Case Name: Allen, West & Bush vs. J. E. Nettles, Administrator
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1887-06
Citations: 39 La. Ann. 788
Docket Number: No. 1172
Parties: Allen, West & Bush vs. J. E. Nettles, Administrator.
Judges: Mr. Justice Todd takes no-part.
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 39
Pages: 788–792

Head Matter:
No. 1172.
Allen, West & Bush vs. J. E. Nettles, Administrator.
In ib suit against an administrator for a balance of account, unappealable in amount, the defendant reconvenes, claiming payment to succession of §7000, proceeds ot cotton sold and credited in plaintiff’s account. Held: that as any allowance made on defendant’s demand necessarily increased tlie ordinary balance duo plaintiff, this involves adjustment of entire account and the whole case is appealable.
Where mercantile accounts have been closed by rendition and acceptance without objection, the debtor cannot thereafter object to charges of 8 per cent interest and to compounding interest by capitalization of succession balances.
Such settlement of accounts being equivalent to payment, the debtor can only recover usurious charges less than one year old.
Under the 3d section of Act 44 of 1882, the consignee, from the date of consignment under bill of lading, acquires a perfect pledge with right to sell and pay bis debt with the proceeds. The death of the consignor, after tlie consignment, could not affect such rights.
Bat no consignment made after the death of the owner by an unauthorized person could operate to create a pledge in favor of the consignee. The death fixed the rights of all creditors as to the succession property and no one could acquire any new pi ivilege thereon.
APPEAL from tlie Sixth District; Court, Parish of Morehouse. Mlis, J.
Todd & Todd and & T.. Baird, for Plaintiffs ana Appellants.
Newton & Gasón and Boatner & Boatner, for Defendant and Appellee.
Bussey <& Naff, for Inter venors and Appellees :

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court w7as delivered by
Fenner, J.
Plaintiffs sued defendant as administrator of Elbert Nettles for a balance of account of $749.51. The accounts from which this balance results include sales of a large amount of cotton which was received and sold by plaintiffs and credited to defendant in ac count. The defendant denies that the balance claimed is due, and flies a demand in reconvention, in which he claims a judgment against plaintiffs for the proceeds of said cotton, amounting, as alleged, to more than $7000, on the ground that said proceeds are property of the succession, and, as such, must be paid over to the administrator to be administered and distributed according to law.
Plaintiffs are appellants from a judgment condemning them to pay to the administrator the sum of $992.09, the value of twenty-nine bales of cotton, adjudged to have been received by plaintiffs after the death of Nettles, and giving a judgment in favor of plaintiffs to be paid in course of administration for $1062.42.
Thus, it will be seen, that plaintiffs recover judgment for several hundred dollars' more than they claimed in their petition. This results from the fact that in condemning plaintiffs to pay over to the succession the proceeds of cotton which had been credited on the account, this necessarily increased pro tanto the balance due on said account, and if the value of all the cotton claimed by defendant, say $7000, had been allowed, it would, in the same measure, have increased the amount due to the plaintiffs as ordinary creditors.
We mention these matters at the threshold of the case in order to dispose of the motion made, bj^ defendant to dismiss the appeal as to the principal demand because that is not within our jurisdiction.
Ordinarily the motion would be well taken, because it is well settled that an appealable demand in reconvention does not give us jurisdiction of an unappealable principal demand, and vice versa.
But we regard this as an exceptional case, in which the principal and reconventional demand are so interlaced that one cannot be considered without the other. The issue, as framed by the pleadings, involves the adjustment of the entire account between the parties, in which the claims on both sides must be considered, and this adjustment includes an amount in dispute exceeding two thousand dollars.
The motion to dismiss is therefore denied.