In Louisiana, as in the states in which the English system of
equitable jurisprudence prevails, a creditor who has received from
his debtor the legal title to real estate may institute other
proceedings against the debtor in relation to the same property in
order to strengthen his title or establish his lien, if he deems it
his interest to do so.
In Louisiana, a married woman, who has received from her husband
a conveyance
Page 132 U. S. 380
of real estate as a
dation en paiement of a debt
against him arising out of her paraphernal property which came into
his control, may cause a mortgage of the same property to secure
the same debt to be recorded in the manner provided by law, and the
mortgage may become valid if the title under the conveyance
fails.
In Louisiana, a mortgage or lien on real estate of the husband
in favor of the wife is created by Art. 3319 [3287] of the code
when the husband receives her dotal or paraphernal property, which
mortgage though not registered, is not merged in a simulated and
fraudulent title conveyed to her by her husband as a
dation en
paiement, and its registry by the wife makes it valid against
creditors of the husband asserting title under liens subsequent
thereto.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States
for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Julius Lisso and John H. Scheen constituted a mercantile
partnership engaged in business in the Town of Coushatta,
Louisiana. Horace B. Claflin, Edward E. Eames, and others,
constituting the firm of H. B. Claflin & Co., of the City of
New York, were creditors of Lisso & Scheen, and on the 4th day
of December, 1878, they commenced in the proper state court of
Louisiana a suit with an attachment against Lisso & Scheen, and
their wives, Clara Forcheimer and Nancy A. Bradley, and others, in
accordance with the law and practice of Louisiana. The attachment
was levied upon property, real estate mainly, which is the subject
of controversy in this case. The suit was afterwards removed into
the circuit court of the United States. The record of the case in
the circuit court commences with a bill in chancery filed on the
13th day of November, 1879, in that court by H. B. Claflin
et
al. against Julius Lisso
et al. To this suit Lisso
and Clara Forcheimer, his wife, and John H. Scheen and Nancy A.
Bradley, his wife, are made defendants. This bill, after giving the
names of the
Page 132 U. S. 381
persons composing the partnership of plaintiffs, who are
citizens of New York, and of the defendants, who are citizens of
Louisiana, alleges that the defendants Lisso & Scheen are
indebted to the plaintiffs in the sum of $9,580.14 on promissory
notes, which are described in the bill and on an open account. It
then sets out the commencement of the suit and attachment of
December 4, 1878, and that certain property was seized under that
attachment as the partnership and individual property of Lisso
& Scheen, a schedule of which is said to be annexed to the
bill. The plaintiffs further allege that by said seizure they have
acquired a just and valid lien upon the property seized under the
laws of Louisiana. They allege that said Lisso & Scheen
obtained the goods sold by complainants to them by false
representations as to their solvency made to plaintiffs in New
York, and in contemplation of the fraud and insolvency hereinafter
set forth.
"Among other assets, they reported the real estate herein
mentioned, which they declared to be and which is justly worth
upwards of $20,000."
"That thereafter, and on or about the 23d November, 1878, being
entirely insolvent, and largely indebted, not only to your orators,
but to others, the said Julius Lisso and John H. Scheen did
conspire and collude with their said wives, and their said wives
with them, to cheat, hinder, delay, and defraud your orators by
making a pretended, simulated, and fraudulent transfer of all the
real estate of the said Lisso and Scheen unto their said wives,
respectively, including alike the partnership and individual real
property of said Lisso and Scheen in the Town of Coushatta and
Parish of Red River, and also the interest in the telegraph line
described in the deeds."
"That said pretended, simulated, and fraudulent transfers were
made on the 23d day of November, 1878, and recorded in the office
of the parish recorder at Coushatta, and were made by acts before
D. H. Hayes, notary public, and for greater certainty your orators
annex hereto and refer to said acts as a part of this bill."
"Now your orators aver that said acts purported to be
dations en paiement, but they allege and charge that they
and each of them was and is illegal, fraudulent, simulated, and
void,
Page 132 U. S. 382
and worked, and still work, great injury to your orators; that
they were, and each of them was, made when the transferors were
insolvent; that after such transfers, the transferors had not
property enough left to pay orators' claims; that the said
transferees, and each of them, knew of the insolvency of the said
Lisso and Scheen, and was a party to and colluded in said fraud.
