Case Name: Stanley COCHREN v. LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT CO., et al.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1994-06-15
Citations: 639 So. 2d 342
Docket Number: No. 94-CA-0002
Parties: Stanley COCHREN v. LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT CO., et al.
Judges: Before WARD, WALTZER and LANDRIEU, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 639
Pages: 342–349

Head Matter:
Stanley COCHREN v. LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT CO., et al.
No. 94-CA-0002.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
June 15, 1994.
F.M. Stoller, Edward P. Gothard, McClos-key, Langenstein & Stoller,' New Orleans, for plaintiff/appellant.
Charlton B. Ogden, III, Ogden, Ogden & Wright, New Orleans, for defendants/appel-lees.
Before WARD, WALTZER and LANDRIEU, JJ.

Opinion:
jiLANDRIEU, Judge.
Stanley E. Cochren (Cochren) filed suit in the 34th Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Bernard on 11 October 1991 seeking damages for injuries sustained in an accident which allegedly occurred on 16 October 1990. At the time of the accident, Cochren was employed by E.T. Smith Services of Alabama, Inc. (Smith) and working on a facility owned and operated by Louisiana Power and Light Company (LP & L). Cochren filed suit against Smith and LP & L, as well as the designer and manufacturer of the circuit breaker box which allegedly caused the accident, General Electric Company (GE)1 In his petition, Cochren alleged that the defendants were liable jointly, severally and in solido for his injuries.
GE was served on 18 October 1991; LP & L was served on 21 October 1991; Smith was served on 21 October 1991. GE answered on 4 December 1991, generally denying liability and pleading Cochren's comparative fault. A day later, LP & L filed a declinatory exception of improper venue and a peremptory exception of prescription based on the fact that the accident occurred in Orleans Parish at New Orleans Public Service, Inc.'s Mi-choud ^facility. Also on 5 December 1991, Smith filed an exception of no cause of action, contending that Cochren's claim against Smith is limited to a cause of action under the Louisiana Workers' Compensation laws, together with an answer generally denying Cochren's claim and a cross-claim against LP & L and GE.
On 9 December 1991, GE filed an amended answer, urging a declinatory exception of improper venue and a peremptory exception of prescription. On 8 January 1992, GE joined in LP & L's exception of improper venue and by separate pleading joined in LP & L's exception of prescription. On 15 January 1992, Smith filed an exception of improper venue, adopting the argument contained in LP & L's venue exception.
By judgment of 8 April 1992, the trial court denied Smith's and GE's exceptions of improper venue, denied. all exceptions of prescription, and granted LP & L's exception of improper venue. Upon application by LP & L to this court for supervisory writs, St. Bernard court's judgment of 8 April 1992 was vacated with respect to its ruling on LP & L's exception of prescription and further proceedings were ordered to be conducted in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. In accordance with this order, LP & L's peremptory exception of prescription was tried in Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans and judgment was rendered on 8 November 1993 in favor of LP & L, dismissing Cochren's petition. Cochren appeals from that judgment.
-¡¿DISCUSSION
Smith is a foreign corporation doing business in Orleans Parish; LP & L is a domestic corporation doing business in Orleans Parish and having its registered office in Orleans Parish; GE is a foreign corporation registered in Louisiana, with a designated principal business establishment in Jefferson Palish. Cochren is a resident of the State of Mississippi and his alleged injury took place in Orleans Parish. Thus, Co-chren's suit filed in the Thirty-Fourth Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Bernard was filed in a court of improper venue and no defendant was served with citation and petition until more than one year after the date of Cochren's alleged injury. See Mayeux v. Martin, 247 So.2d 198, 199 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1971) (where the accident did not occur in St. Bernard Parish where suit was filed and where none of the defendants were a resident or domiciled in that parish, that court is not a court of proper venue).
LP & L was not served prior to the passage of the one-year prescriptive period and excepted to the St. Bernard Parish venue in a timely manner. Cochren argues, however, that his pleading joining GE and Smith as solidary obligors with LP & L causes their- responsive pleadings, which waived the improper venue and consequently renounced or forfeited their claim to prescription, to be imputed to LP & L, thus making venue proper in St. Bernard and interrupting prescription as to LP & L as a solidary obligor. We disagree.
^Although the present jurisprudential trend in this state is to avoid prescription, the fact remains that prescription is the prerogative of the Legislature. See La.Civ.Code Ann. art. 3457 (West Supp.1994). In Arean Moore, as natural tutrix of her minor children, Traney Moore, Taska Moore, and Terrence Moore v. Gencorp. Inc. of Ohio, et al., 633 So.2d 1268 (La.1994), Justice Dennis writing for the Court correctly stated the jurisprudential rule:
First, always, is the question whether the legislature has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of the legislature is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the courts must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of the legislature if its application does not lead to absurd consequences. La.Civ.Code art. 9; Ramirez v. Fair Grounds Corp., 575 So.2d 811 (La.1991); Cf. Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842 [104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781, 81 L.Ed.2d 694] (1984).
