Case Name: Orillion v. Slack
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1841-01
Citations: 17 La. 102
Docket Number: 
Parties: Orillion v. Slack.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Reports
Volume: 17
Pages: 65–66

Head Matter:
Orillion v. Slack.
"Where the principal demand is evidently fictitious, designed to give jurisdiction to this court, the appeal will be dismissed.
This court will not encourage attempts to evade the provisions of the constitution, limiting its jurisdiction, — 16 L. 182, and cases there noted.
Appeal from the court of the fourth judicial district, for the parish of Iberville.
This is an action to recover a bull, which the plaintiff alleges belongs to him, but that the defendant has illegally taken him into his possession and detains him, although he has made amicable demand of him. He further states .that said bull is worth one hundred dollars, and that his use and profits and hire are worth fifty cents per day. That since the detention of said bull by the defendant he has had no bull to breed with his cows, and that he will lose the ordinary produce and increase of his cows, and suffer damages in consequence thereof to the amount of five hundred dollars. He prays for judgment requiring the defendant to deliver up to him said bull, together with fifty cents per day for every day he has had him in possession, and [103], five hundred dollars in damages.
The defendant pleaded the general issue; and averred that he was the-lawful owner of the bull claimed and described in the petition; and that all-claim for damages was prescribed.
On these pleadings and issues the parties went to trial before the court and a jury.
The plaintiff proved ownership of the bull to the satisfaction of the jury;, who returned a verdict restoring him the bull with ten dollars as damages. The plaintiff entered a remittitur of the damages and had judgment for the; bull, from which the defendant appealed.
labcmve, for the plaintiff,
prayed the affirmance of the judgment.
G. B. Taylor, for the defendant,
urged the reversal of the judgment om the ground that there was no proof of either property or possession of the- bull by the plaintiff, and that the defendant had been in possession eighteen months previous to the suit using him as his own. He who seeks to reclaim must establish his right to the property. La. Code, art. 3417.

Opinion:
Bullard, J.
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an action to recover possession of a hull alleged to be the property of the plaintiff, and who alleges further that the use and profit and hire of the hull is worth fifty cents per day, that he has sustained damages to the amount of five hundred dollars, and that the bull is worth one hundred dollars. There was a verdict for the restoration of the hull, and ten dollars damages. The plaintiff remitted the damages and judgment being rendered for the hull the defendant appealed.
[104] The counsel for the appellant has argued that the demand for heavy damages, independently of the hire and the value of the hull, is evidently fictitious and for the mere purpose of giving jurisdiction to this court in case of appeal. The petition does not state on what ground damages are claimed besides the value of his hire, and it is manifestly absurd to demand five hundred dollars damages for the mere detention of the animal estimated at only one hundred. The subsequent release of even a small amount of damages recovered confirms us in the belief that the claim was not serious. The case is strongly analogous to that of the Red River Railroad Company v. Williams, 16 La. Reports, 182, decided at the last term in the western district, in which we declared that we could not encourage such- attempts to evade the provisions of the constitution limiting the jurisdiction of this court.
It is therefore ordered that the appeal he dismissed with costs.