They further show that the price named in said pretended
dations en paiement or transfers was wholly inadequate and
fraudulent, and they show that even if the said acts or transfers
had and have any reality in law, they gave and give an unjust and
unlawful preference, and are null and void; but they expressly aver
and charge that the said Lisso and the said Scheen owed their said
wives nothing whatever at the time of said pretended transfers,
whether on paraphernal account or otherwise."
"And your orators exhibit this their bill as well in aid of the
proceedings in said suit No. 8,883 as for such discovery and relief
as they may be entitled to in the premises."
The prayer of the bill is that defendants may be required to
answer,
"and that the said transfers, or
dations en paiement,
passed before D. H. Hayes, notary public, on the 23d November,
1878, may be declared to be simulated, fraudulent, injurious,
illegal, null, and void, and all the property therein described
subjected to the just claims of and debts due your orators as
aforesaid, and sold to pay the same, and that the debts due and
owing to your orators may be duly liquidated by proper decree as to
the said defendants Lisso and Scheen, as well as to the other
defendants."
Other proceedings of a similar character were instituted against
the same defendants at about the same time by Henry Bernheim
et
al., Simon August
et al., and Charles F. Claflin
et al. Bills identical in their language with those of
Claffin & Co. were filed against defendants. They were after
wards, by an agreement of counsel and the order of the court,
consolidated, and tried together as one cause. In these cases thus
consolidated, there was, by consent of all the parties in open
court, as shown by the record, entered a decree on January 22,
1883. This decree declared:
"That as to the act of conveyance or
dation en
paiement,
Page 132 U. S. 383
recited in the bills of complaint herein made by the defendant
John H. Scheen unto the defendant Nancy A. Bradley, his wife, by
act passed before D. H. Hayes, notary, Parish of Red River,
November 23, 1878, and filed for record and recorded in said
parish, in conveyance and mortgage books, the same day, and whereof
a certified copy has been filed, as an exhibit herein, November 26,
1879, and is now annexed hereto, as part hereof, be, and the same
hereby is, in all things revoked, annulled, and set aside, and the
property therein described and purporting thereby to be conveyed to
said Mrs. Nancy A. Bradley, wife of John H. Scheen, declared to
have been the property of said John H. Scheen at the time the bills
of complaint herein were filed, to-wit, November 13, 1879, and is
hereby subjected to the just claims, demands, and judgments of
complainants herein, subject to provisions hereinafter made, which
judgments herein against said Julius Lisso and John H. Scheen
in solido are as follows:"
"
H. B. Claflin & Co. vs. Lisso & Scheen, No.
8,883, of the docket of this Court, $9,580.40, with interest
thereon set forth."
"
H. Bernheim & August vs. Lisso & Scheen, No.
8,880, $655.38, with interest as thereon set forth."
"
August, Bernheim & Bauer vs. Lisso & Scheen,
No. 8,881, $2,326.36, with interest as thereon set forth."
"
Claflin & Thayer vs. Lisso & Scheen, No.
8,882, $2,298.57, with interest as thereon set forth."
"And it is further ordered that any mortgage claims which Mrs.
Scheen may have against said property described in said deed of
November 23, 1878, be, and the same hereby are, reserved for
further decision."
This reservation had reference to a claim by Mrs. Bradley, the
wife of Scheen, under a mortgage which she asserted on the property
in controversy, filed in the proper parishes where the land in
question lay, where they were duly recorded -- namely, in the
proper office at Bienville, April 30, 1879, and that of the Parish
of Red River, June 6, 1879. After the consent decree had been
rendered, Mrs. Bradley was permitted
Page 132 U. S. 384
to file an answer and cross-bill against complainants in the
original suit, setting up her claim under this mortgage, to which
there were a demurrer and answer, also replications. On the 19th of
December, 1885, the following agreement was filed, by which the
case came on to be heard on the bills, answers, and demurrers:
"Claflin
et al."
"vs. Nos. 8,896-'9 -- Four consolidated causes"
"Lisso
et al."
