civil law workshop: louisiana - aallnet.org

Civil Law Workshop: Louisiana

AALL FCIL-SIS J anet KearneyJ uly 21, 2020 jkearney15@fordham.edu

Why Louisiana?Markus Puder, Did You Ever Hear of the Napoleonic Code, Stella? A Mixed J urisdiction Impact Analysis from Louisiana’s Law Laboratory (December 7, 2011). 85 Tulane Law Review 635 (2011), https:/ / ssrn.com/ abstract= 1969581

A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Bros. 1951).

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How would you classify the legal system in Louisiana?

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A. N. Yiannopoulos, Requiem for a Civil Code: A Commemorative Essay, 78 Tul. L. Rev. 379 (2003).

Vernon V. Palmer, Death of a Code--The Birth of a Digest, 63 Tul. L. Rev. 221 (1988-1989).

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Legal Education - J D P lus

Louisiana State Uni - Graduate Diploma in Comparative Law (15 credit hours)

Tulane - Civil Law Certificate (15)

Loyola New Orleans - Certificate in Civil Law (12)

4th law school, Southern University - does not appear to have a separate certificate.

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Civil Law = Private Law Louisiana Civil Code

(LA CC)

LA Revised Statutes Title 9 Civil Code Ancillaries

(LA RS 9et seq.)

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LA CC Structure

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Sources of Civil Law - Art. 1

The sources of law are legislation and custom.

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Cases = Jurisprudence constanteCertainty is a supreme value in the civil law system to which we are heirs. . . . In Louisiana, courts are not bound by the doctrine of Stare decisis, but there is a recognition in this State of the doctrine of Jurisprudence constante. Unlike Stare decisis, this latter doctrine does not contemplate adherence to a principle of law announced and applied on a single occasion in the past.

J ohnson v. St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co., 256 La. 289 (1970).

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Colonial Legal History

France 1680-1762ish (~ Coutume de Paris)

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Colonial Legal History

France 1680-1762ish (~ Coutume de Paris)

Spain 1762-1801ish (~ Siete Partidas)

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Colonial Legal HistoryFrance 1680-1762ish (~ Coutume de Paris)

Spain 1762-1801ish (~ Siete Partidas)

F rance 1801-1803ish: (~ Siete Partidas)

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Colonial Legal HistoryFrance 1680-1762ish (~ Coutume de Paris)

Spain 1762-1801ish (~ Siete Partidas)

F rance 1801-1803ish: (~ Siete Partidas)

United States 1803-present: ?????

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Versions of the Civil CodeDigest of 1808

Civil Code of 1825

Civil Code of 1870

For sources of these, see William Tetley, Mixed J urisdictions: Common Law v. Civil Law (Codified and U difi d) 60 L L R 677 (2000) h / / di i l l l d / l l / l60/ i 3/ 2/

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Spanish community property regime

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“A Louisiana lawyer is no more of a civilian than a modern French police dog is wolf....

It is, therefore, inaccurate for us to proclaim that Louisiana is a great civil law state. It is not. It may have been before the Civil War. We have been caught in the American maelstrom.

The only salvage that remains is a Louisiana incrustation which has in it something of the Civil Law, and something of the Common Law, but which after all is an uncatalogued creation, but a viable institution because it typifies the composite genius of the soul of the true Louisianian.”

P ierre Crabites, Louisiana Not a Civil Law State, 9 Loy. L.J . (New Orleans) 51, 51-52 (1928).

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Louisiana State Law Institute

Excerpt from Report to the Legislature

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Legal Research Process in LA

Step 1 - P reliminary Analysis

Step 2 - Secondary Sources

Step 3 - Codified Law

Step 4 - J udicial Decisions

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Step 1 - P reliminary Analysis+ Questions → More or less traditional?

Look to prior codes?

Foreign influences?

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Step 1 - P reliminary Analysis

Gregory W. Rome & Stephan Kinsella, Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (2011).

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Stephan Kinsella, A Civil Law to Common Law Dictionary, 54 La. L. Rev. (1994), https:/ / digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/ lalrev/ vol54/ iss5/ 5

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Law Library of Louisiana, https:/ / lasc.libguides.com/home

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Step 2 - Secondary SourcesLouisiana Civil Law Treatise Series

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Big NamesA.N. Yiannopoulos

Cynthia Samuels

Ronald Scalise

J ohn Lovett

Sally Brown Richardson

Vernon Valentine Palmer

Dian Tooley-Knoblett

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Big NamesA.N. Yiannopoulos

Cynthia Samuels

Ronald Scalise

J ohn Lovett

Sally Brown Richardson

Vernon Valentine Palmer

Dian Tooley-Knoblett

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Historical (usually French) Doctrine

Identify civil law subject

Secondary Source -Civil Law Treatise

Read CC text and comments

Historical doctrine

OR

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Civil Law Translation Set ● Marcel Planiol, Civil Law Treatise (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West, 1958, 3 v.) . ● François Gény, Method of Interpretation and Sources of P rivate Positive Law

(La. St. L. Inst. trans., West, 1963). ● Charles Aubry & Charles Rau wrote several volumes all together under the

title Cours de droit civil francais: ○ Obligations (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West, 1965) - vol. 1; ○ Property (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West 1966) - vol. 2; ○ Testamentary Successions & Gratuitous Dispositions (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West 1969) -

vol. 3; Intestate ○ Successions (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West 1971) - vol. 4; ○ Prescription (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West 1972) - vol. 5.

● Gabriel Baudry-Lacantinerie, Albert-Anatole Tissier, & J ean Carbonnier, P rescription (La. St. L. Inst. trans., West 1972) - vol. 5.

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Step 3 - Codified Law: LA CC + Title 9Official publisher = West

Title of print publication = Louisiana Statutes Annotated = Green Books

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Step 3 -Codified Law: LA CC + Title 9

Text of code article

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Official comment

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Exposé des motifs

+

Commercial annotations

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Official Comments

Melissa T. Lonegrass, Hidden Law: Taking the Comments More Seriously, 92 Tul. L. Rev. 265 (2017).

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LA CC 450

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Exposé des motifs

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Exposé des motifs

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Step 4 - J udicial DecisionsSupreme Court

Courts of Appeal

J udicial District Court (J DC)

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Jurisprudence constante“Consistent with jurisprudence constante, the Louisiana Supreme Court has, in some decisions, referred to judicial decisions as secondary authority. Yet, in different decisions, it has admonished appellate courts to follow its decisions.”

Mary Garvey Algero, Considering Precedent in Louisiana: Balancing the Value of Predictable and Certain Interpretation with the Tradition of Flexibility and Adaptability, 58 Loy. L. Rev. 113, 119 (2012).

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Finding CasesOne Good Case - using a secondary source or code article comments.

Then the usual.

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Red = code

Orange = treatise

Blue = case

Purple = law review

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Questions?J anet Kearney

Foreign & International Law Librarian

Fordham Law School

jkearney15@fordham.edu

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