Louisiana Civil Code

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SECTION 3 - OF THE PRIVILEGE ON SHIPS AND MERCHANDISE

Art. 3237. The following debts are privileged on the price of ships and other vessels, in the order in which they are placed:

1. Legal and other charges incurred to obtain the sale of a ship or other vessel, and the distribution of the price.

2. Debts for pilotage, towage, wharfage and anchorage.

3. The expenses of keeping the vessel from the time of her entrance into port until sale, including the wages of persons employed to watch her.

4. The rent of stores, in which the rigging and apparel are deposited.

5. The maintenance of the ship and her tackle and apparatus, since her return into port from her last voyage.

6. The wages of the captain and crew employed on the last voyage.

7. Sums lent to the captain for the necessities of the ship during the last voyage, and reimbursement of the price of merchandise sold by him for the same purpose.

8. Sums due to sellers, to those who have furnished materials and to workmen employed in the construction, if the vessel has never made a voyage; and those due to creditors for supplies, labor, repairing, victuals, armament and equipment, previous to the departure of the ship, if she has already made a voyage.

9. Money lent on bottomry for refitting, victualing, arming and equipping the vessel before her departure.

10. The premiums due for insurance made on the vessel, tackle and apparel, and on the armament and equipment of the ship.

11. The amount of damage due to freighters for the failure in delivering goods which they have shipped, or for the reimbursement of damage sustained by the goods through the fault of the captain or crew.

12. Where any loss or damage has been caused to the person or property of any individual by any carelessness, neglect or want of skill in the direction or management of any steamboat, barge, flatboat, water craft or raft, the party injured shall have a privilege to rank after the privileges above specified.

The term of prescription of privileges against ships, steamboats and other vessels shall be six months.

Art. 3238. The creditors, named in each number of the preceding article, except number twelve, come in together, and must all suffer a ratable diminution, if the fund be insufficient.

Art. 3239. Creditors having privileges on ships or other vessels, may pursue the vessel in the possession of any person who has obtained it by virtue of a sale; in this case, however, a distinction must be made between a forced and a voluntary sale.

Art. 3240. When the sale was a forced one, the right of the purchaser to the property becomes irrevocable; he owes only the price of adjudication, and over it the creditors exercise their privilege, in the order above prescribed.

Art. 3241. When the sale is voluntary on the part of the owner, a distinction is to be made, whether the vessel was in port or on a voyage.

Art. 3242. When a sale has been made, the vessel being in port, the creditors of the vendor, who enjoy the privilege for some cause anterior to the act of sale, may demand payment and enforce their rights over the ship, until a voyage has been made in the name and at the risk of the purchaser, without any claim interposed by them.

Art. 3243. But when the ship has made a voyage in the name and at the risk of the purchaser, without any claim on the part of the privileged creditors of the vendor, these privileges are lost and extinct against the ship, if she was in port at the time of sale.

Art. 3244. On the other hand, if the ship was on a voyage at the time of sale, the privilege of the creditor against the purchaser shall only become extinct after the ship shall have returned to the port of departure, and the creditors of the vendor shall have allowed her to depart on another voyage for the account and risk of the purchaser, and shall have made no claim.

Art. 3245. A ship is considered to have made a voyage, when her departure from one port and arrival at another shall have taken place, or when, without having arrived at another, more than sixty days have elapsed between the departure and return to the same port; or when the ship, having departed on a long voyage, has been out more than sixty days, without any claim on the part of persons pretending a privilege.

Art. 3246. The captain has a privilege for the freight during fifteen days after the delivery of the merchandise, if they have not passed into third hands. He may even keep the goods, unless the shipper or consignee shall give him security for the payment of the freight.

Art. 3247. Every consignee or commission agent who has made advances on goods consigned to him, or placed in his hands to be sold for account of the consignor, has a privilege for the amount of these advances, with interest and charges on the value of the goods, if they are at his disposal in his stores, or in a public warehouse, or if, before their arrival, he can show, by a bill of lading or letter of advice, that they have been dispatched to him.

This privilege extends to the unpaid price of the goods which the consignee or agent shall have thus received and sold.

Every consignee, commission agent or factor shall have a privilege, preferred to any attaching creditor, on the goods consigned to him for any balance due him, whether specially advanced on such goods or not; provided they have been received by him, or an invoice or bill of lading has been received by him previous to the attachment; provided, that the privilege established by this article shall not have a preference over a privilege pre-existing on the goods aforesaid in behalf of a resident creditor of this State.

Art. 3248. In the event of the failure of the consignee or commission agent, the consignor has not only a right to reclaim the goods sent by him, and which remain unsold in the hands of the consignee or agent, if he can prove their identity, but he has also a privilege on the price of such as have been sold, if the price has not been paid by the purchaser, or passed into account current between him and the bankrupt.




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