Art. 2089.Description Required of Immovable Property Affected By Judgments Or Decrees

Immovable property is Louisiana's civil-law term for land and things attached to it, the rough equivalent of real property elsewhere. Article 2089 requires any judgment or decree that affects title to immovable property to describe that property with particularity, rather than referring to it in general or approximate terms.

The reason is practical. Judgments affecting title get relied on by future purchasers, title examiners, and lenders long after the litigation ends, and often get recorded in the public land records. A judgment that does not pin down exactly which tract it concerns risks being unclear, or difficult to give full effect to, once it is separated from the record of the case that produced it.

The requirement applies broadly to "judgments and decrees," reaching both trial court judgments and appellate rulings wherever they affect title to immovable property, such as a judgment recognizing ownership, partitioning land among co-owners, or canceling a deed. It pairs naturally with the trial court's retained authority under Article 2088 to amend a judgment for proper decretal language even after an appeal is taken, since a judgment lacking the particularity Article 2089 requires may need exactly that kind of correction.