Rene A. Viosca

The case involved a dispute between two mineral lessees over access to drilling sites near Castor Bayou in Louisiana. Plaintiff Harwood Oil & Mining Company held a mineral lease on the bayou's stream bed and a surface lease on adjacent land, seeking to enjoin defendant Alfred S. Black from blocking roads that plaintiff needed to reach its directional drilling locations. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' decisions granting plaintiff access, ruling that plaintiff failed to prove the bayou was navigable, so the road along its bank was not established as public, and the access road across defendant's property was private with no right of passage granted under the Civil Code.

propertybusiness & regulatory

This case concerns a Louisiana succession proceeding after Samuel Foster's death, where his children initially obtained a judgment of possession treating the estate as intestate, but his widow later sought to probate an olographic will, reopen the succession, and recover reimbursement for debts she paid plus compensation for estate administration. The district court probated the will subject to legal reduction, set aside the prior possession judgment, and ordered a new inventory including debts, but dismissed the widow's rule to amend the inventory to exclude certain property she claimed as separate. On appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the probate with amendments reserving the widow's monetary claims for later proceedings, reversed the dismissal of the inventory rule, and remanded for further proceedings on amending and homologating the inventory, reasoning that incomplete probate and administration prevented resolution of the money demands and that an inventory concerns assets rather than debts.

family lawpropertyprocedure

In State v. Bickham, the defendant was indicted for the murder of a police officer in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, tried by jury, convicted, and sentenced to death; he appealed relying on thirty-one bills of exception concerning the state's charging under multiple subsections of the murder statute, requests for bills of particulars and discovery of statements, evidentiary rulings on witness testimony about police procedures, and other trial issues. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. The court held that the state could properly charge murder under both subsections of LSA-R.S. 14:30 without electing between them, that the defendant was entitled only to written confessions under existing precedent, and that the remaining bills lacked merit under statutes and prior decisions such as State v. Rowan and State v. Dorsey; it further noted that the record contained sufficient legal evidence to support the verdict.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a breach of contract claim where the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to deliver the full quantity of steel (initially 200 gross tons, later increased to 400) under an oral sales agreement made in June 1955 at fixed prices of $33 and $31 per ton, resulting in claimed damages of $2,200 based on the November 1955 market price increase. The district court awarded $400 in damages, but on appeal the Louisiana Supreme Court amended the judgment to $2,200 and affirmed it as modified. The court reasoned that an enforceable oral contract existed, as evidenced by partial performance through deliveries of 200 tons and witness testimony confirming the quantity increase and repeated extensions of the delivery deadline; the defendant breached by refusing further deliveries on November 4, 1955; and damages were properly measured by the $11 per ton price difference at the time of default rather than the original July deadline, consistent with precedents on extended performance periods. The court also rejected challenges to the admissibility of parol evidence and confirmatory letters, finding them either unobjected to or corroborated by direct testimony.

business & regulatory

In this divorce action brought by the wife on grounds of two years' voluntary separation, the husband admitted the separation but claimed that immovable property purchased by the wife before the marriage was community property or, alternatively, sought reimbursement for pre-marriage funds he provided for the down payment and repairs. The district court granted the divorce, declared the property the wife's separate and paraphernal property under LSA-C.C. art. 2334 since it was acquired prior to marriage, awarded the husband a stipulated $130.12, and rejected his other reimbursement claims. On appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the disputed sums were donations made in contemplation of marriage that were not recoverable upon divorce absent proof of ingratitude or other statutory grounds for revocation under the Civil Code, as the marriage had taken place. The court found the evidence conflicting and insufficient to establish conditional gifts or other bases for recovery.

family lawproperty

The plaintiff sought a mandamus order requiring New Orleans officials to issue a 1959 liquor permit, after the district court granted the request but the Court of Appeal reversed it. Upon review, the Supreme Court found the issue moot because the permit year had expired. The court dismissed the proceedings, holding that it does not render judgments that cannot be enforced or opine on moot questions lacking practical results.

business & regulatoryprocedure