Art. 4907.New Trials; Delay In Parish Or City Courts

Article 4907 lets a party ask for a new trial in a parish or city court, but it borrows the grounds for doing so rather than inventing new ones: the same peremptory grounds under Article 1972 and discretionary grounds under Article 1973 that apply in an ordinary district court proceeding support a new trial request here.

What Article 4907 changes is the clock. The request has to be made within seven days, not counting legal holidays. That seven-day period runs from the signing of the judgment in the ordinary case, but where notice of judgment is required, it instead runs from the date the clerk mails, or the sheriff serves, the notice Article 4905 calls for. Either way, the party gets seven working days, measured from whichever event gave, or should have given, notice that judgment was rendered.

Seven days, even excluding holidays, is a fraction of the time a new trial motion gets in an ordinary district court proceeding. That compression fits the pattern running through this chapter: parish and city courts move fast, and a party who wants to challenge a judgment there has to act quickly.