Art. 1916.Jury Cases; Compromise Agreements; Signature of Judgment By the Court

A jury's verdict decides the facts and, usually, the damages; it is not itself a signed judgment. Article 1916, Paragraph A, gives the court two ways to close that gap within ten days of the verdict: the court can prepare and sign a judgment that matches the verdict directly, or the court can order counsel for a party to draft the judgment and submit it for signature within that same ten-day period, following the local rules for Louisiana district courts.

Paragraph B handles a different situation: the parties reach a settlement, and instead of filing a written agreement, they state its terms on the record in open court, in a way a court reporter or recording could later transcribe. When that happens, the court may order counsel for a party to draft a judgment reflecting the settlement and submit it for signature, this time within twenty days of the recital rather than ten. The longer window reflects the extra work of translating a settlement's terms into a signed judgment, compared with transcribing a jury's verdict alone.

Read together, both paragraphs show the same idea from two angles: once the substance of the outcome has been decided, whether by a jury's verdict or by the parties' own recorded agreement, Article 1916 keeps the paperwork from lagging indefinitely behind it.