Deborah Dion Baudin v. Robert Terrell Spruill, Sr.

STATE OF LOUISIANA
COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT

06-161

DEBORAH DION BAUDIN

VERSUS

ROBERT TERRELL SPRUILL, SR., ET AL.

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APPEAL FROM THE
NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT
PARISH OF RAPIDES, NO. 209,174
HONORABLE GEORGE C. METOYER, JR., DISTRICT JUDGE

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J. DAVID PAINTER
JUDGE

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Court composed of Oswald A. Decuir, Glenn B. Gremillion, and J. David Painter,
Judges.

REVERSED AND RENDERED.

DECUIR, J., concurs and assigns reasons.

Lauren Gay Coleman
5615-D Jackson Street, Suite B
Alexandria, LA 71303
Counsel for Plaintiff-Appellee:
Deborah Dion Baudin

Michael H. Davis
2017-A MacArthur Drive
Alexandria, LA 71301
Counsel for Defendants-Appellants:
Robert B. Tudor, Jr., Sue Tudor Spruill Miller,
Dorothy Tudor McWhorter, and Michael S. Tudor

Harry H. Lemoine, Jr.
607 Main Street
Pineville, LA 71360
Counsel for Defendant-Appellant:
Robert Terrell Spruill, Sr.

PAINTER, Judge.

Defendant, Robert T. Spruill, Sr. (“Spruill”), appeals the trial court’s

application of the doctrine of after-acquired title in finding Plaintiff, Deborah Dion

Baudin (“Baudin”), to be the owner of timber rights in and to a certain parcel of

property. For the following reasons, we reverse and render.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Spruill and Baudin were married on October 20, 1978. During their marriage,

by act of sale and mortgage executed on June 20, 1988, Spruill and Baudin purchased

the following property (“the Tudor tract”) from Spruill’s grandmother, Ollie Beall

Tudor Gayer (“Gayer”):

A certain piece, parcel or tract of ground, together with all buildings and
improvements thereon, and all rights, ways and privileges thereto
belonging or in anywise appertaining, being, lying and situated in
Rapides Parish, Louisiana, and being more particularly described as
follows, to-wit:

Lot 3 of the Tudor and Beall Subdivision of the Southwest Quarter
(SW1/4) of Section 16, Township 4 North, Range 1 East, as per plat
thereof recorded in Plat Book 4, page 83, of the official records of
Rapides Parish, Louisiana, said lot containing 27 acres, more or less.

LESS AND EXCEPT:

That certain 1.73 acres sold from Ollie Beall Tudor Gayer unto Robert
T. Spruill, et ux, pursuant to Instrument No. 749048 dated March 1,
1982, filed and recorded March 1, 1982, at Conveyance Book 1056,
page 296, of the official records of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, as
corrected by Instrument No. 761707 dated December 1, 1982, filed and
recorded January 18, 1983, at Conveyance Book 1081, page 116, of the
official records of Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
That certain property sold to LA DOT at Conveyance Book 839, page
554.

That act of sale also contained a specific reservation of all timber and mineral rights

by the vendor.

Spruill and Baudin were divorced by judgment dated February 4, 2002. On

June 14, 2002, Baudin filed a petition for partition of the community property. The

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judgment of final partition of community property and settlement of claims was

rendered on June 25, 2003 and signed by the court on October 23, 2003. That

judgment awarded the Tudor tract to Baudin. The court further valued the Tudor tract

at $142,000.00 and found Spruill entitled to one-half of the value, or $71,000.00.

On September 20, 2004, Baudin filed a petition to fix time for removal of

timber. Robert B. Tudor, Jr., Sue Tudor Spruill Miller, Dorothy Tudor McWhorter,

and Michael S. Tudor, as the heirs of Gayer, were named as Defendants. In that

petition, Baudin recognized the reservation of timber rights contained in the sale and

mortgage wherein she and her then-husband purchased the Tudor tract which was

awarded to her in the community property partition. Baudin further recognized that

sometime in 1993, the timber was partially cut on the Tudor tract but that all of the

merchantable timber which existed at the time of sale was not cut. Baudin requested

that the court fix a time limit for the cutting of the timber and, in default thereof,

recognize her as the owner of the timber. The trial court signed an ex parte order on

September 17, 2004, requiring that Defendants remove the merchantable timber

which existed on June 20, 1988 on or before November 1, 2004. Defendants then

filed a motion to vacate the ex parte order, and said motion was granted by the trial

court.

On December 9, 2004, Spruill purchased all of the merchantable timber on the

Tudor tract from the heirs of Gayer. Then, on March 30, 2005, Baudin filed an

amended petition for declaratory judgment and, alternatively, to fix time for removal

of timber. In that petition, she added Spruill as Defendant and alleged that Spruill

acquired ownership of the timber on the Tudor tract from the Gayer heirs and that,

consequently, by application of the doctrine of after-acquired title, she was the owner

of the timber.

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The matter was submitted on briefs. On August 23, 2005, the trial court

entered written reasons for judgment wherein it recognized the application of the

doctrine of after-acquired title in this case and found Baudin to be the owner of any

timber and/or mineral rights in the Tudor tract which she acquired in the community

property partition. Judgment recognizing Baudin’s entitlement to the timber rights

in and to the Tudor tract was signed on September 13, 2005. Spruill now appeals that

judgment.

