Opinion ID: 1113494
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Elevation to Constitutional Status

Text: In construing a constitutional provision, the courts may consider the object sought to be accomplished by its adoption, and the evils, if any, sought to be prevented or remedied, in light of the history of the times and the conditions and circumstances under which the provision was framed. Board of Comm'rs v. Department of Natural Resources, 496 So.2d 281 (La.1986); Stokes v. Harrison, 238 La. 343, 115 So.2d 373 (1959); In re Bankston, 306 So.2d 863 (La.App. 1st Cir.1974); Devlin, Privacy and Abortion Rights Under the Louisiana State Constitution: Could Roe v. Wade Be Alive and Well in the Bayou State, 51 La.L.Rev. 685, 689-690 (1991). The history of Article IV, § 16 indicates that the proponents of the 1921 constitutional provision recognized the importance of preserving the legal institution of forced heirship, especially its core principle of equality of heirship, in order to further significant social and economic interests. To ensure the constitutional preservation of this civil law institution and principles, the spokespersons for this viewpoint introduced a proposal relative to the limitation of legislative powers to add a prohibition to the constitution that [no] law shall be passed abolishing the principle of forced heirship or legalizing substitutions or fidei commissa or trusts affecting immovable property. Dainow, supra, 4 La.L.Rev. at 67. The proponents of this provision perceived the constitutional preservation of forced heirship and the principles it encompasses as a means of ensuring several important private and public policies: equitable distribution and equality of heirship among children; lessening of disputes, will contests and other wasteful litigation; harmony and solidarity of the family; and continued prevention of the cumulation of excessively large fortunes through primogeniture and entailment. See Spaht, Lorio, Picou, Samuel & Swaim, The New Forced Heirship Legislation: A regrettable Revolution, 50 La.L.Rev. 409, 416 (1990); Le Van, Alternatives to Forced Heirship, 52 Tul. L.Rev. 29, 33 (1977); Daggett, General Principles of Succession on Death in Civil Law, 11 Tul.L.Rev. 399, 400-02 (1937). Sidney L. Herold, the 1921 constitutional convention delegate who introduced the ordinance to limit the legislative powers, later explained the economic and social principles which its proponents sought to further by prohibiting the abolishment of forced heirship or the legalization of substitutions, fidei commissa or unlimited trusts: The most remarkable of the economic principles enunciated in the Civil Code, however, deals with the very current problem of the maldistribution of wealth and its unhealthy accumulation. Mindful of the evils in democracy, one of the great purposes of the Code is the prevention of this disease. The strict provisions of the Code governing the right of a testamentary disposition, in the institution of the doctrine of forced heirship and its elaborate provisions insuring equality of heirs, all flow from the same desire of obviating the possibility of the passing of great estates into single hands. The provision of the Code prohibiting fidei commissa and substitutions that is to say, the prohibition of trust estateswas likewise designed to keep in commerce the flow of wealth incident on death. So primogeniture, entailment, trust, and every other form through which fortunes might be held intact despite death are interdicted by the Civil Code of Louisiana. The agency of death thus performs its normal functionit releases the grasp of the possessor over worldly accumulation. It distributes, vests ownership and right of untrammeled disposition, breaks up the estate, and thus gives full play to the natural rule expressed in the homely proverb that it is but three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves. Thus the law does not stunt the natural instinct of acquisition nor interfere with the normal desire to accumulate for one's own posterity. It does not seek to confiscate nor to destroy. It simply says to the individual: `You have no natural right to retain the dead hand on your fortune. You must distribute and distribute in full ownership.' These threeforced heirship, equality of heirs, prevention of truststogether form a system of protection of democracy from too powerful wealth, which, if they had in effect in the nation from the period of the intensive industrial development since the Civil War, would have obviated the evils now sought to be remedied by more drastic means by national authority. Dainow, supra, 4 La.L.Rev. at 68, n. 134 (quoting Herold, Handbook of the Association of American Law Schools for 1935, 84, 88-89). This viewpoint clashed with that of those who had succeeded in having a limited trust device introduced into Louisiana law in 1920 and who believed that economic benefits would flow from expanding trusts and other estate planning devices. Dainow, supra, 4 La.L.Rev. at 67. See also, Nathan, An Assault on the Citadel: A Rejection of Forced Heirship, 52 Tul.L.Rev. 5 (1977); Lemann, In Defense of Forced Heirship, 52 Tul.L.Rev. 20 (1977). Ultimately, an express limitation on legislative power was adopted which became Article IV, § 16 of the 1921 Louisiana Constitution, and provided: No law shall be passed abolishing forced heirship or authorizing the creation of substitutions, fidei commissa or trust estates; except that the Legislature may authorize the creation of trust estates for a period not exceeding ten years after the death of the donor; provided that where a natural person is the direct beneficiary said period may be made to extend until ten years after his majority; and provided further, that this prohibition as to trust estates or fidei commissa shall not apply to donations strictly for educational, charitable or religious purposes. La. Const. art. 4, § 16 (1921). Thus more than a century after the first codification of Louisiana civil law, the appreciation of this legal system resulted in clothing one of its important institutions and the core principle of equality of heirship promoted by the institution with constitutional protection. The defenders of the civil law were forced to accept one compromise, however. Article IV, § 16 contained an explicit exception permitting the legislature to authorize the creation of trusts for educational, charitable, or religious purposes, and for private purposes for up to ten years after the death of the donor, extendable to ten years after the majority of the direct beneficiary. Nevertheless, subject to this limited exception for trusts, the constitutional provision clearly prohibited any law abolishing forced heirship or authorizing substitutions, fidei commissa, or trust estates.