Le Blanc v. Rizan
Le Blanc v. Rizan
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff and defendants are the heirs at law of Mrs. Apoline Hotard Rizan, deceased. Plaintiff is her only sur
The testimony which was excluded on the original trial, and heard on the second trial, of the suit against Rene Rizan, was the testimony of the plaintiff, relating what hex-mother had told her after making the sale to Rene Rizan, and only about two weeks before her death. The statement of plaintiff’s mother was that, immediately after she had signed the deed and the notary public and witnesses had left the room, she, at the request of her son Rene, returned to him, the $1,000 which he had paid her in cash as the purchase price of the property. Ordinarily such evidence might not be sufficient to sustain a judgment annulling an authentic act of sale. But the testimony in this case is corroborated by circumstances which would seem very mysterious, were it not for the explanation furnished by the statement attributed to the deceased. She lived in the home with her son Rene from a date prior to the sale to the date of her death. The sale was made there, and she died there. She was an elderly lady, of modest wants and humble manner of living, and no one ever knew of her having spent or deposited in bank or elsewhere any considerable sum of money after having made the sale to her son. No one ever saw the money, or any part of it, in her possession after the sale was made; nor was any money found in her possession after her death. In the light of these circumstances, we agree with the conclusion of the district judge upon the question of fact.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed at appellants’ cost.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- LE BLANC v. RIZAN
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- (Syllabus by auditorial Staff.) Gifts 49(4) — Donations; evidence held to show return of consideration, so that pretend. ed sale was gift. In a suit to annul the sale of real estate by defendant’s mother to him as a disguised donation, evidence that the mother told plaintiff that she returned the money paid by defendant for the property .to him, corroborated by circumstances explainable only on that basis, held to sustain a finding that the pretended sale was a gift.