Case Name: Augusta SUTTON v. Jeannette Laphand Sutton, wife of Augusta SUTTON
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1975-10-09
Citations: 320 So. 2d 597
Docket Number: No. 6902
Parties: Augusta SUTTON v. Jeannette Laphand Sutton, wife of Augusta SUTTON.
Judges: Before REDMANN, SCHOTT and MORIAL, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 320
Pages: 597–601

Head Matter:
Augusta SUTTON v. Jeannette Laphand Sutton, wife of Augusta SUTTON.
No. 6902.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Oct. 9, 1975.
Rehearings Denied Nov. 11, 1975.
Plauche F. Villere, Jr., New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellant.
J. Robert Hoepffner, Richards & Hoepffner, New Orleans, for defendant-appellee.
Before REDMANN, SCHOTT and MORIAL, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
Plaintiff appeals from the trial court's refusal to cancel defendant's judicial mortgage as against property plaintiff bought at a public partition sale conducted without notice to defendant. We affirm.
The sale was conducted to partition the former marital community of plaintiff and his ex-wife. Plaintiff ex-husband had granted a recorded conventional mortgage upon the specific community property during the marriage. The ex-wife, by being cast in judgment for her separate debt, allowed a judicial mortgage (C.C. 3321) to be created upon the judgment's recordation, effective against her undivided half of the now simply co-owned, but formerly community property. But these two mortgage creditors were not made parties to the partition proceeding. The sale was made for substantially less than the amount owed on the conventional mortgage (although plaintiff ex-husband remains personally liable on that debt).
La. Acts 1896, No. 86 amended C.C. 1338 to provide in its last sentence:
"That in all judicial partitions, where a partition is made by licitation, the mortgages, liens and privileges existing against any one or more of the co-proprietors, shall be by order of Court transferred to the proceeds of sale in the hands of the Notary, and the rights of all creditors shall be reserved on the said proceeds of sale to be urged by them, either before the notary or before the court, as may be necessary, provided the holders of such mortgages, liens and privileges be made parties to such judicial partition."
Because the defendant mortgagee was not made a party to the judicial partition, there is no authority for the transferring of defendant's judicial mortgage claim to the proceeds and the mortgage therefore remains effective against the ex-wife's undivided half of the property. Mortgage is a real right, following the immovables subjected to it "into whatever hands they pass," C.C. 3282 (presuming recordation, to affect third persons, C.C. 3342). The general rules for extinction of mortgage are provided by C.C. 3411. C.C. 1338 provides a special rule for declaring mortgage-holders deprived of their security. Since art. 1338 does thus affect property rights of the mortgagee, it must be strictly construed, and anyone claiming by its provision the extinction of a mortgage must show compliance with its proviso that the mortgagee be made a party to the judicial partition (to make certain that he know of the judicial sale and be able to bid to protect his interest).
Plaintiff's argument that the property's market value was less than the earlier-recorded conventional mortgage, and that therefore defendant has suffered no real loss, is in principle rejected by Quality Fin. Co. of Donaldsonville, Inc. v. Bourque, La.1975, 315 So.2d 656. Inferior mortgages cannot be extinguished except as provided by law. The law provides for extinguishment by partition sale only if the mortgagee was made a party to the partition.
Affirmed.
MORIAL, J., dissenting with written reasons.