Case Name: Emmett JOHNSON, Jr. on his own behalf and on behaif of his minor child, Emmett Johnson, III, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF NEW ORLEANS and the Travelers Insurance Co.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1964-01-06
Citations: 163 So. 2d 569
Docket Number: No. 1226
Parties: Emmett JOHNSON, Jr. on his own behalf and on behaif of his minor child, Emmett Johnson, III, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF NEW ORLEANS and the Travelers Insurance Co.
Judges: Before McBRIDE, YARRUT and CHASEZ, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 163
Pages: 569–572

Head Matter:
Emmett JOHNSON, Jr. on his own behalf and on behaif of his minor child, Emmett Johnson, III, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF NEW ORLEANS and the Travelers Insurance Co.
No. 1226.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana. Fourth Circuit.
Jan. 6, 1964.
On Rehearing May 4, 1964.
Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre and Pat W. Browne, Jr., New Orleans, for appellants.
Reed, Reed & Reed, New Orleans, James M. Lockhart, Jr., and John A. Salvaggio, New Orleans, for appellees.
Before McBRIDE, YARRUT and CHASEZ, JJ.

Opinion:
McBRIDE, Judge.
This is a suit wherein a father (during the marriage) for and on behalf of his one-year-old child sued his landlord and its liability insurer for damages allegedly occasioned when the child fell from an open porch or balcony of the leased premises and sustained physical injuries; it is averred the premises were unsafe in that there were no safeguards to prevent children falling from the unguarded balcony.
Defendants answered denying negligence and liability and then assumed the position of third party plaintiffs (under LSA-C.C. art. 2103 and LSA-C.C.P. arts. 1111 through 1116), impleading as their defendants the parents of the child whom they allege were guilty of negligence proxi-mating the accident in that they failed to maintain proper supervision over their child and allowed it to play on the open porch unattended; the third party plaintiffs pray that in the event they be cast in judgment herein, they in turn have judgment for full indemnity against the parents, or, in the alternative, that the parents be held to be liable jointly and in solido with third party plaintiffs. To the third party demand the parents interposed an exception of no right or cause of action which was sustained, and the demand was dismissed; the third party plaintiffs have appealed from the judgment.
Even supposing, but certainly not deciding, that the parents were negligent and that their negligence proximated the accident or was a contributing or concurrent cause, the third party plaintiffs are entitled neither to indemnification nor enforcement of contribution from the parents. A child who is not emancipated cannot sue either parent during the continuance of their marriage when the parents are not judicially separated. LSA-R.S. 9:571. Filial duty should restrain the child from exposing the faults of its parents or worrying them with litigation and such immunity as the parents may have from suit by the minor child for personal tort arises from a disability to sue and not from a violated duty. Ruiz v. Clancy, 182 La. 935, 162 So. 734.
Had the action of the child for damages, been directed against the instant defendants, and also the parents, in solido, the parents-could have successfully set up their immunity from suit as a bar to the demand: against them. A codebtor in solido when sued by the creditor may plead all the-exceptions resulting from the nature of the obligation and all such as are personal to-himself. LSA-C.C. art. 2098.
The exception was properly sustained. To allow the defendants herein to-prosecute their demands for indemnification- or contribution against the parents would in effect be investing a wrongdoer, as-against the co-tortfeasor, with a greater right than the tort victim has. The parents may urge their immunity from suit against the demands of its co-tortfeasor as well as-they could have urged it against any claim asserted by the child. Contribution is founded on the theory of subrogation. LS A-C.C. art. 2161 declares that subrogation takes place when a debt is paid by one who-being liable with another, or for another for the payment of the debt, has an interest in paying it. Quatray v. Wicker, 178 La. 289, 151 So. 208.
Under LSA-C.C. art. 3058 when several persons have been sureties for the-same debtor and for the same debt, the surety who has satisfied the debt has his-remedy against the other sureties in proportion to the share of each. But the party from whom contribution is demanded must have been under a legal obligation to pay at the time payment was made by him who demands the contribution. Stockmeyer v. Oertling, 35 La.Ann. 467; Ledoux v. Durrive, 10 La.Ann. 7.
It makes no difference that a contest between sureties was involved in each of the cited cases. The rules relating to obligations in solido, or joint obligations, are the same with regard to obligations arising, ex delicto as with obligations arising cx. contractu, especially when they are fixed by judicial decree. Quatray v. Wicker, supra.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed.
.Affirmed.