ANGELE MARIE LANGLES - The Case of the Missing Bodies

EBERHARD P. DEUTSCH

(Part of the story of Supreme Court litigation is the story behind the story–the sometimes bizarre circumstances which led to the case. While the following story only reached the Supreme Court on collateral issues, it was considered too interesting to pass by; so the author was asked to rewrite his original article, which appeared in the American Bar Association Journal in March, 1962, for the benefit of YEARBOOK readers.–Ed.)

New Orleans' Metairie Cemetery was once the sight of the exclusive Jockey Club. This gave rise to its sardonic characterization as a haven for the quick and the dead. In years long past, when outlying areas of New Orleans were still marshy soil, there were no underground interments and cemeteries consisted of vaults built above the ground.

Apparently, some kind of social status, measured by the magnificence of Mrs. Monarity's tomb was accorded to persons deceased. For instance, one such tomb adorned by figures of four ladies, bears an inscription referring to the saints portrayed, as follows: "Faith, Hope and Charity and Mrs. Monarity".

A cenotaph, rising above the surrounding tombs, contains on its base, the remarkable inscription: Angele Marie Langles, 105 La. 39

The bizarre history of the latter inscription is the subject of the present article, and is to be found in one of the decisions arising out of legal proceedings in New York and Washington, and in London, Paris and New Orleans. Angele Marie Langles was lost on the early morning of July 4, 1898 with 550 others aboard the French steamer La Bourgogne, sunk in collision with the British iron sailing ship, Cramartyshire, in a dense fog in the North Atlantic off the New foundland banks some 650 miles south of Sable Island. The collision gave rise, as already indicated, to extensive litigation in France and in England and in several traditional controversies in the United States.

The case richest in common interest, as well as perhaps in legal interest, arose in Louisiana, where the opinion of the Supreme Court of that state remains a colorful link in the chain of fabulous New Orleans anthology.[1]

Pauline Costa Langles and her daughter, and only child, Angele Marie, had divided their time between their native New Orleans and a residence in Pau, France, and in Paris. Pauline was a comely, robust widow of 52. Her daughter, 35, was slight, frail and delicate. Both owned extensive real property in New Orleans.

On the 25th and 27th of June, 1898, mother and daughter executed at New Orleans, simple reciprocal wills, olographic and valid in form. By her testament the Mother declared

"I give and bequeath to my daughter, Angele M. Langles, all the property of which I may die possessed, hereby constituting her my universal legatee. In case of the death of my said daughter prior to my death, I give [various personal and charitable legacies]. Two thousand dollars to be expenses for my tomb. After all debts are paid, the remainder of my fortune I give to build a memorial hospital for women and children…"

The daughter's will contained the following provisions:

"….. by this, my last olographic will and testament, entirely written, dated and signed by me, I give and bequeath to my mother, Mrs. J. Langles, all the property of which I may die possessed, hereby constituting her my universal legatee. In case of the death of my mother prior to my death, I give [various personal and charitable legacies]. After all my debts are paid, the remainder of my fortune I give for the support of the memorial hospital built by my mother. Three thousand dollars to be appropriated for my tomb…"

The wills were apparently prepared for each of them by a lawyer, apparently not noted for his astuteness. Shortly after the wills were written, both mother and daughter left for Paris, stopping en route in New York, whence Angele wrote to her cousin, Alex Costa in New Orleans, "we sail tomorrow morning at 10:00 on La Bourgogne" –and that was the last word ever heard from them.

La Bourgogne was a steel and iron steamer built in 1896, thus only two years old at this time and operated by La Coinpagnie Generale Transatlantique. She was 494.5 feet in length, displaced 7,395 tons, and was described as "the big French floating palace" in her cruise literature.

