Art. 4832.Trial Courts of Limited Jurisdiction

Article 4832 names the three courts that make up Louisiana's trial courts of limited jurisdiction: parish courts, city courts, and justice of the peace courts. Each sits below the district courts that hear most civil litigation covered throughout the rest of this Code, and each is confined to smaller-value disputes and a narrower range of subject matter, detailed in the articles that follow.

A parish court serves as a lower civil trial court for an entire parish or a defined part of one, in the parishes where the legislature has created one. A city court serves a particular municipality, and Louisiana has created dozens of them, each tied to a named city and, as later articles show, each carrying its own jurisdictional dollar ceiling. A justice of the peace court is the smallest of the three, typically covering a single ward, and handles a narrower slice of civil business, often alongside a district court exercising concurrent authority over the same matters.

None of these courts replaces the district court. They exist alongside it, offering a closer, less costly forum for the routine, lower-value civil matters that make up much of a limited-jurisdiction court's docket, while claims exceeding their dollar caps or falling into an excluded category still belong in district court.