Case Name: J. G. Gayden vs. Louisville, Nashville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad Company
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1887-03
Citations: 39 La. Ann. 269
Docket Number: No. 9916
Parties: J. G. Gayden vs. Louisville, Nashville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 39
Pages: 269–275

Head Matter:
No. 9916.
J. G. Gayden vs. Louisville, Nashville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad Company.
A remittitur entered after the verdict of a jury has been rendered, in a case in which, the matter in dispute, the sum demanded, exceeds §2000, does not cut off defendant’s right to appeal from a judgment rendered against him. This is so particularly when he objects to the remittitur being permitted, and the court allows it without prejudice to his right of appeal, and where the plaintiff himself afterwards appealed.
The failure of plaintiff to perfect his appeal does not relieve him from the imputation of admission of the appealable character of the suit
The condition that-, should a railroad not he built within a stated time, the contract giving right of way shall be null and void, is resoluotry in character.
"Until the dissolution is judicially demanded for non-performance, the obligor has the right to comply with his part of the contract.
An obligee who is present during the prerformance of the obligation, after the expiration of the delay, who does not object, and allows the work to be completed, cannot b6 permitted by suit, brought more than a year afterward, to demand the value of the land taken for the building of the road, and claim damages, consequent on the use of the grant, and which were notin the contemplation of the parties, when the contract was entered into.
APPEAL from Hie Sixteenth District Court, Parish of East Feliciana. Brame, judge ad hoe.
Merrick & ’Merrick, Oalhoim FInker and J). J. Wedge for Plaintiff and Appellee:
1 After a remittitur has been properly entered before judgment reducing the demand below the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the lower court cannot by any explanatory remarks oust the Court of Appeals of appellate jurisdiction and confer it on the Supreme Court.
2. Where a grant of right of way to a railroad company was made on condition that the grant should be null aud void if the company did not complete the road in eighteen months, the lapse of time without the completion of the road leaves the condition broken. O. 0.2038; Dalloz Code Civil Annoté, p. 1024, Art. 1176, No. 1; 17 Laurent, pp. 86 and 87, No. 73.
T. J. Kernem and Farrar & Kruttsehmtt for Defendant and Appellant: ON MOTION TO DISMISS.
1. Articles 491 and 572 of the Code of Practice establishes a fundamental difference between trials before the court and trials before a jury. 5 N. S. 642; 7 M. 490; 9 R. 240 ; 16 Ann. 431-4.
2. A remittitur after verdict is equivalent to a remittitur after judgment, and neither can cut off the defendant’s right of appeal. 16 Ann. 431-4.
ON MERITS.
1. A corporation cannot he sued outside of the parish of its domicile for damages arising from the alleged passive breach of a’contraot. Montgomery vs. La. Levee Co., 30 Ann. 607; Gossiu vs. Williams aud Morgan’s L. aud T. Ry. Co., 36 Ann. 186.
o. The grant of right of way made by the plaintiff to the defendant is a bar to this action.
3. The condition expressed in the grant, that it should be void if the road was not completed within eighteen months, was nothing but an express resolutory condition, whore the happening of the condition depended on the act of one of the parties, and ivas, therefore, not dissolved of right by the failure of the party to do, and could only be dissolved by a preliminary default followed by a suit to dissolve, ü. G. Art. 2047.

Opinion:
On Motion to Dismiss.
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Bermudez, C. J.
The plaintiff claims that this Court has no juris • diction over this controversy, the matter in dispute not exceeding $2,000.'
The suit is for $4,000 for the value of certain lands and for damages done to others.
After issue joined and evidence adduced, the case was submitted to a jury, who returned a verdict for $500 for the plaintiff.
An offer was then made by plaintiff to enter a remittitur for all demands exceeding $2,000. To this the defendants objected as concerned their right of appeal. The court sustained the objection, allowing the motion however, but without prejudice to the right of appeal.
There was judgment for five hundred dollars for plaintiff, from which defendants appeal.
The plaintiff also appealed, but did not perfect his appeal by giving bond.
There are several reasons for which the motion to dismiss ought not to prevail.
The motion for a remittitm- was offered too late.
It is true that a party plaintiff has the right to discontinue his suit, but that privilege cannot be exercised under all and any circumstances. The law discriminates.
Where the suit is before the judge alone, the discontinuance can be allowed only when asked before, never after judgment. C. P. 491.
Where the suit is before a jury, it must be asked before the case is submitted to the jury, until the moment when the jury is about to retire. C. P. 532.
When there is a ^conventional demand, the plaintiff is not permitted to discontinue, so as to affect that demand.
This doctrine has been announced in Applegate vs. Morgan, 5 N. S. 642, and has been applied in several instances.
See Chedoteau vs Dominguez, 7 M. 490; Warfield vs. Ludewig, 9 R. 240.
In the case of LeBlanc, 16 Ann. 431, the then Court overruled the motion to dismiss.
It appears there, that, before the verdict was taken in the lower court, the plaintiff moved to amend his petition by remitting $710 of his demand for $1,000; but on objection of the defendant, the amendment was not allowed, plaintiff excepting, however.
The jury returned a verdict for $800, and thereupon plaintiff entered a remittitur for all except $299, for which judgment was rendered against the defendant, who afterwards appealed.
The Court held that the appeal was from a Subsisting demand of $1,000, and it took jurisdiction over the controversy. It first remanded the ease with instructions; but, on a rehearing, gave judgment for defendants.
In the instant case, although it appears that the lower court allowed the remittitur to be entered, the fact is, that the remittitur was permitted, expressly, without prejudice to the defendant's right of appeal.
A remittitur is in the nature of a discontinuance and is governed by the same rules.
The record shows, besides, that after the defendant company had appealed, the plaintiff himself appealed.
It is true that he did not perfect Ms appeal; but the fact remains that He considered the case as appealable, otherwise lie would not have appealed.
We therefore conclude that the remittitur entered in this case could not and did not prejudice the right of defendant to appeal.
The motion to dismiss is overruled.
On Exceptions.
The plaintiff sued for $6,000 damages, claimed on five different grounds:
1st. Value of right of way;
2d. Value of twenty acres of land rendered useless;
3d. Damages to plantation rendered less valuable;
4th. Damages by failure to complete road within eighteen months;
5th. Losses incurred and profits missed in certain operations.
The defendant excepted to the jurisdiction of the Court as to claims 4 and 5, which are for the passive breach of a contract and which can be enforced only at the domicile of the corporation in New Orleans.
The defendant likewise excepted to claims 1, 2 and 8, but on account of vagueness.
The Court sustained the exception to the jurisdiction, overruled the others; requiring plaintiff, however, to amend the allegation touching the second claim, which was done.
Defendant excepted again on the gronnd of no cause of action, and asked the dismissal of the suit; but the Court overruled these objections.
The only claims now in dispute are those set forth as 1,2 and 3.
We are therefore dispensed from passing on the ruling as to the question of jurisdiction; the more so as no amendment of the judgment is asked by the appellee.