Jewell v. De Blanc

Citations

• 110 La. 810
• 34 So. 787
• 1903 La. LEXIS 710

Syllabus

<p>NATURAL TUTRIX — APPOINTMENT—JURISDICTION — REMARRIAGE—EFFECT—RIGHT TO SUE —INVENTORY—SALE OF MINOR'S PROPERTY — RECOVERY — PETITORY ACTION — JUDGMENT-AMENDMENT.</p> <p>1. The district court for the parish of the mother’s domicile is the proper one to appoint and confirm her as natural tutrix.</p> <p>2. By law, the wife is declared deprived ipso facto of .the natural tutorship by contracting a second marriage without having provoked a family meeting to consider whether she should be retained or not. This is an affirmative pregnant, with the negative that her marriage, after provoking a’ family meeting, does not deprive her of the tutorship, even if the proceedings are not homologated.</p> <p>3. Though at the time the order of court appointing and confirming a mother -as natural tutrix of her minor children, and at the time of her taking the oath as tutrix, no inventory of the minors’ property' had been recorded or taken, her capacity to sue cannot be successfully attacked by the defendant in a petitory action, if at the time of the institution of the suit an inventory of the minors’ property had been taken and recorded, and her status as tutrix has been recognized and acted upon by the district judge of her domicile. Irregularities in the matter of the appointment and confirmation of tutors can be urged by way of defense by third persons only in so far as this may be necessary for the protection of their own rights.</p> <p>4. Where property belonging to minors has been illegally seized and sold as that of another person, the purchaser at such sale, in possession of the same in bad faith, cannot exact, as a condition precedent to the institution of a suit for its recovery, that plaintiff offer to reimburse him the amount he has paid for the property.</p> <p>5. Minors whose property has been illegally seized and sold as that of another person are not forced to attack by direct action the title, of the party in possession. -They may at their risk ignore it as an abs