Precarious Possession

• Author: John A. Lovett
• Position: De Van D. Daggett, Jr. Distinguished Professor, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
• Pages: 617-700

Precarious Possession

John A. Lovett*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .................................................................................. 618

I. Up from Rome .............................................................................. 625

A. Acquisitive Prescription in the Civil Law Tradition .............. 625

1. Roman Law and Pre-Codification French Law ............... 625

2. French Codification and Subsequent French

Commentary Justifying Acquisitive Prescription............ 628

B. The Concept of Precarious Possession in Roman

and French Law ..................................................................... 630

1. True Possession Equals Detention Supplemented

by Animus ....................................................................... 631

2. Precarious Possession Cannot Produce

Acquisitive Prescription .................................................. 632

3. Initial Presumption in Favor of Possession as

Owner .............................................................................. 632

4. Limited Juridical Effect of Acts Governed by

Article 2232 of Code Civil .............................................. 634

a. Pure Facultative Acts ................................................... 635

b. Acts of Simple Tolerance ............................................ 635

C. Louisiana Commentary After the 1982 Revision of the

Civil Code .............................................................................. 636

D. The Virtues of Louisiana’s Two-Tier Model of

Acquisitive Prescription ......................................................... 640

II. Three Paradigmatic Possession and Acquisitive Prescription

Disputes: A Social and Relational Approach ............................... 646

A. Strangers ................................................................................ 648

1. Stranger–Claimant Possessed as Owner ......................... 649

2. Stranger–Claimant as Precarious Possessor .................... 654

B. Contractual and Legal Status Relationships .......................... 657

1. Contractual Relationships ............................................... 658

a. Lessees and Lessors .................................................. 658

b. Agents and Principals ............................................... 659

c. Servitude Holders and Servient Estate Owners,

Usufructuaries and Naked Owners ........................... 659

d. Vendors and Vendees ............................................... 660

2. Co-Ownership Disputes: Context Matters ...................... 661

618 LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 77

a. Co-Owners Who Remain Precarious Possessors ...... 663

b. Co-Owners Who Terminate Precarious Possession .. 664

3. Other Family Matters: Sticky Precarious Possession ...... 669

4. Sui Generis Legal Status Relationships .......................... 671

C. Neighbors and Members of Close-Knit Communities........... 673

1. Neighbors as Precarious Possessors Through

Acknowledgment or Agreement ..................................... 674

2. Neighbors as Precarious Possessors Through

Inference .......................................................................... 675

3. Neighbors Who Possess as Owners ................................ 681

III. The Future of Precarious Possession ............................................ 686

A. New Jurisprudential Tools to Analyze Neighbor and

Close-Knit Community Cases ............................................... 687

1. The Presumption of Sharing ............................................ 688

2. Indicia of Giving or Renunciation ................................... 691

B. Reconsidering Boudreaux ........................................................ 694

1. The Boudreaux Opinions ................................................ 694

2. Resolving Boudreaux with New Jurisprudential Tools ... 699

Conclusion .................................................................................... 700

INTRODUCTION

The institution of acquisitive prescription has startling transformative

power.1 A person who commences possession of immovable property in

Copyright 2017, by JOHN A. LOVETT.

* De Van D. Daggett, Jr. Distinguished Professor, Loyola University New

Orleans College of Law. This Article is dedicated to the memory of André van de

Walt (1956 -2016), the holder of the South African Research Chair in Property

Law at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, who invited me to visit his research

group and present an early draft of this Article in March 2016. His contribution to

property law scholarship across the world is beyond measure. I also wish to thank

Hanri Mostert, Cheryl Young, Cornelius van de Merwe, Jacques du Plessis,

Hanoch Daga n, Joseph Sin ger, John Blevins, Nicholas Davrados, Melissa

Lonegrass, and Sally Ann Richardson for their encouragements and valuable

comments on earlier drafts of this A rticle. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge the

outstanding research assistance of Aimee Chalin and Emily Breaux.

1. As French commentators G. Baudry-Lacantinerie and Albert Tissier once

remarked, “Prescription is the transformation of a state of fact in a state of law.” G.

BAUDRY-LACANTINERIE & ALBERT TISSIER, PRESCRIPTION: TRAITE THEORIQUE ET

PRACTIQUE DE DROIT CIVIL, in 5 CIVIL LAW TRANSLATIONS ¶ 275, at 145 (La. St. L.

Inst. trans. 1972) (4th ed. 1924).

2017] PRECARIOUS P OSSESSION 619

good faith and with a just title can acquire ownership that is good against

the world after just ten years of uninterrupted possession.2 Even more

remarkable is that a possessor who does not commence possession in good

faith or who lacks a just title can still acquire ownership of an immovable

after 30 years of uninterrupted possession.3 Finally, a person who merely

uses another person’s land in a limited manner can acquire a real right in the

form of an apparent servitude through either ten or 30 years of quasi-

possession.4

According to several Louisiana jurists and commentators, the venerable

institution of acquisitive prescription in Louisiana is now under threat.5 The

source of that threat is a recent decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court. In

Boudreaux v. Cummings,6 the plaintiff, John Boudreaux, and his

ancestors-in-title had used a pathway across his neighbor’s property since

1948 to gain access to a public road and to transport farm equipment to

and from the property.7 In 2012, Paul Cummings, the new owner of the

adjacent land, prevented Boudreaux from using the pathway.8 Boudreaux

sued, claiming that he and his ancestors-in-title had acquired a predial

servitude across Cummings’s land by virtue of 30 years of uninterrupted

quasi-possession.9 Cummings defended the lawsuit by arguing that

Boudreaux’s possession did not count for purposes of acquisitive

prescription because it had always been “precarious,” that is, it had been

exercised “with the permission of or on behalf of the owner.”10 Although

2. LA. CIV. CODE arts. 3473–3476 (2016) (providing for ten-year acquisitive

prescription of immovables for a possessor with just title and good faith; providing

that possessor need only have good faith at commencement of possession).

3. Id. arts. 3486–3488.

4. Id. arts. 740, 742.

5. See Boudreaux v. Cummings, 167 So. 3d 559, 568 (La. 2015) (Knoll, J.,

dissenting) (warning that the majority decision in Boudreaux “severely jeopardizes

the law on acquisitive prescription in this state”); A.N. YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL

SERVITUDES § 6.36, in LOUISIANA CIVIL LAW TREATISE (4th ed. 2013 & Supp.

2016) (reiterating Justice Knoll’s warning and advising that the majority holding in

Boudreaux “should not be read broadly and should not be read to equate permission

with a landowner’s awareness and failure to object to a disturbance or eviction”);

Andrew M. Cox, Boudreaux v. Cummings: The Louisiana Supreme Court

Presumes Away the Right to Acquire a Servitude of P assage, 90 TUL. L. REV. 973,

984 (2016) (suggesting that faulty reasoning in Boudreaux “looms dangerously over

the right to prescribe a servitude of passage”).

6. 167 So. 3d 559 (La. 2015).

7. Id. at 560.

8. Id.

9. Id.

10. Id. at 561 (quoting LA. CIV. CODE art. 3437 (2011)).