Case ID: so2d_408/html/0059-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "GULOTTA, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lawrence C. SAUNDERS v. Elizabeth Budd SAUNDERS.
    No. 13030.
    Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
    Jan. 12, 1982.
    Murray, Murray, Ellis, Braden & Landry, Stephen B. Murray, New Orleans, for appel-lee.
    John M. Holahan, New Orleans, for appellant.
    Before GULOTTA, GARRISON and KLIEBERT, JJ.
   ON MOTION TO DISMISS

GULOTTA, Judge.

Plaintiff-appellee, Lawrence C. Saunders, moves to dismiss the appeal filed by defendant-appellant, Elizabeth Budd Saunders, from a judgment of divorce on the ground that the appellant has not timely filed a suspensive appeal with sufficient bond or security. We deny the motion to dismiss.

From the decree of divorce rendered on July 7, 1981, the wife timely filed a petition for appeal on August 7, 1981. The trial judge granted an order for appeal on the same day, but no bond was set nor security furnished.

LSA-C.C.P. Art. 8942 provides for a thirty-day appeal period from a judgment granting a divorce and states that such appeal shall suspend the execution of the judgment insofar as it relates to the divorce. This procedural article, however, makes no requirement that a “suspensive” appeal be taken or that bond or security be furnished; it merely states that the effect of the appeal is to suspend the execution of the judgment.

As pointed out in Post v. Post, 376 So.2d 1275 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1979), a devolutive appeal may be perfected without the filing of a bond, and, under LSA-C.C.P. Art. 3942, any appeal timely perfected from a judgment of separation suspends the execution of the judgment, whether it is called a suspensive or devolutive appeal. We are in agreement with our brothers on the Second Circuit that it is not necessary that the appellant post a suspensive appeal bond from judgments of separation, divorce or annulment.

For the foregoing reasons, we deny the motion to dismiss.

MOTION DENIED. 
      
      . LSA-C.C.P. Art. 3942 provides:
      “Art. 3942. Appeal from judgment granting or refusing annulment, separation, or divorce.
      An appeal from a judgment granting or refusing an annulment of marriage, a separation from bed and board, or a divorce can be taken only within thirty days from the applicable date provided in Article 2087(1) — (3). Such an appeal shall suspend the execution of the judgment in so far as the judgment relates to the annulment, separation, or divorce.”