Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

5 La. 754

Allen v. Campbell

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided December 15, 1850

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1850-12-15

<p>Where a slave, who has been sold, was afflicted with one disease, and subsequently died of another which did not exist at the time of the sale, the warranty against redhibitory vices cannot be so extended as to embrace the second disease upon the ground that the first predisposed the slave to an attack of the second.</p>

Decided 1850-12-15

¶1The judgment of the court was pronounced by

Rost, J.

¶2We take the facts of this case as found by the district judge. Under the evidence and the act of 1834, we are bound to presume that the slave was affected with a diarrhoea at the time of the sale, but the immediate cause of his death was the cholera. The death was caused by a disease which did not ekist at the time of the sale, and the question is whether the defendant is liable on his warranty, because another disease which existed at that time predisposed the slave to the epidemic disease of which he died.

¶3We think that there is nothing in the law which authorizes the warranty to be thus extended from one disease to another, and that, as bad faith on the part of the defendant is neither alleged nor shown, the question must be answered in the negative.

¶4As diarrhoea predisposes to cholera, intemperance predisposes to disease of the lungs. It would be strange if after a slave died of consumption, the sale was rescinded because he was a drunkard when sold.

¶5The plaintiff’s witnesses have misstated dates and evidently exaggerated the facts to her advantage, but even on their evidence, the judgment cannot, in the opinion of a majority of ’the court, be sustained.

¶6*755It is ordered, adjudged and decreed, that the judgment of the court below be reversed, and that there be judgment in favor of the defendant, with costs in both courts.

/5/la/754 · .json · Public domain