Opinion ID: 1114956
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Seizin

Text: The Civil Code articles pertaining to seizin do not prevent a testator from making a universal legacy subject to a suspensive condition. Immediately after the death of the deceased person, one of three classes of heirs is seized of the succession under the civil code scheme. Seizin is given first to the forced heirs of the deceased. In default of a forced heir, it is given to the universal legatee. Finally, in the absence of a member of the first two classes, the legitimate heirs are seized of the deceased's property. La. Civil Code arts. 887, 915, 940, 1607, 1609, and 1613. Consequently, when there are no forced heirs and the universal legatee has been installed under a suspensive condition, as in the present case, the legitimate heirs acquire seizin, under the codal order of priority, and remain provisionally seized of the succession until the condition is fulfilled. 3 Aubry & Rau, supra, § 719, p. 473; 21 Demolombe, Cours de Code Napoleon, § 561, p. 493; 3 Troplong, Droit Civil Explique des Donations Entre-vifs et des Testaments § 1815, pp. 363-65; Planiol et Ripert, Traite Pratique de Droit Civil Francais § 653, pp. 818-20. The Civil Code does not expressly or impliedly prohibit a universal legacy subject to a suspensive condition. The Code permits a testator to impose any conditions he pleases, whether suspensive or resolutory, provided they contain nothing contrary to law or good morals. La.Civ.Code arts. 1519, 1527, 1698, and 1699; 3 Aubry & Rau, supra, § 715. It makes no exception in the case of a universal legacy subject to a suspensive condition. To infer from the Code such an exception so as to maintain an immutable hierarchy of seizin would attribute to the lawmakers a bizarre sense of values. [2] Under this interpretation of the law, the Courts would be required to thwart the testator's will by declaring a universal legacy under a suspensive condition null whenever there were no forced heirs, rather than allow seizin to pass to the legitimate heirs. We therefore reject the contention that the redactors of the Code intended to create such an arbitrary restriction on the testator's authority. Congruously, nothing we have found in the French jurisprudence or doctrine suggests that the concept of seizin either restricts or conflicts with the testator's authority to make conditional legacies of all kinds. 3 Civil Law Translations, Aubry & Rau, § 694 n. 7-7 at 311; 3 Civil Law Translations, Aubry & Rau, Ch. 1, Part VII (Of the Permissible or Prohibited Conditions in Matters Pertaining to Intervivos or Testamentary Dispositions) §§ 691-97, pp. 285-358; Part IX (Preservation, Execution and Interpretation of Testaments. The Legacy) §§ 711, 719, and 723, pp. 434, 440, 473, and 484; 4 Civil Law Translations, Aubry & Rau, Ch. III (Of the Transmission of the Inheritance to the Heirs) § 609, pp. 97-106; 3 Planiol, Civil Law Treatise, Ch. III (Fiduciary Bequests or Substitutions) §§ 3265-98, pp. 587-604; Ch. I (Seizin of Heirs by Law) §§ 1929-43A, pp. 601-08. Furthermore, since the enactment of the Code of Civil Procedure in 1961, the question of whether an heir has seizin is of less practical consequence. Article 3211 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that the succession representative is deemed to have possession of all property of the succession and shall enforce all obligations in its favor. La.Code Civ.P. art. 3211; Cf. La.Code Civ.P. art. 685. According to the redactors, this provision is a deliberate departure from the former law relating to seizin and, as a practical matter, gives the succession representative full seizin of all the property of the deceased. La.Code Civ.P. art. 3211, Official Revision Comment (a). See generally, Nathan, supra, at 51; Comment, 49 Tul.L.Rev. 1110, 1122 (1975). Consequently, seizin is not suspended by the enforcement of the testator's disposition of his property. The court of appeal saw the concept of seizin as an obstacle to the enforcement of the will because it mistakenly equated seizin with ownership. [3] Seizin is not ownership, however, but the legal investiture of one class of heirs with possession of the succession upon the death of the deceased, enabling the heirs who acquire seizin, from the instant of death, to bring all the actions which the deceased could have brought. Lazarus, The Work of the Louisiana Appellate Courts for the 1971-72 Term, 33 La.L.Rev. 199, 201-02 (1973); 3 Marcade, Explication Du Code Civil no. 47, at 33 (7th ed. 1873) as cited in Lazarus, supra, at 202 n. 12. Ownership, on the other hand, is transmitted by operation of law at the moment of death to heirs and legatees designated by the Code, regardless of whether they have seizin of a particular succession or whether they can ever have seizin. [4] For example, although a legatee under a particular title cannot acquire seizin, he has ownership of the thing bequeathed to him from the day of the testator's death. La.Civ.Code art. 1626. In order to be eligible for seizin, an heir must be either a forced heir, universal legatee or legitimate heir; and the latter two classes acquire seizin only in default of those preferred to them. Whether an heir acquires seizin depends, therefore, not on his ownership of succession property, but on whether he is a member of the class of heirs entitled to seizin of a particular succession according to the codal order of priority. The redactors of the Code of 1825 made the distinction between ownership and seizin clear when they adopted the French system of succession, which embodies two different concepts: (1) Ownership rights of the heir are vested from the moment of the death, and (2) seizin, the faculty of claiming and exercising possession, is acquired by either the forced heirs, the universal legatee or the legitimate heirs at the moment of death. Lazarus, supra, at 201; Comment, 49 Tul.L.Rev. 1110, 1111 (1975); 1 Louisiana Legal Archives, Projet of the Civil Code of 1825 at 115. In other words, as Planiol observes: Seizin has nothing to do with the transfer of property, which takes place immediately, whether it is in favor of heirs who have seizin, or who are deprived of it. It affects only the taking of possession of the estate, which takes place in two forms, one for the property in kind, the other for the rights of action. 3 Planiol, supra § 1938, pp. 604-05. Accordingly, we conclude that there is no conflict between a suspensively conditional universal legacy and the civil code's seizin provisions. In the present case, the universal legatee having been installed under a suspensive condition, the legitimate heirs acquired seizin at the moment of death under the civil code scheme and remained provisionally seized until the legacy's suspensive condition was fulfilled. Furthermore, the succession representative is given full seizin of the deceased's property, as a practical matter, by Article 3211 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The survivorship clause in the present will, therefore, does not suspend seizin of the succession, but is a valid disposition of ownership subject to suspensive conditions.