Opinion ID: 1113494
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Early History

Text: The doctrine of forced heirship has prevailed in Louisiana since its colonization by French settlers at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Continuously during Louisiana's history as a colony, territory, and state, its laws have imposed a general restriction upon every person's ability to gratuitously dispose of property, i.e., in cases when the disposing person had an heir who is his lineal relative, his gratuitous dispositions could affect only a portion of his estate; the balance was reserved to his descendant or ascendant heirs, who were called forced heirs. The French royal charters extended forced heirship to Louisiana as part of the Laws and Custom of Paris. For over half a century without interference the Louisiana settlers adhered to the traditions of the French law as faithfully as did their kin back in France. The French cession of Louisiana to Spain had no effect upon forced heirship because the institution was equally emphasized in the law of both countries. After France regained Louisiana and conveyed the territory to the United States, the conflict between the invading common law and the entrenched civil law was sharp, but the inhabitants' strong sympathy for the civil law prevailed. Dainow, The Early Sources of Forced Heirship: Its History in Texas and Louisiana, 4 La.L.Rev. 42 (1941). In the Louisiana Civil Code of 1808, properly styled the Digest of the Civil Laws now in Force in the Territory of Orleans, the redactors reiterated the old Spanish rules regarding the legitime. A parent's donations either inter vivos or mortis causa could not exceed one-fifth of his property to the prejudice of his children, and those of a child could not exceed one-third to the prejudice of the parents. Id. at 59. When the Code was revised in 1825, the disposable portion was increased and, in keeping with the French Civil Code, graduated in accordance with the number of children. Children of all ages were protected from disinheritance by being guaranteed a minimum share of the decedent's estate that could not be defeated by will or inter vivos gratuitous disposition. Such dispositions could not exceed two-thirds of the estate if the decedent left one child; one-half if he left two children; and one-third if he left a greater number. Id. at 59-60. This provision was carried over into the Revised Civil Code of 1870 as Article 1493. Forced heirship continued to be venerated throughout the nineteenth century. Early in the twentieth century it was identified by Professor Charles Payne Fenner as one of Louisiana's most distinguished legal institutions: [T]here are certain provisions of the Civil Code of Louisiana that are something more than mere laws; that may be said to rise to the dignity of institutions. Among these are the articles of the Code providing for what, among Louisiana lawyers, is known as the doctrine of forced heirship.... Fenner, An Example of Homeric Nodding in Relation to the Reduction of Donations Inter Vivos, 1 So.L.Q. 129 (1916).