On Sunday morning, July 2, 1898, La Bourgogne sailed from the Port of New York bound for Le Havre, France. Just two days later, while La Bourgogne was proceeding at what was later found to be a moderate speed, in a dense fog some sixty miles south of Sable Island, she was struck almost broadside by the British iron threemaster Cromartyshire bound for Dunkirk from Philadelphia. In less than 40 minutes La Bourgogne foundered and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

The Cromartyshire remained afloat, laid to, and assisted in the rescue of, and took aboard, the 163 persons (out of 715 who had been on board La Bourgogne). Subsequently, the Cromartyshire was taken in tow by the British Steamer Grecian which brought her to Halifax, whence the Associated Press issued the first news of the catastrophe.

This and later dispatches, as they appeared in The Daily Picayune of New Orleans for July 7 of that year carried headlines which fairly summarized the ten columns of text.[2]

The French Steamer La Bourgogne

Collided with an English Vessel,

And soon Afterwards Sank with over

500 Passengers and Crew.

__________

Less Than 200 were Saved, and the

Survivors Tell a Terrible Story of the

Battle for Life aboard the Ship, in the

Boats and on Rafts.

The Crew Threw Women and Children

into the Sea to Save Themselves.

PROMINENT ORLEANIANS AMONG THE LOST

In a reversal of traditional French gallantry, never satisfactorily explained, 120 of the steamer's crew of 164 were saved while women and children among the passengers were sacrificed first.[3]

One of the many proceedings in the extensive litigation to which the sinking of La Bourgogne gave rise was decided by the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, and affirmed by the Court of Appeal of Paris and ultimately by the French Court of Cassation. In the latter decision it was held the speed of the French vessel "was not excessive at the time of the collision" and "no inference is to be drawn from the fact that the number of mariners saved greatly exceeded that of the passengers who survived the disaster . . . the members of the crew, accustomed to perils of the sea, and in better physical condition than the passengers, fought for their lives; and any isolated infractions which may have occurred among them . . . are primarily imputable to foreign sailors, on board the steamer as passengers . . ."[4]

Despite the holdings of the French courts to the contrary, the Supreme Court of the United States held that on the facts found by both courts below, "it is too clear for anything but statement " that " La Bourgogne (was) at fault, because she was moving at a rate of speed prohibited by the international rule as interpreted by the decisions of this court."[5]

One of the questions involved was as to the right, under the maritime law of the United States, to assert claims in admiralty for death on the high seas without having theretofore been settled;[6] that in the absence of statute–the death on the high seas act had not yet been passed–there could be no such recovery. But it had also been held[7] that if such a right of action is given by the law of the vessel's flag, that law will be enforced in an admiralty court of the United States. Justice Edward Douglass White (later Chief Justice) who wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a native Louisianian. He noted that Article 1382 of the Code Napoleon provides that "every act whatever of man that causes damage to another, obliges him, by whose fault it happened, to repair it"–a provision, as the learned Justice pointed out, to be found, in haec verba, in the corresponding article of the Civil Code of Louisiana.[8]

"It may not be doubted", said Justice White, "that under the cited codal provision, a right of action for wrongful death has been constantly recognized and enforced from the date of the enactment of the code Napoleon."

"Indeed . . . in controversies in the French courts concerning injuries asserted to have been suffered by loss of life caused by the sinking of La Bourgogne, the right to recover for loss by death was impliedly conceded to exist, although relief was denied in the particular cases on the ground that the steamer was not, under the proof, at fault for the collision."

"Such being the law of 'France", Justice White's opinion concludes on this point, "it follows [that]… the Circuit Court of Appeals rightly held the claims for loss of life to be provable against the fund created in the limited liability proceeding", even though, "under the facts found as to the speed of La Bourgogne, the vessel would not have been held by the French courts to have been negligent, and therefore no recovery could have been had in France."

In the English courts, the case involved an action instituted by Messrs. Thomas Law and Son, owners of the Cromartyshire, for the damages which that vessel sustained in her collision with La Bourgogne.

