Art. 2298.Injunction Prohibiting Sale; Damages

The seizure-and-sale process is a powerful tool, and Article 2298 supplies the central safeguard against it going wrong. A judgment debtor, or an outside third person who claims ownership of the seized property, can seek an injunction stopping the sheriff's sale, and once one of four specific grounds is shown, the court must grant it. Nothing about the decision is discretionary once the ground is proven.

The four grounds cover distinct problems. The first is a catch-all for procedural defects: the sheriff proceeding with the execution contrary to law. The second covers a judgment that has since been paid, offset through legal compensation, or otherwise extinguished after it was rendered; if only part of the judgment was paid or offset, the injunction reaches only that part, and execution continues for the remaining balance. The third is a narrower scenario, where the judgment is for the purchase price of property sold to the debtor and someone else has filed suit to recover that same property, protecting the debtor from having to pay for property whose ownership is actively disputed. The fourth applies where the judgment being executed is absolutely null, a defect going to the judgment's core validity rather than an ordinary appealable error.

If the court grants the injunction and finds the underlying seizure was wrongful, it may also award damages, and attorney fees for the work of obtaining the injunction can be included as part of that award. Fighting a wrongful seizure is not necessarily a losing proposition financially, even after paying a lawyer to do it.