Opinion ID: 597120
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Current Louisiana Usage

Text: 60 The point we so belaboredly make is that neither the history, the sources, the terminology of the current codes and statutes, nor the jurisprudence conclusively and absolutely define the word hypothecate either to include or to exclude the concept of encumbering movables. Nor do we find that to hypothecate absolutely includes or excludes delivery of possession. The conclusion that does come through loud and clear, however, is that the drafters of statutes and legal instruments in current Louisiana practice appear to play rather fast and loose with the verb, to hypothecate. Part of such practice, we suppose, is the untidy but prevalent penchant of lawyers to invoke the mystique of the profession's glossary of archaic and anachronistic terms without bothering to identify the precise legal meaning of the terms thus employed. That tendency, coupled with an equal penchant for invoking solemnity by including several synonyms--usually the Biblical three--for the desired word when that one word alone would suffice, leads to controversies (such as the instant litigation) that could be avoided by a drafting technique that is more precise and less pretentious. Code provisions, Revised Statute provisions, and documents quoted or referred to in the jurisprudence illustrate just such imprecise, surplus usage of hypothecate when all that is required is the word pledge if that is what is intended, or mortgage if that is what is intended, or encumber if the broader, all inclusive concept is intended. 61 All of this leads to one inescapable conclusion: To ascertain what the parties intend in using the term hypothecate, the context in which that term is used must be examined, and that examination must be conducted according to Louisiana's rules for interpreting contracts. When we do that in the instant case, we are disabused of any doubt that, in confecting Article VIII, the drafter of the Articles of Incorporation of Lucullus, Inc., could only have been using hypothecate as a synonym--albeit an unnecessarily fancy, legalese one--for pledge. 62