34 _ ;__ _·FEDER`AIr _nr:r·onrrm. s l
auction sale of 1837. The adjudication and other evidence show that
at the public sale at which the defendant sold these lots there were
upwards of 60 purchasers who had the money to pay the adjudicated
price. The city had laid out the Blanc tract, with adjoining prop-
erty, into squares and lots, and 60 different persons estimated the
value of, and purchased, the same at auction. · ' »
The concurrence of so many minds as to the value of these lots,
thus expressed and recorded, furnishes a criterion as to its product-
ive value, founded upon so many practical judgments, that a court,
after a lapse of 46 years, should not lightly disregard it, certainly not
upon the evidence in the record; for the case shows that the com·
plainant commenced her assertion to title to this property by suit
against the First Municipality in 1836, and from most of the witnesses,
even from those who were defendants themselves, come such state-
ments as to authorize the inference that the value fixed by the public
sale of 1837 was prevented from continuing to bethe productive value
by the doubtslwhich the defendant’s unjust pretensions threw upon
the title. From this fact alone, then, it might safely be considered `
as established, and the defendant is estopped from denying, that the
use of each lot or parcel of this land was yearly worth 5 per cent.
upon this auction price. ‘ ` ‘ · ° » · =
The rate of 6 per cent. was virtually allowed for the use of such
property by the supreme court of this state in the year 1843. See
Erwin v. Greene, 7 Rob. 175. Vacant lots to the value of several
hundred thousand dollars hadbeen sold subject toa mortgage, which
the vendor agreed to remove. Notes for the price were given, dated
at the time of the sale, which was contemporaneous with the period
of the public sale here, in 1837, bearing 6 per cent. interest, which
were deposited to be delivered when the mortgage should be canceled.
The mortgage was not canceled till 1843. The question was whether
the vendor should recover 6 per cent interest for the time previous to
cancellation of the mortgage. The court answer "yes," for two
reasons; one of which was that the purchaser could have had pos-
session, and that by the Civil Code of Louisiana he must pay inter-
est if the property did, in the eye of the law, yield a revenue. The
case showed that it was vacant city lots; from which the court in-
ferred it was susceptible of yielding a revenue, "for," says the court,
"they could have been rented."
The court ought not to overlook a principle always recognized by
the civil authorities, and which is laid down in Pantchmtrain R. Oo.-
v. Carrollton R. R. 11 La. Ann. 258, 259, that even if the evidence
as to the value of. the rents had been much less satisfactory than it
e is, and if an accurate estimate of loss had not been attainable upon
such clear and full proofs as are here afforded, the defendant having
. invaded the "rights of complainant, and failing itself to furnish more
satisfactory proof, would have had to be content with the conclusions
to which the court would have been able to arrive from the evidence