Opinion ID: 1092897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Historical Background of Abandonment Step in the Defense and Waiver

Text: Abandonment is both historically and theoretically a form of liberative prescription that exists independent from the prescription that governs the underlying substantive claim. Given its historical roots, abandonment unsurprisingly has been construed as subject to prescription-based exceptions, one of which is the waiver exception based on acknowledgment. Insofar as Article 561 recognized that a step made by the defendant in defense of the action results in an interruption of abandonment, it changed the prior law. The prior law addressed directly only a plaintiffs step in the prosecution; a defendant's step in the defense was addressed indirectly through the jurisprudential waiver exception. The prior law of abandonment was found in La. C.C. art. 3519 (1870), which was located in the section of the code addressing causes which interrupt prescription; it read: If the plaintiff in this case, after having made his demand, abandons, voluntarily dismisses, or fails to prosecute it at the trial, the interruption is considered as having never happened. Whenever the plaintiff having made his demand shall at any time before obtaining final judgment allow five years to elapse without having taken any steps in the prosecution thereof, he shall be considered as having abandoned the same. La. C.C. art. 3519 (1870)(as amended by Acts 1898, No. 107)(emphasis supplied). Significantly, the prescription concept of acknowledgment, which formed the basis for the waiver exception to abandonment, was set forth in the article following abandonment, La. C.C. art. 3520 (1870), which read: [p]rescription ceases likewise to run whenever the debtor, or possessor, makes acknowledgment of the right of the person whose title they prescribed. In 1960, the procedural rules were removed from the Civil Code and transferred to the Code of Civil Procedure; former C.C. art. 3519 was transferred to La. C. Civ. P. art. 561. As to the waiver exception, Article 561 differed from former C.C. art. 3519 in two respects: (1) it expressly declared that abandonment is selfoperative; and (2) it provided that a failure by the parties to take any steps in the prosecution or defense of the suit leads to abandonment, and thus made no distinction as to which party must take a step. Chevron Oil Co. v. Traigle, 436 So.2d 530, 533 (La.1983). The latter change was construed as codifying the defense-oriented waiver exception as a step in the defense. Melancon v. Continental Casualty Co., 307 So.2d 308, 312 (La.1975). In Melancon, we stated that Article 561 incorporated the waiver exception only to the extent that a formal step taken by a defendant in his defense interrupts the [three-]year abandonment period and commences it running anew. 307 So.2d at 312 n. 2. Describing the present rule, we noted that the formal action of a defendant is properly regarded as like an acknowledgment that interrupts the [abandonment] period, causing it to run anew. 307 So.2d at 312. Likewise, in Chevron, we noted that the Legislature in Article 561 clearly expressed the intention in the comments to Article 561 that, as to actions taken by defendant during the abandonment period, the concept of waiver was retained. 436 So.2d at 534. In so doing, we quoted the pertinent comment to Article 561, which reads: The article treats the action as abandoned only if [three] years has elapsed without any steps being taken by any of the parties in the prosecution or defense thereof. This change was made to provide for the case where the defendant has taken some step in the defense of the action, but subsequently moves to have the action declared abandoned because the plaintiff has failed to take any steps in the prosecution thereof for five years. Id. (quoting La. C. Civ. Pro. art. 561, Official Cmt. (b)(1960)). As a result we equated a step in the defense with a pre-abandonment waiver. Pre-abandonment waiver was cabined to the same requirements as step in the prosecution or defense, including the requirement of formal action on the record, as a result of the following broad remark in Melancon: extrinsic proof of such a waiver cannot be permitted.  307 So.2d at 312. (emphasis supplied). For several reasons, we find that remark mistaken.