DISCUSSION

The sole issue in this case is whether the trial court was correct in applying the

doctrine of after-acquired title to find that Baudin is the owner of the timber located

on the Tudor tract.

The doctrine of after-acquired title provides that “when a vendor sells property

which he does not own and later acquires title, ownership vests in the vendee.”

Greene v. Greene, 373 So.2d 756, 760 (La.App. 3 Cir.), writ denied, 377 So.2d 118

(La.1979). Therein, this court stated:

Generally, in an after-acquired title situation, the vendor purports
to own the property in question which he conveys to the vendee who is
under the belief that his vendor does in fact own the property. In the
present case, all of the parties to the act of partition were aware that the
Liberty Farms tract was owned by others. Therefore, none of the
participants in the act of partition could establish a servitude on a piece
of land which they did not own.

We find the doctrine of after-acquired title inapplicable in the
present case.

Id. at 761.

Louisiana Civil Code Article 464 provides that “[b]uildings and standing

timber are separate immovables when they belong to a person other than the owner

of the ground.” Thus, the standing timber on the Tudor tract could not have been

included in the community property partition as it was not part of the community.

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Spruill did not acquire ownership of the timber until December 9, 2004, more than

a year after the judgment partitioning the community property was signed on October

23, 2003. At the time of the original sale and at the time of the community property

partition, Baudin was aware that Gayer had reserved the timber rights on the Tudor

tract. Therefore, we find the doctrine of after-acquired title inapplicable to the facts

of this case.

DECREE

The trial court made an error of law in its application of the doctrine of after-

acquired title in this case. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court

which recognized Baudin as the owner of the timber rights in and to the Tudor tract

and render judgment finding that Spruill is the owner thereof and giving Spruill until

September 1, 2006 to remove all merchantable timber which existed on the Tudor

tract on June 20, 1988. Costs of this appeal are assessed to Plaintiff-Appellee,

Deborah Dion Baudin.

REVERSED AND RENDERED.

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STATE OF LOUISIANA
COURT OF APPEAL, THIRD CIRCUIT

06-161

DEBORAH DION BAUDIN

VERSUS

ROBERT TERRELL SPRUILL, SR., ET AL.

DECUIR, J., concurring.

I agree with the majority and write separately in order to expound upon the

after-acquired title doctrine as it pertains to timber rights.

The question of whether standing timber belongs to the owner of the ground

or to another person is to be determined under the Civil Code rules governing

acquisition of ownership. The only person capable of conveying title to timber rights

is the owner. However, as the majority notes, Louisiana law holds that “where one

sells the property of another . . . and later acquires title to the property sold by him,

the title vests immediately in his vendee.” St. Landry Oil & Gas Co. v. Neal, 118 So.

24, 25 (La. 1928). See also, Plaquemines Parish Gov’t v. State of Louisiana, 01-1027

(La.App. 4 Cir. 4/10/02), 826 So.2d 14, writ denied, 02-1304 (La.9/13/02), 824 So.2d

1170. The rule of after acquired title is broadly applicable and includes the

ownership of mineral leases, as in the St. Landry Oil & Gas case, and timber rights.

In order for the doctrine of after-acquired title to apply in this case, the standing

timber at issue must have been presumed to be owned by the community prior to its

partition, and it must have been purportedly conveyed to Baudin in the community

property partition. This court was presented with the question of ownership of certain

roadbeds in the case of Lamson Pertoleum v. Hallwood Petroleum, 00-695 (La.App.

3 Cir. 1/31/01), 824 So.2d 1194. In resolving the issue, the court focused on the

property descriptions of the pertinent land sales: “[T]he remaining issue is the

alleged acquisition by DeJack under the doctrine of after acquired title. In order to

determine whether he acquired title in that manner, it is necessary to determine

whether the description in the sale to him includes those tracts, irrespective of the

sellers' [sic] not being owners at that time.” 824 So.2d 1194, 1199. Likewise, in the

present case, a review of the act of sale evidencing the community’s acquisition of the

property and the judgment of partition transferring ownership to Baudin is dispositive

of the timber rights issue.

La.Civ.Code art. 491 states that standing timber is “presumed to belong to the

owner of the ground, unless separate ownership is evidenced by an instrument filed

for registry in the conveyance records of the parish in which the immovable is

located.” Standing timber becomes a “separate immovable” when it belongs to a

person other than the owner of the ground. La.Civ.Code art. 464. In this case,

separate ownership of the timber was clearly evidenced by the language of the act of

sale dated June 20, 1988 and recorded in the conveyance records of St. Landry Parish.

Therefore, no presumption of the community’s ownership of the timber rights exists

which could have possibly passed to Baudin at the time of the partition.

Similarly, the conveyance of the property to Baudin at the time of the partition

did not purportedly include the timber rights for which Baudin could later obtain title.

In the property description included in the judgment of partition, timber rights were

not mentioned, and as later evidenced by Baudin’s petition for removal of the timber,

she had actual knowledge that the timber was not conveyed to her in the partition.

Accordingly, when Spruill purchased the timber rights from the Gayer heirs,

he purchased a separate and distinct immovable, “segregated in ownership from the

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land on which it stands.” La.Civ.Code art. 464, Comment (c). I concur in the

majority’s decision to reverse the judgment rendered by the trial court.

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