Stewart v. Crump

Citations

• 123 La. 983
• 49 So. 663
• 1909 La. LEXIS 812

Syllabus

<p>(April 26, 1909. Rehearing Denied May 24, 1909.)</p> <p>Husband and Wife (§ 49%*) — Donations— Evidence.</p> <p>At an auction sale made in 1888, to effect .a partition between the heirs of Samuel Stew.art and wife, Hunter Stewart, one of the heirs (then an unmarried man) became in point of fact the adjudicatee of certain real estate in New Orleans, and in the partition of the succession and the settlement with his coheirs he paid the price of the same. In the interval between the sale and the partition among the .heirs, the real adjudicatee caused the auctioneer to substitute for his name as adjudicatee that of a young lady to whom he was engaged to be mar-Tied with the intention of making a donation of the property so purchased to her. Her name so appeared in the act of partition. The young lady had in fact nothing to do with this transaction until after the partition had been made and the price had been paid by I-Iunter Stewart, to whom she was subsequently married.</p> <p>After her marriage the auctioneer and the heirs (including her husband) and the wife appeared before a notary and two witnesses avowedly for the purpose of placing the legal title out of the successions and in the name of the adjudícateos at the public auction. In that act, however, the name of the wife was again made .to appear as the adjudicatee at the public sale. The heirs, including the husband, transferred their interests in the property to the wife, and all parties signed the act. There was no sale actually made at that time. The property had passed out of the successions to the husband at .the auction, and the price had been paid by him. From the time this last act was passed, the legal title stood in the name of the wife, and so remained until her death. Her succession was settled on the basis of the property having passed to her, and so it had, but by way of donation from her husband through the act last mentioned, and not by purchase. At her death there was left, as issue of the ma