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151 La. 795

Jackson v. Shaw

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided March 13, 1922

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1922-03-13

<p>Appeal from Third Judicial District Court, Parish of Claiborne; J. E. Reynolds, Judge.</p> <p>Suit by Alice Jackson and others against G. W. Shaw, Jr. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiffs appeal.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““And the fact is that, even if he had possessed in legal as well as actual good faith, he still would owe this accounting; since oil and other minerals taken from the land by a possesser in good faith continue to belong to the owner of the land, and therefore must be restored to this owner along with the land —unlike in that respect to fruits, which pass into the ownership of the possessor in good faith as soon as reduced to possession.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Board of Com'rs of Caddo Levee Dist. v. Pure Oil Co.

Relies on McDade v. Bossier Levee Board · Elder v. Ellerbe · 41 La. Ann. 494 - Heirs of Dohan v. Murdock

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Judgment set aside, and case remanded on rehearing · Decided 1922-03-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently December 1984

4 federal appellate · 17 state decisions

801922193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*799On Rehearing.

By the WHOLE COURT.PROVOSTY, C. J.

¶2We adhere to the view that, for the reasons assigned in the original opinion, the sale by Lucy Jackson to G. W. Shaw, Jr., is null; but further consideration has convinced us that Shaw owes plaintiffs an accounting.

¶3[3] If he believed that Lucy Jackson could make a valid sale of her property in payment of a debt of her husband, his error came not from ignorance of the facts, for he had full knowledge of them, but of the law; so that, however much he may have been in actual good faith, he was in legal had faith. Dohan v. Murdock, 41 La. Ann. 494, 6 South. 131; Railroad Co. v. Sledge, 41 La. Ann. 896, 6 South. 725; Railroad v. Elmore, 46 La. Ann. 1237, 15 South. 701; McDade v. Bossier Levee Dist., 109 La. 625, 33 South. 628; Leury v. Mayer, 122 La. 486, 47 South. 839; Gremillion v. Roy, 125 La. 524, 51 South. 576.

¶4And the fact is that, even if he had possessed in legal as well as actual good faith, he still would owe this accounting; since oil and other minerals taken from the land by a possessor in good faitb continue to belong to the owner of the land, and therefore must be restored to this owner along with the land — unlike in that respect to fruits, which pass into the ownership of the possessor in good faith as soon as reduced to possession by him. Elder v. Ellerbe, 135 La. 990, 66 South. 337. So in Ball v. Simms, 121 La. 627, 46 South. 674, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 244, it was held that a possessor, even in good faith, owes an accounting for timber taken from tbe land. So likewise in McGee v. La. Lumber Co., 123 La. 696, 49 South. 475.

¶5It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the judgment heretofore banded down herein be reinstated, in so far as it sets aside the judgment appealed from, and annuls the sale by Lucy Jackson to the defendant, G. W. Shaw, Jr.; and that this case be remanded to tbe lower court for trial, on the demand of plaintiffs for an accounting for the oil received by defendant both before and since the filing of this suit, and for all moneys or other values received by him from mineral leases of the land, or from the sale of mineral rights in the land; and that defendant pay the 'costs of this suit.

O’NIELL, J., dissents from the ruling that the sale by Lucy Jackson to G. W. Shaw was null.LECHE, J., dissents.
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