Art. 3664.Mineral Rights Asserted, Protected and Defended As Other Immovables

Louisiana treats mineral rights as their own species of immovable-property right, separate from ownership of the land itself. Article 3664 opens a set of articles extending the petitory and possessory action framework to that world: it tells the owner of a mineral right that the right can be asserted, protected, and defended in the same way ownership or possession of any other immovable property can be, using the same real actions this Chapter already defines.

The article adds a practical protection specific to mineral rights: the mineral-right owner does not need the landowner's concurrence, joinder, or consent to bring a real action, and does not need the agreement of anyone else who holds a competing or related mineral right either. A mineral servitude owner, for instance, can sue to protect that servitude without first getting the landowner on board.

The articles that follow, through Article 3671, work out how the petitory and possessory action rules apply to the particular features of a mineral right — a right that is often exercised through use rather than physical occupation, and that is easy to lose through nonuse over time.