Art. 4566.Management of Affairs of the Interdict

Article 4566 opens by treating the relationship between interdict and curator as the same as the relationship between minor and tutor, except where the law says otherwise. It carries over Title VI's tutorship management rules wholesale -- the general functions, powers, and duties of a tutor under Articles 4261 through 4269, investment and court-approval procedures under Articles 4270 through 4274, the alienation-of-property rules under Articles 4301 through 4342, and the exchange-petition procedure under Article 4371 -- while excluding, again, the special rules written for natural tutors and parents, which have no equivalent in adult curatorship.

Layered on top of that borrowed framework are safeguards built for the particular risks curatorship raises. A curator who owns an interest alongside the interdict, or who holds a security interest or lien on the interdict's property, may acquire that property only with prior court authorization, compliance with Article 4271, an independent appraisal absent good cause to skip one, and a finding that the acquisition serves the interdict's best interest. On donations, a curator may accept gifts made to the interdict but generally cannot make donations of the interdict's property except as the law allows; a court-approved charitable donation made under R.S. 9:1026 does not, by itself, count as a conflict of interest even where the curator, undercurator, or a close family member is affiliated with the recipient charity; and a curator can, without separate court approval, refuse, renounce, or disclaim a donation, inheritance, or bequest to an interdict whose net worth already reaches one hundred million dollars or more.

Several provisions protect the interdict's personal life and physical autonomy directly. The curator cannot establish or move the interdict's place of dwelling outside Louisiana without prior court authorization, cannot consent to an abortion or sterilization for the interdict without prior court authorization, and cannot have the interdict admitted to a mental-health treatment facility except under the specific statutory procedure in R.S. 28:50 through 64; a curator appointed under a temporary interdiction cannot place the defendant in a residential or long-term care facility absent good cause shown at a contradictory hearing. The curator also has to keep the undercurator reasonably informed, in advance, of material changes in the interdict's living arrangements and of transactions materially affecting the interdict's person or affairs.

Two final provisions round out the Article. Article 4566(J) requires the curator to allow communication, visitation, and interaction between an adult interdict and a relative within the third degree, or anyone else with a relationship built on or productive of strong affection, when doing so serves the interdict's best interest -- the duty Article 4570 later gives affected people their own direct cause of action to enforce, and that Article 4568 treats as good cause for removal if violated. And Article 4566(K) gives the curator authority to access the interdict's existing deposit accounts and to open new ones in the curator's name on the interdict's behalf, unless the letters of curatorship expressly limit that authority.