Case Name: Sidney COSEY, Jr. v. Lillian Jonpierre Tyler COSEY
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1979-05-21
Citations: 376 So. 2d 486
Docket Number: No. 63644
Parties: Sidney COSEY, Jr. v. Lillian Jonpierre Tyler COSEY.
Judges: REDMANN, J. Ad Hoc, dissents and assigns written reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 376
Pages: 486–492

Head Matter:
Sidney COSEY, Jr. v. Lillian Jonpierre Tyler COSEY.
No. 63644.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
May 21, 1979.
On Rehearing Nov. 1, 1979.
Ernest G. Drake, Jr., Pierson, Drake & Scott, Ponchatoula, for plaintiff-applicant.
Iddo Pittman, Jr., Pittman & Matheny, Hammond, for defendant-respondent.

Opinion:
CALOGERO, Justice.
This litigation involves a contest over the ownership of eleven acres of land in Tangi-pahoa Parish. Plaintiff, Sidney Cosey, Jr., is the only child and sole heir of Sidney Cosey, Sr. and the latter's first wife, Hattie Harris Cosey. Defendant is Sidney Cosey, Sr.'s second wife Lillian Jonpierre Tyler Cosey. The property, earlier the subject of a bond for deed contract entitled "Articles of Agreement," was conveyed to Cosey, Sr. and Lillian during Cosey Sr.'s second marriage for a stated cash consideration of $825.00. Because plaintiff alleged and proved that his father received possession of the property upon execution of the bond for deed contract in 1945 and concluded payment of the full purchase price before his divorce from plaintiff's mother, the trial court found the property to belong exclusively to the estates of Hattie and Sidney Cosey, Sr., found that Lillian had no interest in the property, and rendered judgment in favor of plaintiff.
The Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that the acquisition of the property by the act of cash sale occurred during Cosey, Sr.'s second marriage to Lillian and that the property thus belonged to the second community, between Cosey, Sr. and Lillian.
The Court of Appeal concluded that a bond for deed contract is not a sale; that title is not transferred thereby even when final payment is made according to the contract's terms; that acquisition "by purchase" took place during the second community when the cash sale was executed; and that the property thus belonged to the second community.
To support those conclusions, the Court of Appeal relied primarily upon Kendall v. Kendall, 174 La. 148, 140 So. 6 (1932) which held that although the bond for deed was executed and most of the payments were made during one community, the property belonged to a later community during which title to the property was acquired by act of sale.
Because the entire purchase price in this case was paid during the existence of the first community, we felt that Kendall was distinguishable and that this case warranted careful consideration of the possibility that the property, at least with respect to the right to ownership, was acquired during the first community upon payment of the full purchase price. It was for this reason that we granted writs. Cosey v. Cosey, 366 So.2d 570 (La.1979).
Upon review, however, we conclude that the case should be resolved, and the Court of Appeal judgment in favor of the defendant affirmed, without reaching this legal question. The only really relevant issue in this case is whether plaintiff's attempt to divest defendant of the undivided one-half interest she acquired by authentic act, by production of evidence over defendant's objection, offends the public records doctrine.
Before Lillian acquired title to the property by the act of sale, the title was in the name of the vendor, the C. E. Cate Estate. There were no encumbrances recorded against the property; nor was the bond for deed contract, executed during the first community, recorded.
A fundamental principle of Louisiana law is that interests in immovable property must be recorded to affect third persons. La.Civ.Code art. 2264; La.Civ.Code art. 2266; McDuffie v. Walker, 125 La. 152, 51 So. 100 (1909). Consequently, an unrecorded bond for deed contract, which is essentially a contract to sell real property, is considered null except as between the parties thereto. Third parties are affected only from and after the time of recordation. Because the bond for deed contract which might have protected Hattie's possible interest in the property at issue was not recorded, Lillian (who was a third party to the bond for deed contract between the Cate Estate and Sidney Cosey, Sr.) acquired the property (an undivided one-half interest) free from the interest Hattie (and/or Sidney, as head and master of the first community) may have had. Even if we assume that Hattie had some character of right to receive an undivided one-half interest in the property at the time the final payment was made, the fact that the bond for deed contract was unrecorded precludes her assertion of this right after Lillian acquired title to the property by authentic act.
Plaintiff's attempt to prove Hattie's right to the property by parol evidence, over defendant's objection, also violates a fundamental principle of Louisiana law. Authentic acts are full proof of the agreement contained therein and can not be attacked by parole evidence in the absence of fraud, error, counter-letter, or admission of facts to the contrary made by the parties thereto. Morrison v. Richards, 343 So.2d 375 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1977); Miles v. Miles, 328 So.2d 394 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1975). In the instant case, the authentic act naming Lillian Jonpierre Tyler Cosey as the co-owner of the property did not result from error, as plaintiff argues. The evidence simply does not so preponderate. Because Cosey, Sr. (and defendant Lillian as well, so far as this record shows) intended that defendant's name be placed on the deed as co-owner of the property, there was no "error" in this case. It is well-established in Louisiana jurisprudence that parol evidence is inadmissible to create title in one who never owned the land, or to show that the vendee was in reality someone other than the one named in the deed. Ceromi v. Harris, 187 La. 701, 175 So. 462 (1937); Haney v. Dunn, 96 So.2d 243 (La.App. 1st Cir.1957). Consequently, Hattie's right, if any, to a half interest in the property can not be established by parol evidence when the authentic act indicates that Lillian for a stated cash consideration acquired the property as a co-owner.
Plaintiff's major argument in brief, which was accepted by the trial court, is that because the entire purchase price was paid from funds belonging to the first community, the Cate Estate had no obligation to convey an interest in the property to defendant and that defendant therefore acquired her undivided one-half interest without a lawful cause. Plaintiff contends that because defendant received property "not due" her, she is obligated under Articles 2301 and 2312 of the Civil Code to restore it.
