A judgment can be executed only by a trial court. A party seeking to execute a judgment of an appellate court must first file a certified copy with the clerk of the trial court. This filing may be made without prior notice to the adverse party.
Art. 2251.Execution Only In Trial Court; Appellate Court Judgment
Book IV. Execution of Judgments · Title I. General Dispositions · Chapter 1. General Dispositions · Amendment history unavailable · Last verified July 30, 2026
In one sentenceArticle 2251 confines the power to execute a judgment to the trial court and requires a party who wants to enforce an appellate court's judgment to first file a certified copy of it with the clerk of the trial court, a filing that requires no advance notice to the other side.
Full Text of Art. 2251
Plain-English Summary
Execution is the machinery that turns a judgment into cash or property in hand: seizure, sale, garnishment, and everything this chapter describes. Article 2251 places that machinery entirely with the trial court. An appellate court can affirm, reverse, or render a judgment, but it has no clerk issuing writs and no sheriff standing ready to carry them out.
So when a party wins at the court of appeal or the supreme court and wants to collect, the path runs back through the district court where the case began. The winning party files a certified copy of the appellate judgment with the clerk of that trial court. That filing places the appellate judgment on the trial court's own record, letting the ordinary execution articles that follow, from the writ the clerk issues to the sheriff who carries it out, operate on it exactly as they would on a judgment the trial court rendered itself.
Article 2251 treats this initial filing as a clerical step, not a hostile move against the judgment debtor. The certified copy can go into the record without any advance notice to the other side. The notice and delay protections that matter to a debtor, such as the appeal delay in Article 2252 and the seizure notice in Article 2293, attach later, once execution itself is underway.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't the court of appeal or the supreme court just order the sheriff to seize property directly?
Because appellate courts have no execution machinery of their own. Article 2251 channels all judgment execution, even of an appellate court's judgment, back through the trial court that originally heard the case.
How do I enforce a judgment I won on appeal?
File a certified copy of the appellate court's judgment with the clerk of the trial court. Once it is filed, the ordinary execution procedure, from the writ of fieri facias to a sheriff's seizure, can proceed against the judgment debtor from there.
Do I have to notify the other side before filing the certified copy?
No. Article 2251 lets that filing happen without prior notice to the adverse party. Notice requirements attach to the later steps of execution, not to placing the judgment on the trial court's record.
What happens after the certified copy is filed?
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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