Court Opinion

ID: 9858186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:18:07.041953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:27.538210
License: Public Domain

MOISE, Justice
(dissenting).
. The inventions of science have changed the map of the world; the theories and aspirations of the present demand more specifically an end to idolatry worship, because so often there is a perpetuation of. old mistakes stagnating progress; the citizen is presumed to be a sovereign in fact with the entire governmental trinity his agents, and the Court is his intermediary in preventing the other departments from lessening his right of sovereignty.
The so-called sovereignty of the man has now become a catchword of politics, *15because of the fact that governmental admistrators have always had the enterprising ambition to further extend power. Now, how can we prevent such? It is by a less devotion to legal abstractions taken from inapplicable decisions, a notice of the consequences of the acts of governmental administrators, less focusing on the definition of words, and by being imbued with a spirit of justice that what is right is right.
Some philosophic writer has said that though truth is in her nature one, eternal and indivisible, truth has many similitudes which masquerade in her form and perplex and mislead her followers, even though they are sometimes Judges.
Take the instant case. The issues are joined. The pleadings are in writing. The State contends, as strongly as the truth of holy writ, that no suit for damages can be maintained without legislative consent. Art. 3, sec. 35, of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921. That is true, but the sworn allegations of the petition show the contrary, for plaintiff clearly alleges that this suit is for the violation of a contract, and that, therefore, the aforementioned article of the Constitution does not apply. Surely, neither the State nor this Court can present, in pleadings, the plaintiff’s cause of action.
The petition’s sworn allegation is that the plaintiff bought from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which is under the control of the Louisiana Board of Institutions, a substance alleged to be molasses for cattle feed.
The Louisiana Board of Institutions was specifically authorized, by statute, to make the sale and receive the price, and to have a fund to the extent of a half a million dollars for the purposes designated.
The sworn petition then shows that the feed sold was not fit for consumption; that though there was a number of pastures, it was only in the pasture in which the feed was used that plaintiff lost a number of head of valuable cattle. Silent circumstances from physical facts often have a controlling power as a means of proof that is irresistible. Silent circumstances cannot commit perjury.
A cable of circumstances is as strong as the combination of all of its strands. Proof is not a succession of links, but a combination of strands in the weaver’s hands. A round peg cannot fit in a square hole. To the facts of record, the Court proceeds to apply the law which was applied to the facts in the case of State ex rel. Hart v. Burke, 33 La.Ann. 498. The facts in that case and the facts in the instant case are as far apart as the poles of the earth, which we now proceed to demonstrate by quoting from State ex rel. Hart, supra, 33 La.Ann. at pages 503-504:
“The money which is in the State treasury, from whatever source it is derived, is money which was due, which was paid, which belongs to and which is the property of, the State. *17It is money which cannot be drawn from the treasury, except in pursuance of specific appropriation made by law.
“Const, of 1879, article 47, * * * “This suit has clearly for its object the appropriation in favor of a private individual, who claims to be a creditor of the State, of money belonging to the State, which is in the State treasury, and which the State has ordered, by constitutional provision, shall not be applied to him, but shall be used to defray the general expenses of the government.” (Italics ours.)
The sworn allegations in the instant case show that this is a suit growing out of the violation of a contract of sale, Article 2475, and that as a matter of law the seller is bound for two principal obligations— that of delivering, and that of warranting the thing sold; and, whenever the seller warrants the fitness of the thing he sells, he may be sued upon his warranty. Since the legislature authorizes the penitentiary to sell its products, it authorizes it to act in a proprietary capacity to make a contract of sale, not to deposit the proceeds in the State treasury until it has built up a revolving fund of one-half of a million dollars to buy machines for replacement and to otherwise carry on the business.
In State ex rel. Shell Oil Co. v. Register of State Land Office, 193 La. 883, 192 So. 519, 521, it was correctly stated that — ■
“The State has two classes of powers : the one legislative, public, governmental, in the exercise of which it is a sovereignty and governs its people; the other, proprietary quasi-private, conferred upon it not for the purpose of governing its people but for the private advantage of the inhabitants of the State itself as a legal personality. Wykes v. City Water Company, C. C., 184 F. 752, affirmed 9 Cir., 202 F. 357, and cases therein cited.”
We must learn that to exchange a mistake for the real, a supposition for a fact, to-ascertain the substance and the result of the decision for the future, is to progress-
I respectfully dissent, because the well-reasoned judgment of the district court should be affirmed.
On Motion for Rehearing
Rehearing denied.
HAMITER and HAWTHORNE, JJ„ dissent.