In its first series of decisions in that case ultimately decided in the House of Lords, it was held that the courts of England had jurisdiction over the action against Coinpagnie Generale Transatlantique, owner of La Bourgogne.[9] In the second series, Mr. Justice Gorell Barnes, sitting with the Trinity Masters in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, reached a conclusion of fact that La Bourgogne was in fact "going at too great a rate of speed" since "the vessel was kept at what may be termed reduced full speed".[10] On appeal to the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice A. L. Smith, with whom Lords Justices Vaughan Williams and Romer concurred, sitting with Admiral Moresby and Captain J. S. Castle as assessors, held that "there could not be a doubt that La Bourgogne was doing at an utterly unjustifiable speed considering the density of the fog."[11]

Mentioned above, and as will be noted hereunder, the opinion of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, arising out of the deaths of two of La Bourgogne's passengers who were lost with the vessel, dealing with a fine point of Louisiana's law of descent and distribution, also turned on provisions of the Code Napoleon–as brought over verbatim into the Civil Code of Louisiana.

Two of the "Prominent Orleanians Among the Lost" were Angele Marie Langles and her mother. Actually, they were merely presumed to have been lost, for no one could ever be found who had seen them on board La Bourgogne.

Named in each of the long wills as executor of the testator's estate, was Harry H. Hall, a prominent New Orleans lawyer. Not long after news of the sinking of La Boargogne reached New Orleans, and no word having been received from Angele or her mother, so that there no longer seemed any doubt that they had been lost with the vessel, Hall filed the wills for probate in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans, Louisiana, and as is so often the case when substantial estates are involved, there was a plethora of applicants presenting claims for recognition of hereditary rights in the "Successions of Langles".

The two proceedings were consolidated and, there being no debts except expenses of administration, for payment of which ample funds were available, and accordingly no need for any administration, the executor filed a petition seeking approval of a proposed tableu of distribution. "This" he said he was doing "in order to avoid a multiplicity of suits" growing out of "a contest which had arisen among the heirs and legatees over the testamentary dispositions" and to "bring the questions thus raised to a speedy issue and prompt determination" and also "to obtain for his guidance the interpretation of the court of the wills probated" in the proceedings.[12]

The principal question at issue in the litigation, was as to whether mother or daughter died first or whether they died simultaneously, and the subordinate questions turned on the legal consequences flowing from the facts established by the answer to be given to the principal question.

Article 936 et seq. of the Civil Code of Louisiana is in identical terms to the corresponding articles of the Code Napoleon of France. It provides certain presumptions of survivorship among persons "entitled to inherit from one another" and who "perish in the same event" . . . by the probabilities resulting from the strength, age and difference of sex, according to" the rules set forth in Article 939 of the Code, provided that "those who perished together are above the age of 15 and below 60 and the same sex the question of survivorship by which the succession becomes open in the order of nature must be admitted, thus the younger must be presumed to have survived the elder."

The heirs at law of the mother sought to show that her robust constitution, as opposed to her daughter's delicate health, constituted "circumstances of the fact", which should give rise to a presumption of the mother's probable survival. In the alternative, they insisted that the Louisiana codal articles, like those of France from which they had been transplanted, apply to presumptions of survivorship only in intestate successions, when the right of inheritance by law–not by will–is at issue.

In support of the latter position these heirs quoted the leading French commentators on the cited provisions of the Code Napoleon, to the effect that "there is one kind of succession in France, and that is the intestate succession. Parties who take under 'testaments' are not heirs but legatees"; and not the presumptions of the survivorship as to successions. The heirs at large of the mother accordingly contended that she survived and inherited from her daughter, or, in the alternative, that neither survived the other, and all of the legacies in both wills lapsed; that the two estates must be administered independently; and that these heirs would then be entitled to participate in the estate of the mother.

The heirs of the mother, feeling that all of the legacies had lapsed, were as to those payable "for the erection of monuments or tombs to the memory of decedents", which these heirs favored "from consideration of humanity or propriety, and not of law

The French and Louisiana heirs at law of Angele Marie Langles submitted that under the letter and spirit of Articles 936 and 939 of the Civil Code of Louisiana, she must be presumed to have survived and to have inherited the estate of her mother; that, for various reasons, the particular legacies under Angele's will must be declared invalid; and that therefore her estate must 'be held to devolve upon her heirs at law. Angele's heirs expressly opposed the disposition, "in the last will of the said Angele Langles …. of the sum of $3,000 to build a tomb or monument for decedent, because the intention of the said testatrix was clearly that she should be buried in such a tomb, which cannot be done, as her body has not been recovered from the sea".