The right to obtain restitution as provided by Article 2301 (an action sometimes referred to as an action in repetition, or by its Roman name, condictio indebiti) is derived from a special quasi-contract which results when one party, knowingly or mistakenly, receives something which is not owed to him. Litvinoff, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Obligations, Vol. 7, Book 2, § 255, p. 483. Under Article 2301 the recipient is bound to restore the thing he has received to the one from whom he has received it. As explained by Planiol, the right to obtain repetition, or restitution, arises, at least in one situation, when there is no obligation between the person who pays and the person paid. For example, a debtor may demand restitution when he makes payment to one other than his true creditor. Planiol, Treatise on Civil Law, Vol. 2, Part 1, § 839, p. 450 (La.St.L.Inst. Transl.1959). Plaintiff argues that because the Cate Estate (the debtor) paid a debt (the obligation to convey title to the property) to one (defendant) other than his true creditor (the community between Cosey, Sr. and Hattie), he (the sole heir of Cosey, Sr. and Hattie) has a right to demand that he recover the property.
"[a] contract to sell real property, in which the purchase price is to be paid by the buyer to the seller in installments and in which the seller after payment of a stipulated sum agrees to deliver title to the buyer."
Whatever may be the right to restitution in this case, it is clear that the plaintiff is not the proper party to demand it. The obligation created by Article 2301 is to restore the thing paid to the party "from whom he has unduly received it." The right to demand restitution, therefore, accrues only to the party who has paid the obligation. See Planiol, supra, 859A, p. 457. The right to demand restitution, if there exists any such right at all, belongs exclusively to the Cate Estate.
Decree
For all the foregoing reasons, plaintiff has not proved his entitlement, or that of the estate of his deceased mother, to Lillian's interest in the disputed property. The trial court was in error in finding otherwise and the Court of Appeal correct in reaching a result favorable to defendant.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is therefore affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
REDMANN, J. Ad Hoc, dissents and assigns written reasons.
BLANCHE, J., recused.
Judge William V. Redmann, Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit, participated in this decision in place of Associate Justice Fred A. Blanche, Jr., recused.
. In a sworn descriptive list of succession property filed in 1976, the property is valued at $10,000.
. For brevity Sidney Cosey, Sr. will hereinafter be referred to as Cosey, Sr. and Hattie Harris Cosey as Hattie. Plaintiff will be referred to alternately as plaintiff and Cosey, Jr., while defendant will be referred to alternately as defendant and Lillian.
.The pertinent facts in this case in chronological order are as follows: Cosey, Sr. and Hattie were married in 1915; Cosey, Jr. was born in 1916; Cosey, Sr. and Hattie became separated in 1935. Cosey, Sr. received the property and entered into the Bond for Deed contract March 18, 1945; concluding payment on the $825.00 purchase price was made May 25, 1961; Cosey, Sr. and Hattie were divorced May 28, 1962; Cosey, Sr. and Lillian were married June 10, 1962; the authentic act of cash sale to the involved property to Cosey, Sr., and Lillian was executed December 7, 1962; Hattie died December 27, 1964; Cosey, Sr. died August 29, 1976.
. Plaintiff proved these facts over defendant's continuing objection to the introduction of any evidence which would tend to change or deviate from the authentic act.
. Delay in execution of the act of sale from May 25, 1961, date of the concluding payment, until December 7, 1962 was caused by the death of one of the vendors and the need to conduct that vendor's succession in California.
. La.Civ.Code art. 2402 provides that the community consists of the estate which the husband and wife may acquire during the marriage "by purchase, or in any other similar way."
. Insofar as plaintiff's right to his father's undivided one-half interest in the property is concerned, the issue of whether the acquisition of the property took place upon final payment on the bond for deed or upon execution of the act of sale is irrelevant, for in either case, plaintiff inherits that interest as Cosey, Sr.'s legal heir. That result is unaffected by the result reached here.
. Although there are no Louisiana cases on point, it would appear that if a bond for deed were recorded and the property were sold to a third person, the party who was to purchase under the contract could bring a possessory or petitory action (depending on whether he was in possession of the property) upon final payment. See Comment, "Bond for Deed Contracts," 31 La.L.Rev. 587, 592 (1971).
. La.Civ.Code art. 2264 provides:
"No notarial act concerning immovable property shall have any effect against third persons, until the same shall have been deposited in the office of the parish recorder, or register of conveyances of the parish where such immovable property is situated."
. La.Civ.Code art. 2266 provides:
"All sales, contracts, and judgments affecting immovable property, which shall not be so recorded, shall .be utterly null and void, except between the parties thereto. The recording may be made at any time, but shall only affect third persons from the time of the recording.
The recording shall have effect from the time when the act is deposited in the proper office, and indorsed by the proper officer."
. R.S. 9:2941 defines the bond for deed contract as:
.La.Civ.Code art. 2301 provides:
"He who receives what is not due to him, whether he receives it through error or knowingly, obliges himself to restore it to him from whom he has unduly received it."
La.Civ.Code art. 2312 provides:
"If the thing unduly received is an immovable property or a corporeal movable, he who has received it, is bound to restore it in kind, if it remain, or its value, if it be destroyed or injured by his fault; he is even answerable for its loss by fortuitous event, if he has received it in bad faith."
. The conclusion reached here is supported by Planiol who observes as follows: "The jurisprudence after some indecision (citations omitted) has decided that the direct action [by the creditor of the payor] is inadmissible, the receiver not being held except by reason of the fact of payment, and then only towards the payer (citations omitted)." Planiol, supra, at 458.