SUCCESSIONS AND DONATIONS
SULC;; Professor Marshall; Scott G. Yarnell
Texts: Successions and Donations: Cases and Materials; Sphat; Fall 2000;
Louisiana Civil Code; West (2001)
SUCCESSIONS
I#. INTESTATE SUCCESSION: GENERAL RULES
A. Succession defined: Succession is the transmission of the estate of the deceased to his successors. The successors thus have the right to take possession of the estate of the deceased after complying with applicable provisions of law. Art. 871.
1. The estate transfers immediately upon the death of the deceased. But, the successors must first comply with the applicable provisions of law until they take actual possession of the property. Have to open the succession and probate it to be judicially effective.
B. Intestate succession, Art. 880: In the absence of valid testamentary disposition, the undisposed property of the deceased devolves by operation of law in favor of his descendants, ascendants, and collaterals, by blood or by adoption, and in favor of his spouse not judicially separated from him, in the order provided in and according to the following articles.
C. The deceased is referred to by different names and whether or not a will was left.
1. De cujus
2. Deceased
3. Decedent
4. Testator (for testaments)
D. Estate defined: The estate of a deceased means the property, rights, and obligations that a person leaves after his death, whether the property exceeds the charges or the charges exceed the property, or whether he has only left charges without any property. The estate includes not only the rights and obligations of the deceased as they exist at the time of death, but all that has accrued thereto since death, and the new charges to which it becomes subject. Art. 872.
E. Two kinds of successions: testate and intestate
1. Testate succession results from the will of the deceased, contained in a testament executed in a form prescribed by law. This kind of succession is covered under donations inter vivos and mortis causa. Art. 874.
2. Intestate succession results from provisions of law in favor of certain persons, in default of testate successors. It is by operation of law. Art. 875.
F. There are two kinds of successors corresponding to the two kinds of succession described in the preceding articles (Art. 876):
1. Testate successors, also called l
. 899. Nearest in degree among more remote relations: Among the successors in each class the nearest relation to the deceased, according to the following articles, is called to succeed.
3. Art. 900. Degrees of relationship: The propinquity of consanguinity is established by the number of generations, and each generation is called a degree.
4. Art. 901. Direct and collateral relationship: The series of degrees forms the line. The direct line is the series of degrees between persons who descend one from another. The collateral line is the series of degrees between persons who do not descend one from another, but who descend from a common ancestor. In the direct line, the number of degrees is equal to the number of generations between the heir and the deceased. In the collateral line, the number of degrees is equal to the number of generations between the heir and the common ancestor, plus the number of generations between the common ancestor and the deceased.
