Art. 5187.Compromise; Dismissal of Proceedings Prior to Judgment

Article 5187 closes off an obvious workaround: settling or dismissing a case quietly to avoid ever paying the costs a privileged litigant deferred. No compromise can be effected in such a case unless all costs due to the relevant public officers have first been paid. If the parties compromise anyway, in violation of this rule, each party to that compromise becomes personally liable to the officers for all costs due at the time of the settlement.

The same logic governs dismissal. A judicial proceeding in which a party has been permitted to litigate without paying costs cannot be dismissed before judgment unless either all costs due the public officers have been paid, or the written motion to dismiss carries certificates from all counsel of record stating that no compromise has been made and none is contemplated. That second option lets a case be dismissed for reasons unrelated to a settlement, such as the plaintiff choosing not to pursue it for reasons of its own, without first having to pay costs that may never otherwise come due.

Article 5187 extends the same protection to the back end of a case: no release of a claim or satisfaction of a judgment is effective between the parties unless all costs due the clerk of court have been paid. To make that enforceable, the clerk of court holds a lien for those costs on any money or other assets transferred in the settlement or judgment satisfaction, a lien that ranks ahead of any other party's claim to those funds, and the clerk can recover reasonable attorney fees in an action brought to enforce that lien.