"To save time and expense to both sides, it is agreed that the
complainants may withdraw their replication to answer of Mrs. Nancy
A. Bradley, wife, etc., filed April 26th, 1884, and their answer to
said Mrs. Bradley's cross-bill filed, and the said Mrs. Bradley may
withdraw her replication to said answer, (with rights, however,
reserved to both parties to renew said pleadings, and reinstate the
issues as hereinafter reserved), and that complainants may file
their annexed demurrers, and the cause may be set down on the
bills, answers, and demurrers. In case said demurrers are
overruled, the answers and replications above mentioned may be
renewed and stand restored to the record, and cause proceed on
traverse, and issues thereby made as if they had not been
withdrawn, the object of this agreement being to present in the
simplest and least expensive manner the questions raised by said
demurrers."
"Dec. 19th, '85."
"KENNARD, HOWE & Prentiss"
"For Complainants"
"W. H. ROGERS"
"For Defendants"
The decree of the court, rendered on February 6, 1886,
declared:
"That the demurrers of the complainants herein to the said
cross-bill of the said Mrs. Nancy A. Bradley, wife of John H.
Scheen, be, and the same hereby are, sustained, and the said
cross-bill dismissed. It is further ordered and decreed that the
lien, privilege,
Page 132 U. S. 385
and preference of the complainants herein on the property or its
proceeds described in the conveyance thereof, made November 3,
1878, from said John H. Scheen to said Nancy A. Bradley, his wife,
by act before D. H. Hayes, notary public for the Parish of Red
River (which conveyance has been revoked as to the complainants by
the decree herein of January 22, 1883, and which property has been
subjected to the judgments of the complainants in said decree
specially detailed) be and are hereby, recognized, declared, and
made executory, and are adjudged to be in all respects superior and
paramount to all and any mortgage claim or other debt or demand of
the said Mrs. Mancy A. Bradley, wife of said John H. Scheen, set up
in this cause, and are declared to be a first lien, privilege, and
preference on the said property, its proceeds, fruits, revenues,
rents, and profits."
It is from this decree that the present appeal by Mrs. Bradley,
wife of Scheen, is taken, and all other questions are by the
original consent decree, and by the state of the record, eliminated
from the case except that which concerns the validity of the
mortgage of Mrs. Bradley on account of the paraphernal property
which passed to her husband, for which this mortgage was inscribed.
It is necessary to add that in the progress of this case, the
attachments which had been issued and levied on the property in
controversy were dissolved, and that an ordinary judgment was
rendered personally against Lisso and Scheen for their indebtedness
to the parties plaintiff to this suit. It is therefore clear that
the plaintiffs derived no aid in establishing their lien upon the
property by reason of these attachments, and it seems to be
conceded in the argument of counsel that such lien as they may have
commenced with the filing of their bills on the 13th of November,
1879. The object of those bills, it will be observed, was to set
aside the conveyance made by Lisso and Scheen to their wives of
November 23, 1878, which is said to be a
dation en
paiement under the Louisiana law -- that is, a proceeding by
which the husband, in this case, conveyed to his wife certain real
estate, which she accepted as payment
pro tanto, to-wit at
$10,000, on her debt against him arising out of her paraphernal
property that came
Page 132 U. S. 386
into his control, and although the subsequent mortgage
instituted by Mrs. Bradley, which, it was supposed, would cover the
property now in controversy, had been recorded in the proper
parishes April 30, 1879, and June 6, 1879, which was in one
instance seven months and the other nearly six months before the
bill of complaint was filed, no reference is made in that bill to
this mortgage, and no attempt made to have it declared void, or set
aside, but the plaintiffs were content to take a decree setting
aside the first conveyance of November 23, 1878, and it is only by
reference to the reservation in the decree that any notice is taken
of the mortgage of Mrs. Bradley.
As there is no answer to Mrs. Bradley's cross-bill, and as the
case before us rests altogether upon the sufficiency of the
allegations of that bill to establish her right under that
mortgage, we must look to that alone to determine the question.
