Court Opinion

ID: 9858376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:21:10.483279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:04.449023
License: Public Domain

SANDERS, Justice
(concurring in 'part and dissenting in part).
I fully concur in 'the holding that LSA-R.S. 9:5682 relates to acquisitive prescrip-' tion.
I disagree, however, with the further holding that possession in bad faith is'suf*728ficient under the statute. Such a construction gives an ex parte judgment of possession1 greater effect than judgments in adversary proceedings. Under LSA-C.C.P. Article 2004, judgments in adversary proceedings may be annulled for fraud within a year after the fraud is discovered. Obviously, the Legislature did not intend to accomplish such a bizarre result. Nor did it intend to sanction fraud. See Todt v. Todt, 237 La. 168, 110 So.2d 566; Board of Com’rs of Orleans Levee Dist. v. Shushan, 197 La. 598, 2 So.2d 35.
Laws in pari materia, or upon the same subject matter, must be construed with reference to each other. LSA-C.C. Art. 17. The possession language of LSA-R.S. 9:5682 appears to have been taken verbatim from Civil Code Article 3487, dealing with the good faith prescription of 10 years.2 The provisions of LSA-R.S. 9:5683 relating to minors and interdicts appear to have been taken from Civil Code Article 3478, also dealing specifically with the good faith prescription. More generally, both the Civil Code Articles (Arts. 3478-3498) and the statute deal with the ten-year, or shorter, prescription. Hence, the statute should be construed with reference to the code articles.
Under civil law doctrine, good faith is a long-established criterion for determining whether the ownership of immovables is acquired by the longer or shorter prescrip-, tion. In Louisiana, it is the hallmark of the ten-year prescription. The Civil Code Articles provide:
“Art. 3473. The ownership of immovables is acquired by a longer or shorter time, accordingly as the possessor has been in good or bad faith, as laid down in the following paragraph.”
“Art. 3474. Immovables are prescribed for by ten years, when the possessor has been in good faith and held by a just title during that time.”
“Art. 3475. Immovables are prescribed for by thirty years without any title on the part of the possessor, or whether he be in good faith or not.”
When the statute is construed with the civil code articles, one must conclude that the possession referred to is good faith possession. Miller, Judgments of Possession, 35 Tul.L.Rev. 567, 576 (at N. 66); Pascal, Civil Code and Related Subject Matter, 21 La.L.Rev. 53, 64; Lupo, Prescription, 42 Tul.L.Rev. 219, 222-225.
As observed in the well-written case note in 42 Tul.L.Rev. 223, supra,
“[Tjhere is no evidence in the legislative history of that act or in the com*730mentarles thereon to indicate that the legislature intended to enable a third person, through fraudulent concealment from the court of the true heirs’ identities, to enter into possession under a judgment of possession thus fraudulently obtained and, after ten years in such legal bad faith possession, to acquire ownership of the property in question.”
The purpose of the statute, as I see it, is to make the judgment of possession an
act translative of title for the running of the ten-year prescription by legislatively repudiating the prior jurisprudence. See Succession of Lampton, 65 La.Ann. 418 and Boyet v. Perryman, 240 La. 339, 123 So.2d 79. It clarifies the status of the judgment of possession. To give it the effect of changing essential features of the ten-year prescription or of shortening the bad faith prescription is to do violence to fundamental concepts of the Louisiana Civil Code.

. Under LSA-C.C.P. Art. 3062, a judgment of possession is only prima facie evidence of heirship and right to possession.

. “Continuous and uninterrupted, peaceable public and unequivocal * * LSA-C.C. Art. 3487.