Art. 3308.Appeal

A suspensive appeal keeps a judgment from taking effect while the appeal is pending, unlike a devolutive appeal, which lets the judgment stand and be enforced even as the appeal proceeds. Article 3308 requires that only a suspensive appeal be allowed from a judgment homologating a tableau of distribution, with an appeal bond meeting the Code's standard bond requirements. Louisiana chooses the more protective route here, so a distribution of estate funds cannot go out and then have to be unwound if the homologation judgment is later reversed.

The suspensive appeal does not have to freeze the whole administration. The succession representative retains only a sum sufficient to cover the amount in dispute on appeal, holding that portion back until a definitive judgment is rendered. Everything else, the payments to creditors whose approved claims nobody contested, gets distributed as the homologated tableau directed.

That approach limits the disruption a single dispute can cause. One creditor's opposition, carried up on appeal, does not hold every other approved creditor's payment hostage; it only holds back what is in controversy.