Art. 2291.Money Judgment; Fieri Facias

A writ of fieri facias, from Latin words historically instructing the sheriff to cause the amount of the judgment to be made from the debtor's goods, is the standard tool a winning plaintiff uses to collect a money judgment when the losing party has not paid voluntarily. In everyday Louisiana practice, everyone just calls it a fi fa. The party who won the judgment and is owed the money is the judgment creditor; the party who owes it is the judgment debtor.

The mechanics are direct: the writ directs the sheriff to seize property belonging to the judgment debtor, taking it into legal custody, and then sell it at a judicial sale so the proceeds can pay down the judgment. This chapter fills in every step of that process, from how the writ gets issued under Article 2253 and carried out under Article 2254, to the notice the debtor receives under Article 2293, how the sale gets ordered under Article 2295, and what a debtor can do if the seizure goes too far under Article 2296 or Article 2298.

A fi fa is not the only way to enforce a money judgment, and understanding where it fits helps explain why this chapter exists. It reaches property the debtor owns outright and holds directly. Garnishment, by contrast, reaches money or property of the debtor that a third party, such as an employer or a bank, is holding. Executory process is a separate, faster procedure reserved for a creditor who already holds a mortgage or pledge securing the debt. Article 2291 supplies the general-purpose route open to any money-judgment creditor going after the debtor's unencumbered assets.

Even though a fi fa gives the creditor real power to reach the debtor's property, the rest of this chapter builds in protections for the debtor at nearly every stage, from advance notice of the seizure to the right to seek an injunction against a wrongful sale.