Mrs. Bradley sets out in very distinct terms that her husband at
various times received from her father advancements made to her and
from her estate, which are specifically set out, and amount to the
sum of $29,321.23, for which she claims interest at the rate of
five percent per annum. By the law of Louisiana, the assertion of
this claim of a wife against a husband, and against his property,
is an
ex parte proceeding, by which the wife, with certain
formalities, makes out an account of the foundation of her claims
against her husband and has it recorded in the proper book of
records of the parish or parishes where the lands of her husband
lie. Until this is done, her claim affects no other person, and
this act of recording what is called a "mortgage" is the initial
proceeding by which the claim against her husband's property is
made effective. But after it is so recorded, all persons are bound
to take notice of the existence of the claim as though the husband
had himself executed a mortgage to his wife to secure the payment
of the debt. What may be set up by creditors of the husband or by
purchasers of his real estate to defeat the claim thus instituted
it is not necessary to inquire in this case, because no attack is
made upon the justice of the claims of Mrs. Bradley against her
husband, nor upon the regularity of the proceedings by which this
mortgage was instituted. No answer being filed to
Page 132 U. S. 387
the cross-bill, the statements in it are to be taken as true so
far as they are pertinent to the question before the court. It is
thus admitted by the demurrer to the bill that Scheen had, prior to
the 30th day of April, 1879, received of the paraphernal and dotal
property of Mrs. Bradley, coming through her father, the sum
alleged in her bill, $29,321.23, for which he was indebted to her,
and that she followed the course pointed out by the law in
establishing what the statute of Louisiana calls a "mortgage" on
his real estate to secure the payment of that indebtedness. No
fraud is alleged by appellees in regard to this transaction. No
denial of its truth is made in the record. Some attempt is made in
the way of argument to assert the priority of the appellees because
their attachment was levied upon the property before a record was
made of appellant's mortgage, but with the dissolution of that
attachment, any lien which could depend upon it fell. In the
language of counsel for the appellees in this case, the attachments
having been dissolved on technical grounds only, judgment for the
money demand was rendered in each case in June, 1880. As these
judgments were rendered long after the recording of Mrs. Bradley's
mortgage, they could not effect a lien prior to hers, and, by the
dissolution of the attachments, no lien acquired by them could
affect her interest at all.
The ground on which the invalidity of this mortgage is asserted
by appellees is that, at the time Mrs. Bradley had it inscribed in
the proper book, the property was her own, and the title to it was
in her by reason of the conveyance made by Scheen to her in payment
of his debt to her, which was the subject of the controversy
between the parties and which was set aside in the consent decree
rendered January 22, 1883. It is asserted in argument that because
the title and ownership of that property was in her at the time she
inscribed the mortgage now in controversy, she could not in such a
proceeding create a valid mortgage on her own property; that at
that time, Scheen, her husband, against whom the mortgage lien was
asserted, had no title or interest in the property, and that
therefore the proceeding was of no effect. This proposition is
earnestly insisted upon by counsel, and seems to have been the
Page 132 U. S. 388
one on which the circuit court rested its decision dismissing
Mrs. Bradley's bill, 27 F. 420. We are not referred to any clause
of the Code of Louisiana which asserts this principle, nor have we
been able to find it in any article or section of that Code. It
seems to be counsel's inference from the general state of the law
concerning mortgages and the title to real estate. Reference is
made in the brief of counsel to the case of
Townsend v.
Miller, 7 La.Ann. 633, and to the cases of
Miller
v. Sherry, 2 Wall. 249, and
Lyon v.
Robbins, 46 Ill. 279, which are also mentioned in the opinion
of the judge who decided the case below, but these cases only
concern the effect to be given to a decree, rendered in favor of a
judgment creditor, setting aside a prior conveyance of the debtor
as a fraudulent obstruction in the way of the judgment creditor.
None of them establishes the doctrine contended for in this case --
that a person who has received a conveyance of the legal title to
real estate from his debtor may not institute other proceedings
against that debtor in relation to the same property, to strengthen
his title or establish his lien, if it is his interest to do so.
That this may be done under the English system of equitable
jurisprudence is well established, and no reason can be seen either
in law or in equity why a party who has received such conveyance,
coming to see that his title through it is not perfect, that the
conveyance itself may be void, or voidable, and that thereby he may
lose the debt or consideration of the conveyance, may not institute
any proceeding known to the law, and not unjust or inequitable, by
which his defective title may be strengthened or his original lien
made effectual and established in regard to the property. One of
the most common instances of this character, very similar in its
nature to the transaction now under consideration, is that of a
mortgagee who, by the English common law, was treated as holding
the legal title with an equity of redemption in the mortgagor, but
who accepts a conveyance of that equity of redemption to himself by
the mortgagor as payment of the debt secured by the mortgage. In
such case it may happen that the mortgagor has created other liens
or encumbrances upon the property between the execution of the
mortgage and that
Page 132 U. S. 389
of the deed conveying to the mortgagee the equity of redemption.
