Court Opinion

ID: 9858803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:43:43.151523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:21.982305
License: Public Domain

HAMLIN, Justice
(dissenting).
I am compelled to dissent from the majority opinion.
Primarily, it is my view that in this matter there are exceptional circumstances not similar to any involved in the authorities cited in the majority opinion. The instant case involves a sale, coupled with a purported donation.
I am of the opinion that the sale and transfer of Lots Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and the purported donation and transfer of Lots Nos. 13 and 14, on January 9, 1912, are so enmeshed that the entire act is one of sale. If we omit the word “donate” (which I believe is superfluous and was intended as such, as will be hereafter shown), we have:
“And the said James J. Manson did further declare that, in consideration of the purchase by the City of New Orleans of the above described property for the price and sum mentioned therein, he does by these presents cede, * * * [donate], abandon, set over and deliver, without any cost whatever to the City of New Orleans, to be used for public school purposes, the following described property, to-wit:” (Emphasis mine.)
Here follows a description of Lots Nos. 13 and 14.
If I may be pardoned the use of a homely expression, Lots Nos. 13 and 14 were “lagniappe.”
I am of the further opinion that the words “to be used for public school purposes” were not intended to be a condition, and were not in fact a condition imposed upon the purchaser by James J. Manson, the vendor, as contemplated by Article 1559 of the Revised Civil Code.
The so-called or purported donation was not made on the condition that the property shall be used for public school purposes. There are no words in the portion of the sale quoted, supra, from which it could be deduced that James J. Manson in*1045tended the expression or phrase “to be used for public school purposes” to be a condition imposed on the purported donee.
The history of this case, as evidenced by the following facts, confirms this conclusion:
The school was closed in June, 1926. James J. Manson died in May, 1952 — about 26 years after the school was closed — and made no complaint during his life-time.
Mr. Manson did not act after the school was closed, because he knew that it was his intention in January, 1912, to divest himself entirely of the lots in question; he desired the school so that it would aid him in developing his tract of land. He had been developing his tract from the date of the sale in January, 1912 — fourteen years before the school was closed in June, 1926 — and was completely indifferent when the school was closed, being entirely satisfied. After his death, and when the property had gone up in value, this stale claim to the property was made by his widow and heirs, the defendants herein.
I believe that the following holding of this Court, in the case of Lafitte, Dufilho & Co. v. Godchaux, 35 La.Ann. 1161, is applicable to the instant matter:
“The genius of our law does not favor the claims of those who have long slept on their rights, and who, after years of inertia, conveying an assurance of acquiescence in a given state of things, suddenly wake up at the welcome vision of an ttnexpected advantage and invoke the aid of the courts for relief, under the effect of a newly discovered technical error in some ancient transaction or settlement.1
“In the case of Bennett vs. Mechanics’ and Traders’ Bank, 34 Ann. 150, we had occasion to discuss this principle and to take an extended review of our jurisprudence on this question, and we therein enforced this rule as a bar to recovery on a similarly stale demand. Among the numerous authorities which we had occasion to examine, we find two decisions of our Court which are quite in point in this case. Dupre vs. Splane, 16 La. 51; Starr vs. Zacharie, 18 La. 517.
“We are very clear and positive in our belief, that if the stock in question had not greatly increased in value, since the date of the transactions which plaintiffs now seek to disturb and annul, this suit would never have found its way to the temple of justice, and that a demand, based on the subsequent depreciation of the same, would have been strenuously resisted by plaintiffs.
*1047“The impression made on our minds by the evidence, as well as all the equities in this case, compels us to differ with our learned brother of the District Court.”
Being of the opinion that the Orleans Parish School Board has a merchantable title to the two lots involved herein, I respectfully dissent.

. The foregoing philosophy of this Court has been approved in Sun Oil Co. v. Roger, 1960, 239 La. 379, at page 386, 118 So.2d 446, at page 449, and Fried v. Bradley, 1950, 219 La. 59, at page 81, 52 So.2d 247, at page 255.