Opinion ID: 1102262
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Venue Generally

Text: Venue means the parish where an action may properly be brought and tried under the rules regulating the subject. La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 41. Venue provisions are significantly different from jurisdictional provisions. Code articles governing jurisdiction over the person, for instance, are based largely on constitutional requirements of due process and of full faith and credit. On the other hand, Code articles governing venue are based on legislative considerations for allocating cases, according to the particular action and the particular parties, among the various parishes which have an interest in the action (over which some Louisiana court has the constitutional power to exercise jurisdiction). The original concept of venue was that one must be sued before his own judge. Former La.Code Practice art. 162. This concept, however, has become anachronistic with the ever-increasing number of legislative exceptions to venue at the party's domicile. Kellis v. Farber, 523 So.2d 843, 847 (La. 1988). The 1960 Code of Civil Procedure divided the rules of venue into three categories: (1) Article 44 provides a non-waivable mandatory venue for actions such as nullity of judgment; (2) Articles 78 through 83 provide a preferred but waivable venue which governs exclusively when the rule conflicts with any article except Article 44; and (3) Article 42 provides a general venue in which the defendant must be sued at his home base, but is subject to numerous exceptions in Articles 71 through 77, which provide specific optional venues that the plaintiff may choose as an alternative to the venue in Article 42. Thus the rules of venue today are less designed to provide protection for the defendant, who has no constitutional right to be tried in a particular forum, and more designed to allocate cases among parishes with an interest in the proceeding so as to provide for efficient disposition of caseloads.