The particular legatees of both mother and daughter–substantially the same under both wills–contended as did the heirs at law of the mother, that the codal articles, fixing presumptions of survivorship as between heirs who have died in the same catastrophe, do not apply in testate successions; that there must therefore be an assumption of simultaneous death; that both wills must consequently be carried out as written (except as to the dispositions of both mother and daughter in each other's favor); and that accordingly these particular legatees must be held entitled to receive their legacies under both wills.

The City of New Orleans, claiming the residuary legacies under both testaments (of the will to build a memorial hospital for women and children), and that of the daughter's will to support the memorial hospital built by her mother, based its contention on the assumption of simultaneous death and the effectuation of both wills, as urged by the particular legatees.

The position of the executor, in support of his proposed tableau of distribution, was substantially the same as that of the particular legatees and the City of New Orleans as claimed universal legatee. He submitted that, the presumptions of survivorship of "commorientes", set up by the Civil Code of Louisiana, like those of the Code Napoleon of France, as construed by the French commentators, do not apply to restate successions, in which "the vulgar substitution made in each will in favor of a memorial hospital . . . is made precisely to take effect in default of the instituted heir", so that "the entire property of decedents is covered by testamentary dispositions"; and the commorientes must accordingly be assumed to have died simultaneously.

"The plain intent of the wills is to give the property to the mother or daughter, if the one or the other survived; otherwise to give it to pious uses. . . . Under the civil law, it is no objection to the validity of a legacy to pious uses that it is for the benefit of the poor, even without a designation of locality. …. And the bequests under consideration are not void for uncertainty. They are made not to the memorial hospital, but to the women and children, and the city is authorized to receive and regulate this charity."

A jury in the district court found that it was impossible to determine from the facts whether mother or daughter died first, or whether they died simultaneously; and the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the deaths occurred "under circumstances such as to make it impossible to say from evidence which of the two died first."

"The court has to act", it stated, "either upon an assumption of simultaneous death, or upon a presumption of survivorship. For the latter there is none."

"It is claimed by some of the parties", said the court, "that the presumptions referred to are confined to intestate, and have no application whatever to testate, successions, and they quote a number of French commentators in support of that proposition."

"It is, no doubt, true", the court continued, "that a majority of the French writers are of the opinion that article 720 et seq. of the Code Napoleon, which corresponds with article 936 et seq. of our Code, do not apply to cases where the persons who perish together are entitled to inherit from each other only 'by reason of reciprocal testaments, and not otherwise.

"But", said the court, "where the fact is at all recognized that the commorientes may be the heirs ab intestato as well as the testamentary heirs of each other, so far as we have been able to discover, the further fact is also recognized that such a case constitutes an exception to the rule of the inapplicability of the presumption of survivorship to testamentary successions…..

So the court concluded that for the reasons outlined the law of Louisiana said in effect to Mine. Langles and her daughter Angele: "If you perish in the same wreck, without any possibility of ascertaining which died first, that question will 'be determined by a presumption which is established in the interest of the natural order of succession, and agreeably to which, in your case, it will be held that the daughter survived the mother." It having been determined then that Angele Langles must be presumed to have survived and accordingly to have been the universal legatee of her mother, it became necessary to adjudicate the validity of the particular and universal legacies of Angele's will.

It had been stipulated toward the end of the trial in the District Court that whichever will was to 'be held effective, all of the personal and charitable legacies in such will or wills, except that or those of the residuum, were to be recognized as valid and were to be paid.

Angele's residuary bequest of the reniainder of her fortune was to be devoted "to the support of the memorial hospital built by my mother". That legacy was held by the court to have fallen for want of an object to which it could apply since 'the "untimely death of her mother prevented her from carrying out this plan, and there-for, when the daughter dlied, there was no hospital built by the mother, in existence, to whose support the residuum of the daughters' fortune could be devoted".