If this conveyance of the equity of redemption is to be treated as
absolute payment of the debt secured by the mortgage, which, as
between the mortgagor and mortgagee, it is intended to be, then,
the mortgage being paid off and discharged and of no further
effect, the parties who have obtained a lien subsequent to that
mortgage, but prior to the sale to the mortgagee, would find their
lien to be a prior encumbrance upon the property and superior to
the title conveyed by the mortgagor to the mortgagee. To prevent
this injustice, equity has established the principle that by
holding the possession of his mortgage and not making any release
or satisfaction, he may continue to have the benefit of that
mortgage as a lien prior to that of the parties whose rights have
intervened, and thus he takes the title, which is intended to be a
discharge of that debt as between him and his debtor, while he
holds the mortgage itself to be so far alive as to protect him
against the subsequent encumbrances on his own land. The analogy of
that principle of equitable jurisprudence to the case before us is
obvious. In both cases, because equity requires it, the common law
doctrine of merger of the two titles does not occur. In favor of
the party whose interest would otherwise suffer, they are both kept
alive. In this case, the mortgage which the law gave Mrs. Bradley
on her husband's real estate for her money which came to his hands,
though not registered, was not merged in the simulated and
fraudulent title conveyed by her husband as
dation en
paiement. Forbes v. Moffatt, 18 Ves. 384;
Mulford
v. Peterson, 35 N.J.Law 127;
Mallory v. Hitchcock, 29
Conn. 127;
Slocum v. Catlin, 22 Vt. 137;
Wickersham v.
Reeves, 1 Ia. 413.
By the Revised Civil Code of Louisiana, art. 3319 [3287],
"The wife has a legal mortgage on the property of her husband in
the following cases:"
"1. For the restitution of her dowry, and for the reinvestment
of the dotal property sold by her husband, and which she brought in
marriage, reckoning from the celebration of the marriage. "
Page 132 U. S. 390
"2. For the restitution or reinvestment of dotal property which
came to her after the marriage, either by succession or donation,
from the day the succession was opened or the donation
perfected."
"3. for the restitution or reimbursement of her paraphernal
property."
We understand this article as declaring the existence of such
mortgage or lien from the time when the dotal or paraphernal
property of the wife was received by the husband.
Scheen v.
Chaffe, 36 La.Ann. 220. Certainly such is the meaning of the
article as between the husband and wife. But as to other parties,
it is declared by article 3347 that "no mortgage or privilege shall
hereafter affect third parties unless recorded in the parish where
the property to be affected is situated," and, by article 3349,
that when the evidence of such legal mortgage existing in favor of
a married woman shall not exist in writing, then
"a written statement, under oath, made by the married woman, her
husband, or any other person having knowledge of the facts, setting
forth the amount due to the wife and detailing all the facts and
circumstances on which her claim is based, shall be recorded."
The appellant in this case, having this undisputed right of
mortgage for the $29,321.23 set out in her bill and perceiving that
it might be lost either by the fraud of her husband in making the
conveyance to her or by some other imperfection by which it did not
transfer to her a clear title tot he property mentioned in the
conveyance, resorted to her original right of mortgage against the
property, which she undertook to make effectual by recording it, as
the law required, in the parishes where the real estate lay. She
thus, as in the case of the mortgage mentioned in the English
equity jurisprudence, reverted to her original right, which was
prior to all the conveyances and all the suits about this property
set out in this record, and as it was inscribed before any lien
accrued to the appellees on that property or any right to
appropriate it to the payment of that debt, it is not perceived why
her mortgage does not constitute a prior and superior claim to
theirs.
