Auguste Metoyer, a free man of color, seeks to stop the sale of his property. He represents that, in April 1839, Baptiste Adlé obtained a judgment against him for $66,162. The court authorized Metoyer to pay Adlé in four installments. Metoyer made the first payment of $20,000, as scheduled, in 1839. But, in 1840, Adlé refused to raise the mortgage on Metoyer's land. Metoyer was thus unable to sell the land in order to make the second payment. Adlé then obtained a judgment against Metoyer’s personal property. Although the terms of the judgment allowed Metoyer to designate the property to be seized and excluded his slaves, the sheriff, John A. De Russy, seized more than 1,900 acres of his land and 34 of his slaves without consulting him. Metoyer argues that he will be ruined by the seizure of land where cotton and corn crops are growing and of slaves necessary to cultivate the crops. He contends that he has another 3,360 acres of land, livestock, 14 slaves, and "a large quantity of other personal property," worth "at the lowest fair estimate" between $55,000 and $60,000, that could have been seized to satisfy the judgment. He therefore prays for an order to annul the seizure and sale of his property. He also seeks a judgment in the sum of $5,000 against De Russy and Adlé for their illegal seizure of his property and asks to be allowed to designate the property to be seized to satisfy Adlé’s claim.
Result: Denied.
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Repository: Natchitoches Parish Courthouse, Natchitoches, Louisiana
