Art. 2083.Judgments Appealable

Louisiana judgments fall into two broad categories: final judgments, which determine the merits of a dispute in whole or in part, and interlocutory judgments, which decide preliminary matters along the way without resolving the merits. Article 2083 ties appealability to that distinction. A final judgment is appealable in every cause where the law gives a right of appeal, regardless of how it was rendered — after a contested hearing, by default when the opposing party never answered, or through reformation under Article 1814.

Reformation under Article 1814 covers what other systems call remittitur and additur: a trial court's option to reduce an excessive jury award or raise an inadequate one as an alternative to ordering a new trial. Paragraph B directs the reviewing court, when it examines a judgment reformed that way, to weigh the reasonableness of the jury's original verdict as well as the reformed figure, so appellate review does not stop at the number the trial court substituted.

Interlocutory judgments get much narrower treatment. Paragraph C makes one appealable only when a law expressly says so. Most preliminary rulings — discovery orders, rulings on exceptions, and similar interim decisions — are not independently appealable at all; review of them typically waits until the case produces a final judgment, or a party seeks supervisory writs under Article 2201 in the meantime.