The court took occasion to castigate the principal heirs of Mine. Langles who had opposed the effectiveness of the latter's will, by confessing its inability "to follow the learned counsel in the attempt to show that we shall 'be conforming to the wishes of the two testatrices by decreeing, according to the prayer of the opposition, that none of those wishes, as expressed in the testaments before us, shall be carried into effect, 'but that the opponent, who, by the terms of both testaments, is entirely excluded from both successions, shall nevertheless participate in the distribution of one or both".

The court dealt no more kindly with the heirs at law of Angele Langles than it did with those of her mother. It will be recalled that Angele's heirs, whom the court had held entitled to recover the residuum of her estate because of the caducity of the residuary legacy of her will, had sought to increase their inheritance by asserting the invalidity of the testatrix's direction for the appropriation of $3,000 "for my tomb".

"We are surprised", said the court, "that the heirs of the deceased, inheriting her property under the circumstances they have, should have opposed, as they have, the carrying out of Angele Langles' wishes on this subject. They should have been willing to perpetuate her memory even in this slight way."

The court concluded, "we do not think that the direction of the testatrix that $3,000 should be expended by her executor for a tomb, should fall from the fact that the body of the testatrix has not been recovered and cannot be deposited in it. The word 'tomb' has been defined, among other meanings, to signify 'a monument or tombstone erected in memory of the dead,' We think this is a proper occasion to give the word its broadest meaning–a monument in memory of the dead."

And so the executor of the estate of Angele Marie Langles was required by mandate of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, entered April 23, 1900, to erect a monument in her memory, at a cost of $3,000.

The centotaph, an imposing granite obelisk, was erected in Metairie Cemetery at New Orleans. But the executor was puzzled as to an appropriate inscription. Any conventional legend, even if it gave only the decedent's name with the dates of her birth, and death, would imply clearly that the monument marked her last resting place, and would not tell the real story.

So after careful consideration, the executor determined that the inscription on the base of the obelisk should suggest to all who passed, that to learn the circumstances under which this towering monument was erected they should read the opinion of the Supreme Court of Louisiana commanding its construction.

And that is how it came about that, carved upon the base of this stately cenotaph which dominates all of the other tombs in Metairie Cemetary in New Orleans, is

ANGELE MARIE LANGLES

105 La. 39.

Endnotes

1. Succession of Langles, 105 La. 39; 29 So. 739 (1900).
2. The account of The New York Times for the same date, with its headlines, is substantially the same.
3. "That the officers of the Bourgogne lost their lives does not prevent the horrible scene of savagery that followed the collision from being a national disgrace. . . . We say a national disgrace advisedly, because we do not believe that in the annals of the British or the American merchantile marine any parallel can be found to that spectable of unchecked cruel and brutal selfishness that was shown when the Bourgogne went down." Editorial, The New York Times, July 8, 1898, page 6.
4. XV Revue Inernationale Du Droit Maritime 67, 76 (Tribunal Civil de la Seine, June 28, 1899); Ibid., 598 (Cour d' Appel de Paris, January 18, 1900); XVI id., 630 (Cour de cassation, March 26, 1902). Translations by the author of this article.
5. 210 U.S. at page 114.
6. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199.
7. The Hamilton, 205 U.S. 398.
8. 210 U.S. at page 95. The foregoing quotation and the auotations from Mr. Justice White's opinion which follow are found at pages 138-139.
9. La Bourgogne (1899) P. 1 (C.A.); (1899) A. C. 431 (H.L.).
10. The Bourgogne, The Times, London, January 13, 1899, page. 6.
11. The Burgogne, The Times, London, May 12, 1899, page 14. This opinion and that under footnote 10 supra do not seem to appear in any of the published official reports of English cases.
12. This, and the quotations given hereunder from the Louisiana proceedings, as well as from the opinions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, are taken (unless otherwise noted) from the report of those opinions in Successions of Langles, 105 La. 39-77, passim.