Burbank v. Conrad
1877 U.S. LEXIS 1664 · 24 L. Ed. 731 · 96 U.S. 291
March 25, 1878 · Docket 209
Headnotes
Generated summaries- Headnote 1
The Court applied the universal principle that the law of the situs governs every question of ownership, descent and title to immovable property.
- Headnote 2
The registration act’s purpose is to give notice to third parties; failure to record leaves the conveyance vulnerable to defeat by subsequent purchasers.
- Headnote 3
The definition is used to determine who may be protected by the registration scheme and who may not.
- Headnote 4
The Court held that the United States obtained title by operation of federal law, not by private conveyance, so the state‑law notice scheme is irrelevant.
- Headnote 5
Because the grantor and grantees were enemies of the United States, the conveyance was legally incompetent and could not affect title.
- Headnote 6
The plaintiff’s deed was characterized as a mere giving‑in‑payment, and the Court noted that delivery is essential for a valid conveyance of real estate in Louisiana.
- Headnote 7
The Court emphasized that the statute’s purpose was to protect ordinary third‑person purchasers, not the federal government acting under a confiscation decree.
- Headnote 8
The decree of condemnation transferred the estate to the United States, and the marshal’s deed consummated that transfer, rendering earlier rebel sales ineffective.
- Headnote 9
The Court identified two fatal defects—lack of delivery and lack of lawful registration—as grounds to reverse the lower court’s judgment in favor of the private grantees.
- Headnote 10
All jurists agree that the law governing ownership, descent, and title of land is the law of the situs, not the law of the owner's domicile.
- Headnote 11
The registration act’s purpose is to give notice to third parties; until a conveyance is entered in the parish records it cannot defeat the rights of later purchasers or creditors.
- Headnote 12
The definition applies to anyone who does not appear as grantor or grantee in the instrument, and such persons are protected by the registration scheme.
- Headnote 13
Because the federal confiscation statute creates a distinct source of title, the United States’ interest is not subject to the notice‑protecting provisions that apply to private third‑person purchasers.
- Headnote 14
War law prohibits any commercial intercourse with the enemy; consequently, a grantor who is an enemy lacks legal capacity to transfer real property situated in federal lines, and the grantees are likewise incompetent to acquire title.
- Headnote 15
The confiscated estate became United States property by the decree; the marshal’s sale transferred the vested estate to the purchaser, leaving earlier private deeds ineffective.
- Headnote 16
The Court held that the sales were defective because the subject‑matter was never delivered, a fatal flaw that prevents the deed from effecting transfer of ownership.
- Headnote 17
The statute’s purpose “to protect third persons” excludes the United States, whose title arises from a federal condemnation, not from a private conveyance.
- Headnote 18
The Act gave the President power to seize rebel property; however, the law requires a proceeding in rem and a judicial decree before the United States acquires legal title.
Opinion
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a suit for a partition of certain real property situated in the city of New Orleans in the State of Louisiana. The plaintiff alleges that he is the owner of an undivided half of the premises ; that the defendants are the owners of the other undivided half; and' that from the nature of the property it -cannot- be conveniently divided in kind. He therefore asks a partition by licitation; that is, by a sale of the premises and a division of the proceeds.
The plaintiff asserts title to an undivided half by a deed of the marshal of -the United States, executed to him upon a sale under a decree of the District Court, condemning and forfeiting the property to the United States, in proceedings taken against it as the property of Charles M.- Conrad, under the Confiscation Act of July 17,1862.
The defendants assert title to the whole property by a sale by public act,.made to them by their father,' the said Charles M. Conrad, before the recorder and ex-officio notary-public, of the parish of St. Mary, in Louisiana, on the 3d of June, 1862. This parish was then within the Confederate lines; and the Conrads, father and sons, were engaged in the rebellion against the United States. The act of sale was not placed on record in the city of New Orleans until 1870. The good faith of; the parties in the transaction is not questioned, nor'is the sufficiency of the consideration. But it is contended that the parties,'being public^ enemies in hostile -territory, were' incompetent' at the time to transfer or to accept the title to real property situated within the.Federal lines. And if this position should not be sustained, it is'further contended that thé act of sale not having been recorded in the city of New Orleans until after the condemnation of .the property by the District Court and its sale by tbe marshal, the plaintiff, as purchaser, took the title unaffected by the transaction; in other words, that his position us that of a third party buying upon the faith of the title standing in the ■ name of the elder Conrad upon the public records.
We have recently had occasion, in Conrad v. Waples (supra, p. 279), to consider the first of these questions, and it Avill be unnecessary here to do more than refer to our opinion in that case. And the second question requires only a brief notice. The-object of requiring a'p.ubliG record of instruments affecting the title to real .property'is to protect third parties dealing with the vendor, by imparting notice ,to'< them of any previous sale or hypothecation of the property, and to protect the purchaser against any subsequent attempted disposition of It. In Lóuisi- ’ ana, the conveyance is valid, between the partiés without registration, and passes the title. The only consequence of a failure' of the purchaser, to place his convey airee on the records of. the parish where the property is situated is that he, is thereby subjected. to the risk of losing the property if it be again sold or hypothecated by his vendor to an innocent third party, or if it be séized and sold by.- a ■ creditor of his vendor for the latter’s debts. The second purchaser from the vendor and the bidder at the judicial sale would,' in that case, hol'd the property. The United States never stood-in the position of a second purchaser of the property sold by the elder Conrad. They were ,not purchasers at any sale of his property. They had caused his estate in the land, whatever that was, to be seized and condemned. By the decree of condemnation, that estate vested in them for the period of his life. His estate for that period was then their property. The statute- declares that the property condemned “ shall become the property of the United States, and may be disposed of as the court shall decree.” It was the property of the United States, therefore, which was sold and conveyed at the marshal’s sale. The United States acquired by the decree, for the life of the offender, only the estate which at the time of the seizure he actually possessed; not what he may have appeared from the public records to possess, by reason of the omission of his vendees to record the act of- sale to them: arid that estate, whatever it Avas, for that period passed by the marshal’s sale and deed; nothing more .and nothing less. The Registry Act was riot intended to protect the United States in the exercise of their power of confiscation from the consequences of previous unrecorded sales of the alleged offender. It was in the ’ poAver of Congress to provide for the confiscation of the entire property, as being within the enemy’s country, without limiting it to the estate remaining in the offender-; but, not having done so, the court cannot enlarge the operation of the stringent provisions of the statute. The plaintiff had notice of the. character and legal effect of the decree, of condemnation when he purchased, and is therefore presumed to have known, that if the alleged offender possessed no estate in the premises at the time of their seizure, nothing passed to the United States ■ by the decree, or to him by his purchase.
We see no error in the ruling of the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana, and its judgment is
Affirmed.