Case Name: HARTFORD FIRE INS. CO. v. LANDRENEAU ET AL. (WINDSOR SAVINGS BANK, Intervener)
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1932-03-08
Citations: 19 La. App. 280
Docket Number: No. 891
Parties: HARTFORD FIRE INS. CO. v. LANDRENEAU ET AL. (WINDSOR SAVINGS BANK, Intervener)
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Court of Appeals Reports
Volume: 19
Pages: 280–285

Head Matter:
No. 891
First Circuit
HARTFORD FIRE INS. CO. v. LANDRENEAU ET AL. (WINDSOR SAVINGS BANK, Intervener)
(March 8, 1932. Opinion and Decree.)
Hawthorn, Stafford & Pitts, of Alexandria, attorneys for plaintiff, appellant.
Modisette & Adams, of Jennings, attorneys for intervener, appellant.
J. H. Dore, of Ville Platte, attorney for defendants, appellees.

Opinion:
LeBLANC, J.
On October 24, 1923, Lucius Landreneau, Jr., executed an act of mortgage in favor of the American Investment Company of Oklahoma, covering certain property which he owned in the parish of Evangeline, to secure a note in the sum of $3,000. The act of mortgage contained the following stipulation which is copied verbatim:
"The said mortgágor bind____________________________ during the life of this mortgage to keep the buildings on said property insured against loss by fire and tornado to the amount of $________________________, and deliver the policies to said mortgagee, with clause thereto attached subrogating said insurance to said mortgagee or its assigns as collateral security for said notes."
On January 28, 1924, Landreneau executed another mortgage upon the same property in favor of Peoples Bank & Trust Company to secure a note of $1,404.30.
After the execution of the last mortgage, the owner, Landreneau, erected a building used as a barn on the property, and on October 29, 1930, took out a .fire insurance policy in the Hartford Fire Insurance Company in the sum of $500, of which $400 was to cover the barn and $100 certain corn and hay stored therein.
This fire insurance policy contained a mortgage clause under which the loss, if any, became payable to "Evangeline Bank & Trust Company of Ville Platte, La., mortgagee, as interest may appear." It should be mentioned here that the Evangeline Bank & Trust Company, had in the meantime acquired the mortgage and note of the Peoples Bank & Trust Company. It may properly be stated at this time also that the American Investment Company had likewise assigned its mortgage and note on the property to the Windsor Savings Bank of Windsor, Vermont.
On December 12, 1930, while the policy was in effect, the barn, with its contents, was totally ' destroyed by fire.
On March 17, 1931, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company appeared in court on a petition in which it alleged that the amount of loss had been fixed as between it and the assured, but that during the course of adjusting the loss, a claim had been set up by the American Investment Company under the covenant contained in the mortgage executed in its favor, and that because of the conflict of claimants which now existed, it desired tq deposit the amount to be paid under the policy in the registry of the court and have the various parties cited to appear and assert their respective claims to the fund. It prayed for an order decreeing a coneursus proceeding necessary; that the clerk of court receive and take into his custody the sum of $500 due under the policy and by it deposited with him, and that the policy be canceled, and that the claimants be cited to appear and assert their demands against the fund thus created. It also prayed for costs, together with attorney's fees in the sum of $25.
On the same day that this petition was presented to him, the district judge signed an order commanding the clerk of court to take the insurance company's draft for $500 in his custody, collect and deposit the proceeds in the registry of the court subject to further orders, all of which was promptly done.
In answer to the citations issued to them, Landreneau, Evangeline Bank & Trust Company and American Investment Company all appeared. The Windsor Savings Bank intervened as assignee of the American Investment Company. The only parties having a real interest in the contest, however, are Evangeline Bank & Trust Company, holder of the policy under the loss payable clause, and the Windsor Savings Bank claiming right to the proceeds under the covenant in the mortgage in favor of American Investment Company, its assignor. The answer of Landreneau and Evangeline Bank & Trust Company was joined and in it they pleaded in reconvention that as more than sixty days have elapsed since the property had been destroyed by fire and since the adjustment of the loss, the insurer, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, should be made to pay the statutory penalty of 25 per cent of the amount of the loss and attorney's fees which they have contracted to pay in order to be represented in the proceeding, in the sum of $100. They pray for judgment against the insurer accordingly.
The appeal comes to us from a judgment in the district court which condemned the Hartford Fire Insurance Company in the full sum of $500 in favor of Lucius Landreneau, Jr., for the use and benefit of the Evangeline Bank & Trust Company, with legal interest from March 17, 1931, and in the further sum of 25 per cent statutory penalty and $50 as attorney's fees. The claims of American Investment Company and Windsor Savings Bank were denied and rejected at their cost.
MOTION TO DISMISS
Appellees, Lucius Landreneau, Jr., and Evangeline Bank & Trust Company, have filed a motion to dismiss the appeal taken by Hartford Fire Insurance Company on the ground that it had failed to obtain an order of appeal from the judgment rendered against it and had filed the transcript of appeal in this court without first having obtained an order of appeal from the lower court either by motion in open court or by citation.
Referring to the extract from the minutes of court of date July 15, 1931, we find that "on motion of Modisette & Adams, attorneys for American Investment Co. and Intervenor Windsor Savings Bank and Hartford Fire Insurance Co., an appeal suspensive and devolutive is hereby granted to said defendants and made returnable to the Honorable First Circuit Court of Appeal, sitting at Opelousas, Louisiana, on September 12, 1931, upon their furnishing bond in the sum of $50.00 if devolutive and ac cording to law if suspensive." The mere reading of the entry, therefore, seems to dispose of the contention made that there was no order of appeal granted to the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. It is specifically designated by name, and the only suggestion or hint that the order is not proper and correct in every respect might arise from the fact that in referring to the capacity of the appellant as a party to this proceeding, it is said to be a defendant along with the other parties cast in the judgment and who were at the same time moving for an appeal. Aside from the fact that these appellees had filed a plea in reconvention against the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, in which naturally, that company became nominally a defendant in reconvention, and therefore technically may be said to have had its capacity properly designated, we think that the fact that having been mentioned by name in the motion for appeal, can leave no doubt of its intention to ask for an appeal and of the court's purpose to grant it one. The motion to dismiss is therefore overruled.