Opinion ID: 2491629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Principles of Louisiana Property Law

Text: Property law in Louisiana is a distinct branch of the civil law, [20] dealing with the principal real rights that a person may have in things. [21] Book II of the Louisiana Civil Code, which sets forth the law of property, is entitled Things and the Different Modifications of Ownership. Thus, an [a]ccurate definition of the word `things' is indispensable in view of the fact that only things in the legal sense may be objects of property rights. [22] The Louisiana Civil Code classifies things into different categories to which different rules may apply. [23] The 1978 Revision of the Civil Code uses the word thing in both a broad and a narrow sense, depending on whether the thing is or is not susceptible of appropriation or pecuniary evaluation. [24] The first division of things in the Civil Code is into common, public and private things. La. C.C. art. 448. The first two classificationscommon and publicencompass the broad sense of a thing. [25] However, in most of the codal provisions, the word thing is used in a narrow sense to designate objects susceptible of appropriation and of pecuniary evaluation, i.e. private things. [26] Private things are owned by individuals, other private persons, and by the state or its political subdivisions in their capacity as private persons. La. C.C. art. 453. The Civil Code provides that a person may have various rights in things. La. C.C. art. 476 describes the various rights in things as: (1) ownership; (2) personal and predial servitudes; and (3) such other real rights as the law allows. Real rights are not defined by the Civil Code, but ownership is. Ownership is defined as the right that confers on a person direct, immediate, and exclusive authority over a thing. La. C.C. art. 477(A); see also La. C.C. art. 476, Revision Comments1978, (b). [27] The three main elements of ownership are set forth as the rights of use, enjoyment and disposal, within the limits and under the conditions established by law. Id. [28] The owner of a thing may perform a certain number of juridical acts relating to the thing, all consisting of the transfer to another, in whole or in part, the right of enjoyment and of consumption that belongs to the owner of the thing. If he transmits all his right, it is said that he alienates the thing; he performs an act translative of ownership. If he grants merely a right of partial enjoyment of the thing, it is said that he dismembers his ownership. He creates upon the thing a real right of usufruct, emphyteusis or servitude.[ [29] ] He is still owner but his ownership has been dismembered. Somebody else has a part, more or less important, of his rights upon the thing. [30] Furthermore, [t]he idea must be thoroughly understood that these various juridical acts are carried out, not upon the thing but upon the owner's right. Id. Thus, a real right can be understood as ownership and its dismemberments. [31] The various dismemberments of ownership also confer real rights on the owner or holder of that right. For example, servitudes are of two typespersonal and predialand they each confer a real right on the holder of the servitude. See La. C.C. arts. 476, 533. A personal servitude is a charge on a thing for the benefit of a person, and is divided in the Civil Code into three sortsusufruct, [32] habitation, [33] and rights of use. [34] A predial servitude is a charge on a servient estate for the benefit of a dominant estate, where the two estates belong to different owners, and can be of four typesnatural, legal, voluntary, and conventional. La. C.C. art. 654. [35] Mineral rights [36] and building restrictions [37] are further examples of real rights. [38] Some distinguishing features of real rights are that they cannot exist without a determined object, [39] may be asserted against anyone, confer the right of preference [40] and the right to follow, [41] and are susceptible of possession and of abandonment. [42] This Court has defined a real right as synonymous with proprietary interest, both of which refer to a species of ownership. Ownership defines the relation of man to things and may, therefore, be declared against the world. Harwood Oil & Mining Co., 240 La. at 652, 124 So.2d at 767, citing Reagan v. Murphy, 235 La. 529, 541, 105 So.2d 210, 214 (1958), superceded by statute on other grounds, recognized in Salvex, Inc. v. Lewis, 546 So.2d 1309 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1989). Commentators have discussed the essential quality of ownership, that which distinguishes ownership from other real rights, as the power of disposing of the thing, by consuming it, by physically destroying it and by transforming its substance. [43] By contrast, [a]ll other real rights authorize those in whom they are vested to enjoy the thing of another in a more or less complete manner, but always with the obligation of preserving the substance. Id. The domain of property law in Louisiana is generally distinct from the other main branches of the civil law, including the law of obligations. Because we find the plaintiff urges, and the court of appeal on rehearing held, that certain principles of the law of obligations are applicable to this question of property law, we must also examine some principles of the law of obligations.