Court Opinion

ID: 9670748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:24:54.762586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.241789
License: Public Domain

BARHAM, Justice
(dissenting).
R.S. 9:5801 reads: “All prescriptions affecting the cause of action therein sued upon are interrupted as to all defendants, including minors or interdicts, by the commencement of a civil action in a court of competent jurisdiction and in the proper venue. When the pleading presenting the judicial demand is filed in an incompetent court, or in an improper vemie, prescription is interrupted as to the defendants served by the service of process.” (Emphasis here and elsewhere supplied.) Under Code of Civil Procedure Article 421 a civil action “is commenced by the filing of a pleading presenting the demand to a court of competent jurisdiction”. Code of Civil Procedure Article 5251(4) reads: “ ‘Competent court’ or ‘court of competent jurisdiction’, means a court which has jurisdiction over the subject matter of, and is the proper venue for, the action or proceeding.” Since that proceeding had not been filed in a court of proper venue when this defendant was served with the pleadings, that court was not a competent court or a court of competent jurisdiction. Since more than one year had elapsed before service of citation, the action had prescribed on the date of receipt of service.
The effect of the holding of the majority is that the defendant is forced to first submit a declinatory exception which does not dispose of the case when his peremptory exception would cause dismissal of the suit. The peremptory exception of prescription could have been successfully pleaded by defendant, but part of the time necessary to compute the prescriptive period was the lapse from the filing of this suit in a court of competent jurisdiction to service on the defendant. So the exception of prescription is based in part upon the declinatory exception of improper venue. The majority has held that the defendant must first plead this declinatory exception or waive it even though that waiver would eliminate the right to plead the peremptory exception. Such a result is certainly harsh when the defendant has made a valid absolute defense. Even if defendant had filed both exceptions together, the ruling on the lesser declinatory exception, which would have had to be considered first, would have barred any consideration of the peremptory exception by that court. After ruling that it was a court without competency in the matter, that court could not then consider any other issues of the case. Extending the life of the cause of action would give no advantage to the plaintiff. The filing or transfer of the case to the *1128proper court would still allow defendant to plead the exception of prescription, but only with the penalty of incurring additional costs of defense.
While I can understand the majority’s desire for strict construction of the law of prescription, the overall effect of the rule fashioned here will in its extension work hardships far in excess of the value which the majority believes will flow from this attempt to preserve the right to maintain an action against a plea of prescription. The better rule would be one which preserves to a litigant the right to choose the procedural vehicle that will finally dispose of the matter without requiring him to exhaust dilatory tactics. This rule is sound in law and logic, reasonable in application, and easily understood and applied.
I believe that reason as well as the express language of the Code articles and the statute, quoted above, dictates that defendant’s peremptory exception of prescription should be maintained.
I respectfully dissent.