Art. 2002.Annulment For Vices of Form; Time For Action

Article 2002 lists the three vices of form that require a Louisiana court to annul a final judgment. The first covers a judgment rendered against an incompetent person who was not represented as the law requires — someone who, because of age or mental incapacity, needed a tutor or curator to answer the suit on their behalf, but did not have one participating properly in the case.

The second covers a defendant who was never served with process as the law requires, so long as that defendant has not waived the objection to jurisdiction and has not had a valid default judgment taken against them. Proper service is what gives a defendant the notice and opportunity to respond that due process demands, and a judgment entered without it is vulnerable to nullity unless the defendant's own later conduct, or a properly obtained default, cures the defect. The third covers a judgment rendered by a court that lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit in the first place — a defect so basic that the court had no authority to decide the case at all.

Paragraph B sets the timing rule for all three grounds: except as Article 2003 provides, an action to annul on any of them may be brought at any time. There is no fixed deadline, unlike the one-year peremptive period that governs a vice-of-substance nullity action for fraud under Article 2004. That open-ended timing reflects how serious these three defects are — a judgment resting on improper service or a lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter is not the kind of flaw Louisiana lets time alone cure.