Opinion ID: 1614914
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Prescription and the Defendants Other Than Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez

Text: We turn now to the exception of prescription filed by Delta Development Co., Inc. The facts which are evident in the present record concerning Delta have been discussed earlier in this opinion. The Louisiana corporation was formed in 1934. Before December 20, 1938 Judge Perez and his wife Agnes, as to whom a community of acquets and gains existed, owned 97% or more of the stock, the particular date of acquisition not being shown in this record. On December 20, 1938 for certain, they did without question own more than 97% (495 of 511 shares) of that stock. When in 1941 Delta-Delaware was formed and became the successor to Delta-Louisiana, Agnez Perez and Judge Perez owned the same 97% (495 of 511 shares) of that corporation. Plaintiff's allegations in the petition relative to its cause of action, accepted, or assumed to be true by the parties for purpose of trial of the exception of prescription, recited that Delta-Louisiana and Delta-Delaware were substituted parties for the convenience of Leander H. Perez. By use of that vehicle, as plaintiff's asserted claim goes, mineral interests which would have gone to the Judge's principals, his clients the Grand Prairie Levee District and Buras Levee District, had he been a faithful and conscientious fiduciary, instead went to the Judge and his substituted party or alter-ego, Delta. In 1944, Judge Perez and his wife, by notarial acts which were not then nor ever recorded (unless perhaps after this lawsuit was filed), donated all of their stock in Delta-Delaware to their four children. The actual stock interest in that corporation by other persons, if any, is not clearly shown in this record, although 16 of 511 shares were apparently outstanding in the names of others in 1938. Plaintiff's 1983 petition, however, alleged that all of the stock in Delta Development Co., Inc. was owned by the four children of Judge Perez, directly or indirectly in 1980. Delta Development Co., Inc. has been represented between 1936 and 1980 by the attorneys Leander Perez, Sr. and Chalin Perez. [55] Until 1944, Judge Perez and his wife Agnes were practically the exclusive stockholders in Delta. From 1944 through the present, apparently, Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez have been two of the four major stockholders in Delta Development Co., Inc. [56] And, as earlier discussed in greater detail, from 1936, at least, until the early 1980's, Leander Perez, Sr., Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez, during lengthy, continuous and uninterrupted periods, have been public official fiduciaries representing the political subdivision whose public lands have generated monetary profits for Delta, for Judge Perez personally, and for the Perez family (Judge Perez's donees). For purpose of prescription and the excusing principle contra non valentem, over the years Delta Development Co., Inc., as to its interests and by virtue of its stock ownership, has hardly been distinguishable from Leander Perez, Sr., his wife, and their four children, two of them his successors as public officials, and all four of them 1944 donees of their parent's stock in the corporation. [57] For all intents and purposes, as to the exception now before us, Judge Perez was Delta. Delta was a direct beneficiary of the personal conduct preceding 1944 of its representative and almost exclusive stockholder (in community), Leander H. Perez, Sr. His apparent breaches of fiduciary duty (to the Council and its predecessors) caused creation of the corporation's mineral interests and his acts effectually prevented pursuit by the Council of its claim. So, too, was Delta apparently a beneficiary, relative to the compromises in the mid 1960's ( see supra note 17), of similar conduct on the part of Council President L.H. Perez, Sr., District Attorney L.H. Perez, Jr. and Delta attorney (later Council President), Chalin Perez, when the latter two, Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez were representatives of and two of the four major stockholders in, Delta Development Co., Inc. As a consequence, and because, given the unique facts of this case before us, the corporation should be charged with the conduct of Judge Perez, Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez, and for the reasons expressed in an earlier section of this opinion, contra non valentem as an exception to the running of ten year liberative prescription is also applicable to plaintiff's claim against Delta Development Co., Inc. [58] We consider now the matter of liberative prescription and the claims of the Council as they relate to the eleven defendants other than Leander Perez, Jr., Chalin Perez and Delta Development Co., Inc. The names of these eleven defendants appear at the outset of this opinion. They are all close relatives of Leander Perez, Sr. They include two daughters, the present wives of his two sons, the present husbands of his two daughters, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. An original defendant, Mary Ellen Sheehan Perez, against whom the suit has been dismissed by agreement, was the first wife of Chalin Perez. The interests of the daughters, Joyce Perez Gelpi and Betty Perez Carrere were acquired, it was stipulated, by inter vivos donations from Judge Perez. They were also heirs to their parents' successions; however, the record does not reflect whether by that means they received any mineral interests in parish lands. The interests of the other defendants discussed in this section of the opinion were acquired by inter vivos donations from Judge Perez or, as in the case of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, by inheritance from the deceased donee John Douglas Eustis and the latter's deceased son, John Douglas Eustis, Jr., respectively. [59] Counsel contend that whatever the present viability of plaintiff's claims against Leander Perez, Jr., Chalin Perez and Delta Development Co., Inc., claims against these eleven defendants have prescribed. They were not public officials or attorneys; and they, each one of them personally, had no fiduciary duty as regards the Council and its predecessor political subdivisions. However separate and distinct the plaintiff's claims against each of the fourteen defendants may be, all of those claims derive from the conduct and acquisitions of a single individual, Leander Perez, Sr. As regards knowledge, discovery and pursuit of their claims by the Council, there are no differences in plaintiff's claims. Plaintiff was, we have found, effectually prevented by Leander Perez, Sr., Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez from asserting the claims to the property taken and passed on by Leander Perez, Sr. To except these eleven defendants from our ruling on prescription in this case, we would have to find differences in the claims as relates to the prevention exception to prescription; and essentially there are none. For one thing, all of these defendants are heirs, donees, or successors of Leander Perez, Sr., who received the mineral interests which are at issue in this case by virtue of breach of fiduciary duty. They are not good faith purchasers for value. All of Judge Perez's donees, contrary to what would normally be expected, desisted from recording the instruments by which they acquired their royalty interests. [60] That conduct, which served to conceal the transfer of the mineral interests and the identities of the persons to whom Judge Perez transmitted those interests, constituted in a real sense acts of prevention, and setting aside for the moment the fact that the donations were not recorded in the Clerk's office, there is no showing in the record that the Council knew or reasonably should have known that these eleven defendants were recipients (nor when) of part of the same mineral interests now claimed by the Council. Each of these defendants benefitted by the conduct of Judge Perez, Leander Perez, Jr. and Chalin Perez in their concealing from their clients/principals knowledge concerning the outset and subsequent sources of the mineral interests, and in their breaching fiduciary duties. These defendants' adversary, the Council, over the entire period during which the donees enjoyed ownership and retention of mineral interests, was impaired in their opportunity to sue by the fact that the Council was represented legally by the donor and later by the family member/lawyer/public official successors to their donor, and by the fact that from no fault on plaintiff's part, the identity of these defendants was not discoverable from the conveyance records. Under these circumstances contra non valentem as an exception to liberative prescription is also applicable as regards the claim of the Council against these eleven named defendants. The ruling of the district courts maintaining the peremptory exception of ten years liberative prescription and the judgment of the Court of Appeal affirming that ruling will therefore be reversed.