Opinion ID: 1102262
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ancillary Venue

Text: Ancillary venue applies when separate claims involving common or identical questions of fact share no common venue. The concept of ancillary venue allows such claims to be tried together for reasons of judicial economy and efficiency, even though venue is not proper technically for one claim or one party. While this court has not previously applied the concept of ancillary venue, the lower appellate courts have done so in several cases over the past twenty-five years. One of the first cases to invoke this concept was Smith v. Baton Rouge Bank & Trust Co., 286 So.2d 394, 397 (La.App. 4th Cir.1973). In that case, a Baton Rouge bank obtained a deficiency judgment in Orleans Parish against Smith, a resident of Orleans. Smith filed an action in Orleans Parish to enjoin execution of the default deficiency judgment on the basis that the judgment was obtained by fraud and ill practices, and further sought damages for the Bank's unjust enrichment on the basis that Smith furnished additional security for the existing loan with the understanding that no deficiency judgment would be taken. The court ruled that Smith's injunction claim essentially asserted an action for nullity, for which venue under Article 44 was exclusively in Orleans where the judgment was rendered, and that the related claim for damages based on the same factual allegations should be tried in the same proceeding. The court reasoned: [W]here venue is proper as to one claim, the disposition of which will necessarily affect a related second claim as to which venue might otherwise be improper, the court has the authority to decide both claims in the interest of efficient judicial administration.... If the court in Smith had not invoked the doctrine of ancillary venue, the two claims, based on virtually identical evidence, would have required two separate trials in different parishes, with the attendant waste of judicial time and litigants' resources, and the probability of inconsistent results. See also Kellis v. Farber, 523 So.2d 843, 850 n. 2 (La.1988)(Lemmon, J., concurring)(collecting cases in which other appellate courts have invoked this concept primarily in cases involving cumulated claims against a single defendant). The appellate courts have extended this concept to the multiparty context when venue is proper as to only one defendant. See International Stevedores, Inc. v. Hanlon, 499 So.2d 1183 (La.App. 5th Cir.), cert. denied, 501 So.2d 230 (La.1987); Prokop v. Mack Trucks, Inc., 694 So.2d 387 (La.App. 5th Cir.1996). See also Katherine Shaw Spaht, Persons, 46 La. L.Rev. 613, 618 (1986) ([Ancillary venue] involves one claim against two parties arising out of one factual circumstance. The Code of Civil Procedure adopts this concept in article 73 by permitting solidary obligors to be sued in any parish where venue is proper as to one of them.) (emphasis in original). [5] The scenario presented in this case cries out for application of the concept of ancillary venue in cumulated actions, involving two defendant political subdivisions, which arise out of the same transaction or occurrence. We do not necessarily embrace the doctrine of ancillary venue as a solution to all venue problems in multiparty litigation. In the present case, however, while recognizing the general legislative intent for political subdivisions to enjoy preferred venue, we apply the doctrine of ancillary venue to resolve this unprovided for situation, and we hold that otherwise properly cumulated actions [6] against two political subdivisions arising out of the same transaction or occurrence may be brought in one of the two specified parishes of proper venue for either of the political subdivisions, but in no other parish.