Art. 2166.Court of Appeal Judgment Rehearing; Finality; Stay

Once a Louisiana court of appeal decides a case, the judgment does not become final the moment it is signed. Article 2166 lays out the sequence of deadlines that determine when, and lets the losing party ask for a second look before the case moves any further. A party has fourteen days from transmission of notice of the judgment to apply to the same court of appeal for rehearing, and thirty days from that same notice to apply to the supreme court for a writ of certiorari, the discretionary review the supreme court grants at its own choosing rather than as a matter of right. If neither application is timely filed, the court of appeal's judgment becomes final and definitive once both windows close.

Filing for rehearing changes the certiorari clock rather than running alongside it. A timely rehearing application at the court of appeal extends the deadline for any other party to seek certiorari at the supreme court, pushing it out to thirty days from the notice that the rehearing was denied. If the court of appeal denies a timely rehearing application, its judgment becomes final unless someone files for certiorari within that extended thirty-day window. And where a party does file a timely certiorari application, any other party gets its own window to apply too, thirty days from the original notice of judgment, or ten days from the supreme court clerk's notice of that first certiorari application, whichever gives more time.

Even after certiorari is sought, finality is not immediate. Once a certiorari application is timely filed, the court of appeal's judgment becomes final and definitive five days, not counting legal holidays, after the supreme court clerk mails notice that certiorari was denied. Because a certiorari denial does not itself decide the merits, the article separately gives the supreme court authority to stay execution of the court of appeal's judgment while a timely certiorari application, or an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, remains pending, keeping the judgment from being enforced while higher review is still possible.

Article 2166 closes by defining the phrase that drives every deadline in it: transmission of the notice means the notice was sent by the United States Postal Service, by email, or by fax. Because every clock in this article starts running from that transmission, knowing which method the clerk used, and when, matters as much as the deadline itself.