Opinion ID: 1127164
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the survival action

Text: Before enactment of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure in 1960, Article 2315 beneficiaries were granted one year from the date of the victim's death to bring their survival action, regardless of whether the victim had filed suit prior to death. See, Gabriel v. United Theatres, 221 La. 219, 59 So.2d 127 (1952); Lally v. Taylor, 117 So.2d 602 (La.App.Orl., 1960); Romero v. Sims, 68 So.2d 154 (La.App. 1st Cir., 1953); Miller v. American Mut. Liability Ins. Co., 42 So.2d 328 (La.App. 1st Cir., 1949). In large measure, these decisions were based on the concept that both at common law and at civil law a right of action for damages for personal injuries does not survive in case of death. Miller v. American Mut. Liability Ins. Co ., above. It followed that since the victim's action did not survive his death, beneficiaries under 2315 were dependent upon that article for both the right to reinstitute the action and the time in which to do so. Lally v. Taylor , above. The cited authorities held that the provisions of La.Code of Practice, Article 21, and LSA-R.S. 13:3349, providing for non-abatement of actions, were inapplicable to Article 2315 claims because an action in tort was personal and nonheritable. In McConnell v. Webb, 226 La. 385, 76 So.2d 405 (La.1954), it was held that the non-abatement statutes were too broad in scope and were held to be inapplicable to personal actions. Article 2315, above, was amended concurrently with the enactment of our Code of Civil Procedure, in 1960. The changes effected by this legislative package are reviewed in excellent manner in J. Wilton Jones Co., Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 248 So.2d 878 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1971). Jones involved facts substantially the same as those involved herein. The plurality held that if the victim instituted suit prior to her death, the beneficiaries designated in Article 2315, were not subject to the one year limitation in that article, and could substitute themselves as plaintiffs within the five year abandonment period provided by La.C.C.P. Article 561. In reaching its decision with respect to the survival action, the Court of Appeal, in this instance relied upon Jones, above. La.C.C.P. Article 428, provides that, excepting only a right or action which is strictly personal, an action does not abate on the death of a party. The official revision comment indicates the intent of the article is to abrogate the harsh jurisprudential rules on abatement and survival of actions and to attain the original objectives of the Livingston committee which drafted the 1825 Codes. The Comment indicates that the intent of the Livingston committee was to make every effort possible to prevent judicial acceptance by Louisiana of the harsh and technical common law rules of abatement and survival of actions. Article 428, above, official revision comment (a). The obvious intent of Article 428, above, was to legislatively overrule the jurisprudence which had adopted the common law rule that a tort action abates on the death of the victim. It is noteworthy that Article 428, above, admits of an exception in the case of a strictly personal action. This exception recognizes the too far reaching effect of prior nonabatement provisions. See Comment (c), Article 428, above. The unrestricted scope of prior statutes was one of the primary reasons why the courts refused to apply their non-abatement provisions in a survival action. See McConnell v. Webb, 226 La. 385, 76 So.2d 405 (La.1954). McConnell, however, has been the subject of critical analysis. See Snellings, Certain Aspects of Heritable Obligations, 30 Tul.L. Rev. 305 (1956); Comment Abatement of Actions in Louisiana, 15 La.L.Rev. 722 (1955). Since Article 428 now provides a specific exception to its non-abatement provision, non-abatement of the survival action follows as a matter of course, unless the victim's action for her own personal injuries is deemed strictly personal. La.C.C. Article 1997 provides that (a)n obligation is strictly personal, when none but the obligee can enforce its performance, or when it can be enforced only against the obligor. La.C.C. Article 1999 states that (e)very obligation shall be deemed heritable as to both parties, unless the contrary be specially expressed, or necessarily implied from the nature of the contract. We reaffirm the holding in Jones, above, that a victim's action for recovery of tortious damages is not strictly personal because it is a right to recover money damages that result in a benefit for the victim's heirs. Article 2315 expressly transmits the survival action to beneficiaries, a circumstance not indicative of a strictly personal action. Although it must be conceded that only a limited class of beneficiaries is established this affects only the right of heritability, not the nature of the right inherited. Other considerations support the conclusion that La.C.C.P. Article 428 was intended to apply to an action instituted by a tort victim to recover for