Opinion of the Court.

surrendered by him to be issued to King was his individual property, and was deemed by him of equal value with the note; for he had taken and paid for 375 shares at the same rate, per share, that King was to pay for the stock subscribed by him. The question of value is to be determined by the situation as it was, and as it was reasonably regarded, at the time Doane purchased the note. King had subscribed for $10,000 par value of the stock, and had given his note that it might be discounted and the proceeds applied on his subscription; and he expected that it would be discounted by Doane. Of these facts Doane was informed when he surrendered one hundred shares of his full-paid stock that it might be issued to King; for these matters appeared on the face of the transaction. And the evidence entirely fails to show that Doane had knowledge of any fraudulent representations by Felt or of any fact that would relieve King from obligation to meet his subscription or to pay the note executed by him to the company, or that Felt made any representations to King at the instance of Doane. King, so far as was known to Doane, had assumed to pay the whole amount of the original note, whatever may have been, at the time, the intrinsic value of the stock. The note was endorsed to Doane in consideration of his surrendering one hundred shares of his stock to be issued to King. It was precisely as if Doane had exchanged with the company (and it was competent for the parties to make such an exchange) one hundred shares of his full paid stock for King's note; in which case, King could not have escaped responsibility to Doane upon the note, unless it appeared that the latter did not become a bona fide holder for value.

The result is, that, under the evidence, Doane must have been deemed a holder for value. No other inference from the evidence could reasonably have been made. Having, then, purchased the original note for value, Doane was entitled to recover the amount of the renewal note, unless it appeared that he purchased the original note with knowledge of the fraud alleged to have been committed against King, or with such notice of the facts and circumstances attending its execution that his purchase of it must be deemed to have been

Statement of the Case.

made, not simply without due care, but in actual bad faith. As such knowledge or notice was not shown, and could not be reasonably inferred from the evidence, the direction to the jury to find for the plaintiff was proper.

Judgment affirmed.

STOCKMEYER v. TOBIN.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA.

No. 143. Argued and submitted January 12, 1891.- Decided March 2, 1891.

An averment in a bill, filed by the curator of an interdict in Louisiana to have a contract declared null and void, that at the time of making it the interdict was losing, and to a great extent had lost, his capacity to attend to business and to manage his affairs, and that his mind was seriously impaired so as to affect his understanding and judgment, and so continued until he was judicially interdicted, does not meet the requirements of the Civil Code of that State, and does not entitle the plaintiff to relief upon the ground that the interdict was then incapable in law of making a binding agreement.

In Louisiana a judgment debtor can waive or renounce the right to have property, which is taken on execution to satisfy the judgment, appraised. The right of appraisement of property taken on execution is given in Louisiana to the owner, and, if waived by him, his creditors cannot complain unless the waiver was made fraudulently and to defeat their debts. When a mortgage in Louisiana stipulates for a sale, on forfeiture, without appraisement, and the petition for executory process prays for such a sale, and the order is "let executory process issue herein as prayed for and according to law," it imports a sale without appraisement. When a plantation in Louisiana and its fixtures are to be sold under a mortgage, the sale must be made at the seat of justice, unless the debtor, within the time after the seizure prescribed by law, requires it to be made on the plantation.

In Louisiana, when a plantation and the personal property upon it are mortgaged together by one mortgage, they may be sold together as an entirety. In Louisiana mere informalities or irregularities in a judicial sale do not constitute a sufficient ground for setting it aside.

THE case, as stated by the court, was as follows:

This suit was instituted January 27, 1886, in the name of Edward F. Stockmeyer, an interdict, and a subject of the Ger

Statement of the Case.

man Empire, residing in New Orleans, by his curator Carl Stockmeyer, a subject of the same empire, residing in that city, against Charles P. McCan, Henry Godberry, George Godberry, Laura Godberry, Noelie Godberry and Edward F. Le Bourgeois, citizens of Louisiana. Upon final hearing the bill was dismissed with costs.

Its principal object is to obtain a decree setting aside and declaring of no effect a sale and adjudication in the year 1885 to Charles P. McCan of a certain plantation in Louisiana, with all the buildings, improvements, and houses thereon, and sundry articles of personal property used in its cultivation, and establishing the rights and interests secured to Edward F. Stockmeyer by certain pledges made by public acts in the years 1881 and 1884. A further object is a decree declaring McCan a trustee in respect to the moneys realized by him from the sale of property taken possession of under the above adjudication.

