393 So. 2d 405

Anna Naquin WINJUM et al v. J. G. DUPLANTIS.

No. 13845.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

Dec. 15, 1980.

*406E. Wade Shows, Baton Rouge, counsel for plaintiffs-appellants, Anna Naquin Winjum et al.

Jude Thaddeus Fanguy, Houma, counsel for defendant-appellee, J. G. Duplantis, Jr.

Stanwood R. Duval, Jr., Houma, counsel for third party defendants-appellees, Jeanne Cenac et al.

Leslie J. Clement, Jr., Thibodaux, counsel for third party defendant-appellee, Estate of Henry A. Klingman.

Before LOTTINGER, EDWARDS and PONDER, JJ.

PONDER, Judge.

This is a petitory action, or, in the alternative, an action for a declaratory judgment. The trial court sustained defendant’s plea of ten year’s acquisitive prescription and declared him owner of the disputed property. Plaintiff appealed.

The issues are: ten-year acquisitive prescription, thirty-year’s acquisitive prescription and the judicial description of the property.

We affirm.

Both plaintiff and defendant claim ownership of some land in Lafourche and Terre-bonne Parishes. Plaintiff has record title traceable to land grants from the State of Louisiana. The patent to which defendant traces his title is defective in that it describes land in another section. Beginning in 1909, however, all subsequent transfers by defendant’s ancestors in title identify the property correctly as being bounded by the estates of other individuals. Defendant’s ancestors in title corporeally possessed the disputed property through their lessees from at least the late 1950’s through at least 1972. Defendant’s ancestors also executed several mineral leases on the property. Defendant purchased the property at a sheriff’s sale pursuant to a partition by licitation in 1973.

Plaintiff brought a petitory action and in the alternative, requested the court to describe specifically the property should defendant be declared the owner. To plaintiff’s claim of ownership, defendant set up his own title and alternative pleas of ten and thirty years prescription. The court sustained defendant’s pleas of ten-year’s acquisitive prescription.

Plaintiff claims defendant has not met the requirements to acquire ownership of an immovable through acquisitive prescription of ten years1 because he is not a *407good faith possessor as he purchased the property at a sheriffs sale pursuant to a partition by licitation. Plaintiff’s complaint is without merit as defendant’s good faith is not at issue.

There is no evidence to rebut the presumption that defendant’s predecessors were in good faith. LSA-C.C. Art. 3481.

Defendant’s knowledge of any defect in the title held by his predecessor is immaterial, if the predecessor has in fact accrued the necessary ten years. LSA-C.C. Art. 3482; Bishop Homes, Inc. v. Devall, 336 So.2d 313 (1st Cir. 1976), writ denied 338 So.2d 1155.

Plaintiff contends that the defect in the original patent precludes defendant’s ancestors having a legal and transferable title to support acquisitive prescription. LSA-C.C. Art. 3483, supra. Defendant’s predecessor’s acquisitive prescription is based upon a deed that correctly describes the property as being bounded on various sides by the estates of other individuals;2 it is sufficiently translative of title for purposes of ten-year’s acquisitive prescription. LSA-C.C. Art. 3483; Authement v. Theriot, 292 So.2d 319 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1974).

Plaintiff then claims the nature of the possession exercised by defendant’s predecessors was insufficient to establish acquisitive prescription. LSA-C.C. Art. 3479, supra, alleging that the exact extent of possession in Terrebonne Parish was never established. The record reveals that the property in dispute is an elongated triangle enclosed by fencing except for a small portion of swamp land in the tip of the triangle.

One who holds a deed translative of title is presumed to possess to the full extent of his title by any act of possession on his land, LSA-C.C. Arts. 3437, 3498;3 *408Marks v. Collier, 216 La. 1, 43 So.2d 16 (La.1949). However, plaintiff asserts that the effect of this constructive possession was lost by corporeal detention of the property by her ancestors. LSA-C.C. Art. 3449.4

There was some vague and at least partially disputed testimony of hunting, trapping and crawfishing in the swampy area. We agree with the trial court’s finding that this was insufficient to prove corporeal possession under these circumstances.

For this reason we affirm the court’s sustaining defendant’s plea of ten year’s acquisitive prescription.

Because we hold the trial court was correct in sustaining defendant’s plea of ten year acquisitive prescription we need not address plaintiff’s argument in opposition to thirty year’s prescription.

Plaintiff claims the court erred in not defining the exact extent of defendant’s ownership. The court described the property in accordance with defendant’s deed as being bounded by the estates of other individuals. We are at a loss as to what plaintiff desires beyond that, since that is the description by which the property was obtained and since no one gave any proof of a better description. If plaintiff wanted a boundary action, she should have brought the proper action.

For the above reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. Costs are assessed against the plaintiff.

AFFIRMED.

Winjum v. Duplantis
393 So. 2d 405

Case Details

Name
Winjum v. Duplantis
Decision Date
Dec 15, 1980
Citations

393 So. 2d 405

Jurisdiction
Louisiana

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