Title: Dufrene v. Tracy
Citation: 232 La. 386, 94 So. 2d 297
Docket Number: N/A
State: Louisiana
Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court
Date: February 26, 1957

94 So. 2d 297 (1957) 232 La. 386 August DUFRENE et al. v. James J. TRACY et al. No. 42699. Supreme Court of Louisiana. February 25, 1957. Dissenting Opinion February 26, 1957. Rehearing Denied April 1, 1957. *298 Coe, Nowalsky &amp; Lambert, Edward R. Schowalter, New Orleans, for defendants-appellants. Pertuit, Gemeinhardt, Johannesen &amp; Roberts, by W. F. Gemeinhardt, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-appellees. MOISE, Justice. The defendants appeal from a judgment of the district court, which set aside a power-of-attorney, coupled with an interest. The power provided that the defendants vindicate title to property. The contract contained a suspensive condition, and at the time of its execution there was neither *299 ownership nor possession of the immovable. Plaintiffs' suit is predicated on alleged failure of performance. The defense and reconventional demand aver the following: Our learned brother below found in his reasons for judgment, the following: With all humility we say that in any court of justice where the rights of litigants are at stake we cannot deal with mere legal abstractions or facts that are supposed. We know of no rule for construing the extent of powers other than that given by the language of the instrument which confers them, taken in conjunction with the purposes for which they were conferred. LSA-C.C. Article 1901. A pertinent part of the power-of-attorney herein involved reads: The trial judge's reaction to the facts is manifested in the following statement taken from his reasons for judgment: The above findings were made after the reception of parol evidence. The trial judge was correct in admitting parol evidence to show what services were rendered prior to the confection of the instrument, since the *301 instrument was ambiguous to the extent it left the parties in doubt as to what was intended. An exception to Article 2276 of the LSA-Civil Code was apparent. Holloway Gravel Co., Inc., v. McKowen, 200 La. 917, 9 So. 2d 228; Rudman v. Dupuis, 206 La. 1061, 20 So. 2d 363; Rosenthal v. Gauthier, 224 La. 341, 69 So. 2d 367; Plaquemines Oil &amp; Development Co. v. State, 208 La. 425, 23 So. 2d 171; Mire v. Haas, La.App., 174 So. 374. See also LSA-C.C. Article 1956.[1] The contract in this case lives and breathes the fact that the obligations therein imposed are conditional. The right is merely a litigious one, which, under Article 3556, Section 18, of the LSA-Civil Code, cannot be performed without suit. In the so-called transfer made in the power-of-attorney there was neither the possession nor the ownership in the property involved, because transferee had neither. The obligation being conditional, Article 2021 of the LSA-Civil Code applies. Conditional obligations are made to depend upon an uncertain event. If the obligation is not to take effect until the event happens it is a suspensive condition. Article 2043 of the LSA-Civil Code provides the obligation contracted on a suspensive condition is that which depends on a future and uncertain event. The obligation cannot be executed until after the event. The event in the present controversy was for the recovery of an immovable for the client, which event did not ripen into existence although fourteen years elapsed. Defendants are now attempting to acquire rights to property on negligent circumstances which were caused through their own fault and omission to do what they obligated themselves to do. On the subject of suspensive conditions the United States Supreme Court speaks with authority in the case of City of New Orleans v. Texas &amp; Pacific Railway Co., 171 U.S. 312, 18 S. Ct. 875, 883, 43 L. Ed. 178, as follows: In Article 1897 of the LSA-Civil Code we find the following expression of law applicable to this case: The contract did not express a time limit, but all reason dictates that defendants were expected to perform within a reasonable time. Fox v. Doll, 221 La. 427, 59 So. 2d 443. The present subject matter is serious, and the defendants, being officers of the Court, should have promptly consummated their contract. It follows, therefore, that when defendants did not perform within a reasonable timeit is beyond any man's comprehension to say that fourteen years is a reasonable timethe suspensive condition was unfilled, and the contract was without a cause and could have no effect. It is stated in Article 1893 of the LSA-Civil Code: Defendants contend that before plaintiffs were entitled to institute this proceeding they should have placed defendants in default under Article 1912 of the LSA-Civil Code. Deliberate action on the part of the defendant Tracy, such as not being listed in the New Orleans City Telephone Directory, and accepting work with the Veterans Administration from 1944 to 1949, constituted an active disregard of the power-of-attorney relationship into which he had entered in 1941. Article 1932 of the LSA-Civil Code reads: The trial judge's following statement is