The grounds upon which the above relief is sought will appear from the following summary of the pleadings and evidence:

On the 7th of February, 1881, by public act before a notary, the defendants Laura Godberry and Noelie Godberry pledged to Stockmeyer, his heirs and assigns, two promissory notes made by Henry Godberry and George Godberry to their own order and by them endorsed, dated February 20, 1880, each for the sum of $8750, payable one year after date, with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum from date until paid, with privilege to the makers of extending the notes from year to year upon payment of interest. These notes were secured by mortgage and vendor's privilege, given February 20, 1880, on a sugar plantation known as the Angelina plantation in the parish of St. John the Baptist, State of Louisiana, about forty-eight miles above the city of New Orleans on the Mississippi River.

On the 25th of January, 1884, Laura Godberry and Noelie Godberry, by public act, and for the purpose of securing an indebtedness from Henry and George Godberry in the sum of $32,000, with interest at 8 per cent per annum from February

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Statement of the Case.

24, 1884, until paid, and attorney's fees at 5 per cent on the amount sued for, pledged to said Stockmeyer the above two promissory notes. By this act it was agreed between Laura and Noelie Godberry and Stockmeyer that, in the event Henry and George Godberry failed to pay this indebtedness, with interest and costs, on or before January 25, 1885, Stockmeyer, his heirs and assigns, might take such legal proceedings as were deemed necessary to enforce the payment of the notes pledged, and appropriate the proceeds of sale to the payment of any amount due him on account of the Angelina plantation. The interest was paid to February 21, 1884, and payment of the notes was postponed to January 25, 1885. The land and property embraced in this special mortgage and vendor's privilege was the Angelina plantation, with the buildings, improvements, machinery, engines, apparatus, carts, wagons, tools, implements of husbandry, mules and other live stock, corn, fodder, growing crops, and everything, without exception or reservation, belonging or appertaining to that plantation.

On the same day of the last-named act, January 25, 1884, by public act, to which Henry Godberry, George Godberry, Laura Godberry, Noelie Godberry, Edward F. Stockmeyer and Charles P. McCan were parties, certain notes for $25,000, made in solido by Henry Godberry and George Godberry to their own order and by them endorsed, divided into sums of $5000 each, and payable at the New Orleans National Bank on the 15th, 20th and 27th days of December, 1884, and on the 5th and 15th days of January, 1885, respectively, with interest at six per cent per annum after maturity, were secured by special mortgage and crop lien on the Angelina plantation and the personal property belonging thereto, as an entirety, in favor of McCan. This mortgage, by its terms, was made superior to the one of the same date securing the indebtedness of Henry and George Godberry to Stockmeyer, as well as to that of February 20, 1880, securing the two notes of $8750 each, held by the Misses Godberry.

Subsequently, by a decree passed November 11, 1884, in the Civil District Court of the parish of New Orleans, Stockmeyer was adjudged to be incompetent to perform validly any

Statement of the Case.

He

act that could be performed by a person of sane mind. was, accordingly, interdicted and Carl Stockmeyer was appointed and qualified as his curator.

Upon default in the payment of one or more of these notes, McCan, the holder and owner of them, proceeded, February 25, 1886, by executory process, in the Twenty-sixth Judicial District Court, parish of St. John the Baptist, in suit No. 197 on the docket of that court, in which Henry Godberry and George Godberry were sole defendants, to seize the tract of land or plantation, together with all the personal property covered by the special mortgage to him and attached to and used in the cultivation of such plantation. At the sale ordered in that suit which took place on the 7th of March, 1885, at the seat of justice of the parish — the plantation, with the personal property covered by the special mortgage and crop lien, and used in its cultivation, was adjudicated to Charles P. McCan for the price of $15,000 cash, and a deed was made to him by the sheriff. Under that deed, he entered into possession and sold the mules and machinery in the sugar house on the plantation for a sum approximating $10,000. He, subsequently, leased the plantation for the year 1885 to Edward Le Bourgeois for the sum of $5000, which sum he collected. He again leased it to Le Bourgeois for two years from January 1, 1886, for $10,000, and the latter, at the beginning of this suit, was in possession as lessee and tenant under McCan, whose title rested entirely on the above adjudication and deed to him.

Before the sale to McCan was made, the defendants in suit No. 197 presented to the judge of the Twenty-second Judicial District of Louisiana a petition protesting against the sale of the personal property in block or in lump at the court-house, and demanding that it be appraised and sold, separately, on the plantation. This petition was accompanied by an affidavit of counsel stating that the office of judge of the Twenty-sixth Judicial District Court of Louisiana was vacant; that there was no judge in that district or parish to act in said office, and that the judge of the adjoining district-the Twenty-second - was authorized in that event to act. Thereupon, the latter