An action to annul a judgment must be brought in the trial court, even though the judgment sought to be annulled may have been affirmed on appeal, or even rendered by the appellate court.
Art. 2006.Court Where Action Brought
Book II. Ordinary Proceedings · Title VI. Judgments · Chapter 4. Modification In Trial Court · Amendment history unavailable · Last verified July 30, 2026
In one sentenceArticle 2006 requires an action to annul a judgment to be brought in the trial court, even when the judgment being challenged was affirmed on appeal or was itself rendered by an appellate court.
Full Text of Art. 2006
Plain-English Summary
Article 2006 answers a question that could otherwise cause real confusion: which court hears an action of nullity? The answer is the trial court, and that holds true no matter what happened to the judgment on appeal. Even a judgment an appellate court affirmed, or a judgment an appellate court itself rendered rather than merely reviewed, still gets challenged through a nullity action filed in the trial court, not in the appellate court.
This keeps the action of nullity procedurally distinct from an appeal. An appeal reviews a judgment within the appellate hierarchy that produced it. A nullity action, by contrast, is a new proceeding that examines whether the judgment should be annulled for a vice of form or substance, and Article 2006 channels that inquiry to the trial-court level regardless of how far up the appellate ladder the underlying judgment traveled.
For a party planning to bring a nullity action, this article settles where to file: the trial court that would have handled the case in the first instance, not the court of appeal or the supreme court, even if one of those higher courts had the last word on the merits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which court hears an action to annul a judgment in Louisiana?
The trial court, under Article 2006, regardless of whether the judgment being challenged was affirmed on appeal or rendered by an appellate court itself.
If the court of appeal rendered the judgment, do I file the nullity action there?
No. Article 2006 requires the action to be filed in the trial court even when the challenged judgment was rendered by the appellate court rather than merely reviewed by it.
Why does Louisiana route nullity actions to the trial court instead of the appellate court?
Because an action of nullity is a distinct proceeding from an appeal, examining whether a judgment should be annulled for a vice of form or substance rather than reviewing the judgment's merits within the appellate hierarchy. Article 2006 keeps that inquiry at the trial-court level.
Source & verification. Article text is reproduced verbatim from
the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure (legis.la.gov). Enacted by the Louisiana Legislature.
Last verified July 30, 2026.
· Official source
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