Louisiana Civil Code

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CHAPTER 2 - INTERRUPTION AND SUSPENSION OF PRESCRIPTION

 

SECTION 1 - INTERRUPTION OF PRESCRIPTION

Art. 3462. Prescription is interrupted when the owner commences action against the possessor, or when the obligee commences action against the obligor, in a court of competent jurisdiction and venue. If action is commenced in an incompetent court, or in an improper venue, prescription is interrupted only as to a defendant served by process within the prescriptive period. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3463. An interruption of prescription resulting from the filing of a suit in a competent court and in the proper venue or from service of process within the prescriptive period continues as long as the suit is pending. Interruption is considered never to have occurred if the plaintiff abandons, voluntarily dismisses the action at any time either before the defendant has made any appearance of record or thereafter, or fails to prosecute the suit at the trial. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983; Acts 1999, No. 1263, §2, eff. Jan. 1, 2000]

Art. 3464. Prescription is interrupted when one acknowledges the right of the person against whom he had commenced to prescribe. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3465. Acquisitive prescription is interrupted when possession is lost.

The interruption is considered never to have occurred if the possessor recovers possession within one year or if he recovers possession later by virtue of an action brought within the year. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3466. If prescription is interrupted, the time that has run is not counted. Prescription commences to run anew from the last day of interruption. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

SECTION 2 - SUSPENSION OF PRESCRIPTION

Art. 3467. Prescription runs against all persons unless exception is established by legislation. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3468. Prescription runs against absent persons and incompetents, including minors and interdicts, unless exception is established by legislation. [Acts 1983, No. 173, §3, eff. Jan. 1, 1984; Acts 1991, No. 107, §1]

Art. 3469. Prescription is suspended as between: the spouses during marriage, parents and children during minority, tutors and minors during tutorship, and curators and interdicts during interdiction, and caretakers and minors during minority.

A "caretaker" means a person legally obligated to provide or secure adequate care for a child, including a tutor, guardian, or legal custodian. [Acts 1988, No. 676, §1]

Art. 3470. Prescription runs during the delay the law grants to a successor for making an inventory and for deliberating. Nevertheless, it does not run against a beneficiary successor with respect to his rights against the succession.

Prescription runs against a vacant succession even if an administrator has not been appointed. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3471. A juridical act purporting to exclude prescription, to specify a longer period than that established by law, or to make the requirements of prescription more onerous, is null. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3472. The period of suspension is not counted toward accrual of prescription. Prescription commences to run again upon the termination of the period of suspension. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3472.1. Notwithstanding any other provision of the law or any provision of an executive order or proclamation, in the event the governor, in response to a state of emergency or disaster, issues an executive order or proclamation pursuant to R.S. 29:721 through 775 that purports to suspend or extend liberative prescriptive or peremptive periods in all or part of the state, the executive order or proclamation shall have the effect of suspending only those liberative prescriptive or peremptive periods that would have otherwise accrued during the period of time specified in the order or proclamation or, if no period of time is specified, during the duration of the effectiveness of the executive order or proclamation. Upon the termination of the period of suspension, liberative prescription or peremption commences to run again and accrues upon the earlier of thirty days after the expiration of the period of suspension or in accordance with the period of time as calculated pursuant to Article 3472. [Acts 2020, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 3, §1, eff. June 25, 2020; Acts 2022, No. 469, §1]

CHAPTER 3 - ACQUISITIVE PRESCRIPTION

SECTION 1 - IMMOVABLES: PRESCRIPTION OF TEN YEARS IN GOOD FAITH AND UNDER JUST TITLE

Art. 3473. Ownership and other real rights in immovables may be acquired by the prescription of ten years. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3474. This prescription runs against absent persons and incompetents, including minors and interdicts. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983; Acts 1991, No. 107, §1]

Art. 3475. The requisites for the acquisitive prescription of ten years are: possession of ten years, good faith, just title, and a thing susceptible of acquisition by prescription. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3476. The possessor must have corporeal possession, or civil possession preceded by corporeal possession, to acquire a thing by prescription.

The possession must be continuous, uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3477. Acquisitive prescription does not run in favor of a precarious possessor or his universal successor. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3478. A co-owner, or his universal successor, may commence to prescribe when he demonstrates by overt and unambiguous acts sufficient to give notice to his co-owner that he intends to possess the property for himself. The acquisition and recordation of a title from a person other than a co-owner thus may mark the commencement of prescription.

Any other precarious possessor, or his universal successor, may commence to prescribe when he gives actual notice to the person on whose behalf he is possessing that he intends to possess for himself. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3479. A particular successor of a precarious possessor who takes possession under an act translative of ownership possesses for himself, and prescription runs in his favor from the commencement of his possession. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3480. For purposes of acquisitive prescription, a possessor is in good faith when he reasonably believes, in light of objective considerations, that he is owner of the thing he possesses. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3481. Good faith is presumed. Neither error of fact nor error of law defeats this presumption. This presumption is rebutted on proof that the possessor knows, or should know, that he is not owner of the thing he possesses. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3482. It is sufficient that possession has commenced in good faith; subsequent bad faith does not prevent the accrual of prescription of ten years. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3483. A just title is a juridical act, such as a sale, exchange, or donation, sufficient to transfer ownership or another real right. The act must be written, valid in form, and filed for registry in the conveyance records of the parish in which the immovable is situated. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3484. A just title to an undivided interest in an immovable is such only as to the interest transferred. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]

Art. 3485. All private things are susceptible of prescription unless prescription is excluded by legislation. [Acts 1982, No. 187, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1983]




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