In this case, the legislature enacted La. Civ.Code Ann. arts. 3503 and 3462 (West Supp.1994) which read as follows:
Article 350S — Solidary Obligors
When prescription is interrupted against a solidary obligor, the interruption is effective against all solidaiy obligors and their successors.
Article 34-62 — Interruption by filing of suit or by service of process
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.
These articles are not ambiguous and are not in conflict. Article 3503 establishes the effect of the interruption of prescription on solidary obligors. Article 3462 establishes when and how prescription is interrupted and against whom. Clearly, the timely filing of suit in a court of competent jurisdiction and venue interrupts prescription as to the defendant sued as well as to his solidary I Bobligors. Just as clearly, however, when suit is filed in a court of improper venue, prescription is not interrupted unless one of the defendants was served by process within the prescriptive period.
It is undisputed that this suit was filed against all three defendants in a court of improper venue and that none of the defendants were served with process within the prescriptive period. Therefore, prescription was not interrupted and tolled as to the three defendants. Whether Smith and GE waived or renounced their claim to prescription is not before us, but to decide the issue presented it must be presumed that they did. Thus, given the facts of this case, the only question before us is whether the action of the other two defendants in submitting to improper venue constitutes a waiver or renunciation of LP & L's right to claim prescription because LP & L is an alleged soli-dary obligor. We think not.
Each of the defendants had the right to claim prescription or to waive or renounce it. LP & L chose to claim it, and no action of its codefendants could revive Cochren's claim against LP & L or deprive LP & L of its defense. Once prescription has tolled, the legal obligation itself is extinguished. Nonetheless, prescription is a defense that must be raised and is effective in favor only of the party claiming it. It cannot be urged by one party defendant in favor of another, and the failure of one party defendant to claim it does not deprive another party defendant of the claim. Cochren's suit did not interrupt prescription and his claim was extinguished.
16Cochren's reliance on La.Civ.Code art. 3503 and Foster v. Breaux, 263 La. 1112, 270 So.2d 526 (La.1972) is misplaced. Article 3503 which provides that "[w]hen prescription is interrupted against a solidary obligor, the interruption is effective against all soli-dary obligors .," (emphasis added) presupposes that prescription has not run. GE's failure to except to venue prior to pleading may have constituted a renunciation or waiver of prescription as to itself, but did not interrupt prescription because prescription already had tolled. The question then becomes whether GE's submission to venue renounced or waived its solidary obligor's (LP & L) entitlement to prescription. Breaux might be wrong, but it is not disposi-tive of the issue before us. There the Court determined that, although "the issue is not free from doubt," based on the defendant's failure to except to venue "the filing of the action in (thus) a court of competent jurisdiction therefore interrupted prescription as to [the defendant]." Breaux, however, expressly left open the issue of whether the plaintiffs suit which was held timely against Breaux under the particular circumstances of the case "had the effect of interrupting prescription against [another defendant] if he is a solidarity obligor." Breaux, 270 So.2d at 530.
In this case, prescription was not interrupted as to the other defendants; they abandoned, renounced, or forfeited their claim to it under Breaux. We conclude, therefore, that even assuming LP & L is solidarity liable with GE and Smith, that prescription had tolled as to all three and a waiver or renunciation of prescription by GE or Smith does not serve as a waiver or renunciation of LP & L's right to prescription. Without a mandate one cannot renounce a right that belongs to another.
Accordingly, the trial court's judgment granting LP & L's exception of prescription is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
WALTZER, J., dissents.
. The trial court found that the improper venue was the result of Cochren's inadvertence and, in accordance with Habig v. Popeyes, Inc., 553 So.2d 963 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1989), transferred the case to the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. GE's application to this Court for supervisory writs was denied, this court finding that, in failing to plead exception of improper venue prior lo its answer, GE effectively waived its venue exception and because venue was thus proper as to GE at the time it filed its plea of prescription, the action had not prescribed.
No. 92-C-0925, Stanley E. Cochren v. Louisiana Power & Light Company, et al.
. The proper venue for LP & L, a domestic corporation, is Orleans Parish, where its registered office is located. La.Code Civ.Proc. art. 42(2).. The proper venue for GE, a foreign corporation licensed to do business in this state, is Jefferson Parish, where its designated principal business establishment is located. La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 42(4). The proper venue for Smith, a foreign corporation not licensed to do business in this state, is either Jefferson Parish or Orleans Parish, which are the only proper venues under Article 42. La.Code Civ.Proc. art. 42(5), La.Rev. StatAnn. § 13:3471(1), 13:3201, 13:3203.
. The liberative prescription of one year is applicable to this action. La.Civ.Code Ann. art. 3492 (West Supp.1994).
. See Spott v. Otis Elevator Co., 601 So.2d 1355, 1360 (La.1992) (Article 3503 does not apply to interrupt prescription as to defendant not served within one year of incident where defendant who was timely served was ultimately found not liable).
. See Hoggarath v. Fisher, 557 So.2d 1036, 1037 (La.App. 4th Cir.1990) (prescription, once accrued, cannot be interrupted) (citations omitted); see also Juneau v. Hartford Ins. Co., 458 So.2d 1011, 1015 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1984) (when prescription accrued, the civil obligation was extinguished).