appropriate: Defendants filed a plea of prescription based on Articles 3542 and 2221 of the LSA-Civil Code in this Court. They argue that plaintiffs are precluded from bringing this action to rescind the contract of mandate by the prescription of five and ten years. The judicial sense supporting the common sense of the State is against defendants' contention. The case of Hyman v. Hibernia Bank &amp; Trust Co., 139 La. 411, 71 So. 598, 600, is apposite, although the facts are different. The following statement is concordant: In this case, we have an officer of the Court dealing with clients ignorant of legal procedure. He owed a most solemn duty to them, and after allowing fourteen years to elapse without making any attempt to perform his obligation, he cannot now claim the benefit of his own wrong. See, Landry v. L'Eglise, 3 La. 219. The plea of prescription is, therefore, without merit. The solution of this case demanded a careful analysis of the facts and the law. A judge faced with a determination of a controversy, such as the instant matter, gives a penitent prayer of old, which reads: For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the district court is affirmed at defendants' costs. FOURNET, C. J., and PONDER and SIMON, JJ., dissent. FOURNET, Chief Justice (dissenting). This is a suit to have declared null and void, for failure of consideration, an instrument by notarial act executed by plaintiffs on June 3, 1941, wherein they named and appointed as their attorneys in fact the law firm of Tracy &amp; Neuhauser, giving them broad and discretionary powers, and also to have this act, as well as all assignments thereunder, cancelled from the public record. In this instrument the plaintiffs did "sell, assign, transfer * * * and deliver," to these attorneys "an undivided One-Half (½) Fee Simple Interest in and to" certain property located in St. Charles Parish[1] for the recited consideration "of the professional services already rendered * * * and * * * to be rendered by said Attorneys-in-fact * * *." (Emphasis supplied.) *304 According to the record, the real motive for the execution of the contract by the plaintiffs was the vindication of the title to the property, and inasmuch as these attorneys appointed by them for that purpose actually failed to carry out the duties under the mandate, the cause for the execution failed (Article 1823 et seq. of the Revised Civil Code),[2] and is therefore subject to the resolutory condition (Article 2035 et seq. of the Revised Civil Code),[3] which is prescribed under the provisions of Article 2221 declaring that "In all cases, in which the action of nullity or of rescission of an agreement, is not limited to a shorter period by (a) particular law, that action may be brought within ten years." "Thus it may be seen that the lawmakers in their wisdom have deemed it to the interest of society to interpose a statute of repose by fixing a time limit (10 years), after which the parties at interest, by their silence and inaction, are conclusively presumed to have acquiesced in and ratified the act, and to have renounced such right as they may have had to attack it." Fried v. Bradley, 219 La. 59, 52 So. 2d 247, 254. See, also, Pitre v. Peltier, 227 La. 478, 79 So. 2d 746. In the Bradley case we also pointed out that "Under the jurisprudence of this State the applicability of these two articles [2221 and 3542] has been restricted to those nullities that are not in derogation of public order and good morals. In considering them this Court has differentiated between nullities of that type and those established in the interest of individuals, and has narrowed the applicability of the articles to the latter class of nullities." See Article 2031 of the Revised Civil Code. Since such procurations as are involved in this case are lawful, they cannot be said to be contra bonus mores, that is, repugnant to good morals, in themselves unless this court were to declare it against public policy to permit an attorney to take advantage of his own failure to perform an obligation to his client. And inasmuch as there has been no pronouncement by this court to that effect, I must respectfully dissent. [1] The record discloses that the defendants themselves opened the doors for the admissibility of parol evidence when their own attorney propounded the following question to witness for the defendants: "Q. Do you know whether he did any work before June 3, 1941?" [1] The property thus sold and transferred was an undivided half of the undivided half interest then owned by plaintiffs in the S/2 of Sec. 18, T. 15 S., R. 21 E., Southeastern Land District, containing about 295.36 acres, more or less. [2] Article 1899 provides that if the obligations to be performed are either expressly or impliedly promised to be given at future periods and they fail, then the obligation depending on them will cease also. [3] Article 2047 provides that "In all cases the dissolution of a contract may be demanded by suit or by exception * * *." It is only when the resolutory condition is an event depending on the will of either party that the contract is dissolved of right.