his damages, because such an action is not personal and therefore does not abate upon his death. Prior to the 1855 amendment to Article 2294 of the Civil Code of 1825 (the source of Article 2315), which provided for a survival action, this court noted in Vincent v. Sharp, 9 La.Ann. 463 (1854) that: It is insisted . . . that a personal action for damages for a tort, expires with the person who instituted it. We are not aware of any such rule in our jurisprudence. We acknowledge that Vincent, above, was rendered prior to importation into our jurisdiction of the harsh common law rule on abatement and survival of actions, which has since been expressly abrogated by the intent of and common on La.C.C.P. Article 428. These same views are expressed in McMahon, The Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, 21 La.L.Rev. 1, (1960), a Comment on the Code of Civil Procedure Articles on abatement and the amendments to Article 2315 enacted concurrently with the revised non-abatement provisions of La.C.C.P. Article 428. McMahon commented as follows: After months of groping for effective solutions of the various problems in this area (abatement of actions), the Law Institute concluded that no effective solutions were possible without an amendment of Article 2315 of the Civil Code . . . With these changes the remaining problems are solved simply through a basic article (article 428) providing that no actions abate on the death of a party, except those to enforce a right or obligation strictly personal. In this connection we note that the effectiveness of Act 30 of 1960, which amended Article 2315, was specifically conditioned upon the adoption of Act 15 of 1960, which contained the new Code of Civil Procedure. Additionally, while the amendment to Article 2315, did not expressly provide that a victim's action once instituted, does not abate on death, other language in the article contains clear legislative intent that the survival action is not a personal right. We note particularly the language that a survivor's right to recover under the provisions of this paragraph is a property right which, on the death of the survivor in whose favor the right of action survived, is inherited by his ... heirs, whether suit has been instituted thereon by the survivor or not. It taxes our imagination to conclude that a right which is heritable by a designated beneficiary and when acquired is transmissible to his heirs, is personal to the tort victim in whose favor the right originally arose. Defendants maintain that even if the action does not abate, the survival action is governed by the time limitation of one year contained in Article 2315. We disagree. If, as we have held, the action does not abate, it then becomes subject to the provisions of La.C.C.P. Article 561, which provides that an action is abandoned when the parties fail to take any step in the prosecution or defense in the trial court for a period of five years. There is significant difference between inheriting an instituted action and inheriting the right to institute an action. We interpret Article 2315 to mean that if the victim dies within a year of injury and has not instituted claim, the beneficiary may institute the action within one year of the death. If the beneficiary should die within that year, the heirs of the beneficiary inherit the beneficiary's right to institute the victim's action. Since, however, Article 2315 does not give the beneficiary's heirs additional time in which to institute action, the heirs inherit only the right to institute suit within the remaining time allowed the beneficiary. We hold, therefore, that the action whether by the beneficiary or his heirs, must be instituted within one year of the victim's death when no action was instituted by the victim. When, however, a party dies during pendency of an action which is not extinguished by death, his legal successor may substitute himself for the deceased party upon making proper proof of his qualifications as legal successor. La.C.C.P. Article 801. We note also La.C.C.P. Article 801(1) which provides that legal successor, as used in Articles 801 through 804, includes the survivors designated in Article 2315, of the Civil Code, if the action survives in their favor. An action is defined in La.C.C.P. Article 421 as a demand for the enforcement of a legal right. The comments to this article indicate that action has been used to mean both an instituted right and the right to institute an action, but comment (a) article 421 notes that action in the Code of Civil Procedure refers only to an instituted action unless it is otherwise clearly expressed. It follows, La.C.C.P. Article 801 refers only to an instituted action. We hold, therefore, that once an action has been instituted under article 2315, whether by the victim, a beneficiary or the heirs of a beneficiary the prescriptive period of that article no longer applies to the survival action but rather the nonabatement and substitution provisions of La.C. C.P. Articles 428, 561 and 801 are controlling. This we believe to be the intent of the legislative package of 1960, hereinabove discussed.