage in articulo mortis is as binding as any other.
Where a marriage has been contracted there is the presumption of omnia rite acta.
To set aside a marriage for inability to consont, the burden of proof lies with the one assailing it.
Temporary derangement to invalidate a contract must be clearly proven. The situation and incapacity must be apparent.
Sanity as well as capacity to consent is always presumed.
To invalidate a marriage because of the insanity or temporary derangement produced by sickness of one of the parties, at the time, it must he shown that the other could not possibly have been ignorant of his state.
Where there is good faith on the part of one of tlie parties to the marriage, it is good as to her or him and produces its civil effects.
Good faith is always presumed. 24 Aim. 299.
The law protects the innocent party to a contract.

Opinion:
The opinion of tlie Court was delivered by
Fenner, J.
We do not see bow it would be possible for us to exercise jurisdiction over this appeal without transcending tbe mandate conferred upon us by tbe Constitution.
Tbe plaintiffe, alleging themselves to be tbe sole legitimate and forced heirs of Louis A. Prójean, deceased, bring tbe principal action to annul a donation ma.de by tlioir said ancestor to Philomene Prójean with reversion in a certain contingency to Aimée Locompte.
Various grounds of nullity are propounded. Tbe property was estimated in tbe donation at $245, but tbe petition alleges its value at $1500. The evidence fixes its value at about $800.
Of this principal demand, it is clear that we have no jurisdiction.
Tbe defendants filed a general denial and otherwise contest tbe demand of plaintiffs. They further allege that defendant, Aimée Leconrpte, is the widow and surviving spouse of tbe deceased, Louis A. Prójean, and that Philomene Préjean is bis child by said Aimée Lecompto, legitimated by the marriage of her father and'mother, and, therefore, bis forced heir.
They aver that Louis A. Prójean left a valuable estate, a large portion of which bad been disposed of by tbe plaintiffs; that Philoméne is entitled, as heir, to one-third thereof, "which should not be less than $2000and they pray in reconvention for judgment " for one-third of the property of the estate in kind, or $2000 in the alternative."
As the amount in dispute does not exceed $2000, under defendant's own allegation, it is plain we have no jurisdiction. Even that valuation is enormously excessive under the evidence in the case and is in contradiction of the allegation in plaintiffs' petition that the entire estate left by the deceased amounted to about $2200
There is no question of a fund to be distributed, and nothing in the pleadings or. evidence indicates an amount in dispute, under either the principal or reconventional demand, exceeding or even approaching $2000.
It is well settled that the appealable character of the principal and the reconventional demand must each be separately established, and that the amounts of both cannot be cumulated to bring the amount within our jurisdiction. Stevenson vs. Whitney, 33 Ann. 655; Smith vs. Insurance Co., id. 1071; Colomb vs. McQuaid, 36 Ann. 370.
It is, therefore, ordered that the appeal herein be dismissed at appellants' costs.