Opinion ID: 1128865
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Was use of summary procedure improper?

Text: Because of its conclusion that the plaintiff has failed to join indispensable parties, the court of appeal reserved judgment on the defendant's dilatory exception of improper use of summary proceedings. The district court had held that the state was not entitled to use summary proceedings and had dismissed the suits. By our Code of Civil Procedure, Summary proceedings are those which are conducted with rapidity, within the delays allowed by the court, and without citation and the observance of the formalities required in ordinary proceedings. Article 2591. Summary proceedings are regulated by Articles 2591-96 of the Code. Article 2592, as amended in 1964, provides: Summary proceedings may be used for the trial or disposition of the following matters only :    [Listing 7 specific types of judicial actions, none of which are applicable]; [8] (8) All other matters in which the law permits summary proceedings to be used. (Italics ours.) Official Revision Comment (b) notes that the provision concerning matters in which the law permits summary proceedings permits the court in each instance to give effect to the legislative intent where necessary. The use of the word only makes it clear that the listing in Article 2592 is exclusive, and not merely illustrative. Thus, unless plaintiff's action can be brought within one of the categories set forth in Article 2592, the use of summary proceedings is not authorized and the dilatory exceptions were properly maintained. The Department urges that this case falls within subsection (8) of Article 2592: All other matters in which the law permits summary proceedings to be used. The position of the Department is that a fair reading of La.R.S. 48:461 et seq. leads to the conclusion that the legislature intended to permit the use of summary proceedings to enforce its provisions to remove illegal highway signs. Specifically, the state relies upon Section 461.7 which permits the Department to remove unlawful signs at the owner's expense after giving him thirty days' notice to remove it himself. The Department concedes that the statute does not specifically authorize the use of summary proceedings. It nevertheless urges us to hold that the legislature must have intended to permit the use of summary proceedings to enforce a statute, the violation of which the statute declares to be unlawful. In support of its position, the Department cites Pearce v. Gunter, 221 So.2d 599 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1969), certiorari denied, 254 La. 469, 223 So.2d 872. That case interpreted La.R.S. 3:2221, a health statute designed to control the spread of brucellosis, a contagious cattle disease. In that case, the court of appeal held: Although the use of summary process is not expressly authorized by the statute, we feel the legislature in creating the statute necessarily implied the use of summary process in enforcing its compliance. The facts of that case are clearly distinguishable from those here involved. There the rapid determination of the case was necessary to prevent the spreading of a contagious disease. The delays incident to proceeding by an ordinary action could well have resulted in rendering the statute totally ineffective, thus subverting the intent of the legislature. No such immediacy has been shown in this case. To the contrary, the statute which the Department is seeking to enforce was passed by the legislature in 1966. Thus the Department has waited in excess of five years to bring these suits. No showing has been made which would indicate that the situations regulated by the statute are of such a nature as to imply the use of summary process as necessary to effectuate the statutory purpose. The present cases involve serious factual as well as legal issues. They may require more than nominal preparation and discovery if a fair determination of the issues in controversy is to be made. If the use of summary proceedings is to be authorized in cases such as the present, the legislature, and not this court, should supply the authorization. We therefore find that the district court was correct in maintaining the dilatory exception of improper use of summary proceedings. However, the court was in error in dismissing the suits. In the instant cases, a timely filed dilatory exception pleaded unauthorized use of summary proceeding. La.C.C.P. Art. 926(3). Article 933 provides that when grounds such as this are pleaded in the dilatory exception and may be removed by amendment of the petition or other action by plaintiff, the judgment sustaining the exception shall order the plaintiff to remove them within the delay allowed by the court; and the suit shall be dismissed only for noncompliance with this order. Instead of dismissing the suits, the judgment should have permitted amendment converting them, if the plaintiff desired, to ordinary actions within a reasonable specified period, with a dismissal to result only from noncompliance with this order.