There is found running through the whole of this record an
Page 132 U. S. 391
attempt to control the action of the circuit court of the United
States in the case by the introduction of proceedings had in the
local court of Louisiana, which would have undoubted jurisdiction
if it were not for the prior commencement of proceedings in the
circuit court in the present case. These state court proceedings
originated in a surrender by Lisso and Scheen of all their
property, of whatever description, for the benefit of all their
creditors after the proceedings in this case had been commenced and
the appointment by the tenth district court of the parish of Red
River of a syndic -- namely Christopher Chaffe, Jr. -- to take
charge of all their assets, convert them into money, and pay it out
on the debts of the firm of Lisso & Scheen. In that proceeding,
which, of course, could not oust the circuit court of the United
States of its jurisdiction to proceed in the present case, already
before it, Mrs. Bradley filed her claim under the original
dation en paiement made by Scheen to her, and her
mortgage, the same that is in controversy here, asserting the
superiority of her claim on the real estate in controversy in this
suit against the syndic and the creditors whom he represented. That
case, so far as Mrs. Bradley was concerned, followed very much the
same course as the present case, and it came twice before the
Supreme Court of Louisiana. The first of these cases, that of
Chaffe v. Scheen, is reported in volume 34 of the
Louisiana Annual Reports at 684. The question there had relation to
the validity of the same conveyance by Scheen to his wife as a
dation en paiement, in which the court declared that
conveyance to be void in the following language:
"For these reasons, and after a thorough and prolonged study of
the question and of all the law and the facts bearing on it, we are
forced to conclude that this act of giving in payment was null and
void and without effect as to the creditors of J. H. Scheen."
But the court in that case declared that whatever other claims
Mrs. Scheen may have against her husband, J. H. Scheen, are
reserved to her, with the right to prosecute them in such mode an
manner as the law may provide. Subsequently,
Page 132 U. S. 392
Mrs. Scheen did prosecute in the district court of the Parish of
Red River her claim under the mortgage which is now the subject of
controversy, and that case, which also went to the Supreme Court of
Louisiana and is reported in 36 La.Ann. 217, was decided in her
favor as to the validity of the mortgage. The court says:
"The greater part of the indebtedness claimed grows out of the
husband's collecting and using the moneys realized on the
promissory notes taken in the sales of the lands, and alleged, as
stated, to have been donated to the plaintiff."
The court says further:
"The validity of these donations is not questioned by the donor,
nor his heirs, nor his creditors, and we cannot perceive any right
in the creditors of Scheen to raise such objection. . . . It is
sufficient that the husband received or collected the funds in
question as the agent of his wife and under color of a right
claimed by her and recognized by him. . . . The most serious
contest,"
says the court, "is in regard to the legal mortgage claimed."
One of the grounds was that it was not inscribed prior to the 1st
of January, 1870. To this the court replies that
"the omission to register at that time only deprived the
mortgage of force with respect to third persons who at that date
had privileges or mortgages upon the property of the husband
theretofore affected by the superior claims of the wife. So far as
relates to the husband and his property, the mortgage in favor of
the wife, if there existed one. continued to exist without
registry, and if recorded subsequently, took effect, as to third
persons, from the date of its registry. The evidence of plaintiff's
legal mortgage against her husband was recorded in the Parish of
Red River on the 30th of April, 1879, and its effect upon the
immovables in that parish surrendered by the insolvent was properly
recognized by the judgment."
There was then considered a question as to the registry in the
Parish of Bienville, which seems not to have been proved and which
was left open for further consideration. Although the direct
question of the effect of the prior conveyance of Scheen as
dation en paiement is not referred to in this last report,
it is obvious that the whole case was a proceeding in the Tenth
District Court of the Parish of Red River in regard to the rights
of the syndic, Chaffe, in this property,
Page 132 U. S. 393
and in the one case, that part of it which related to the
dation en paiement, the court in the first of these
reports declared that conveyance void, but remitted Mrs. Bradley to
her rights, if she had any, under the mortgage inscribed April 30,
1879, and that when the proceedings to enforce that right came
before the same court, it declared the mortgage to be valid for all
property within the parish where it was recorded. It must
necessarily have considered the effect of the previous conveyance
in payment, which it had set aside, upon the mortgage it now
declared to be valid. It can hardly be believed that if that prior
conveyance constituted any lawful obstruction to the right of Mrs.
Bradley to record and assert her mortgage, which the court said had
existed long prior to any of these proceedings, as between her and
her husband, and which was made effectual when it was recorded, it
would not have been considered and referred to. It is a fair if not
a necessary inference from these two cases that the counsel engaged
in them and the court which decided them did not perceive in the
conveyance of Scheen to his wife anything which defeated her right
to the mortgage for her dotal or paraphernal property. The question
as to the validity of that mortgage after the court had set aside
the conveyance as
dation en paiement was precisely the
same as the one in the circuit court of the United States, whose
decree we are called to revise, and we think we are safe in
following the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana on the
same facts under Louisiana law. The result of these considerations
is that
The decree of the circuit court dismissing Mrs. Bradley's
bill is reversed, and the case remanded to that court for further
proceedings.