Art. 5251.Words and Terms Defined

Article 5251 closes the Code the way a well-built reference book should: with its own dictionary. Every one of the fourteen terms defined here has already done work across the eight Books this site has covered, from the appointment of curators for absentees, to executory process against third possessors, to the administration of successions and tutorships. Reading this article after everything else is a little like finally being handed the glossary you needed on page one. The opening clause matters as much as any single definition: these meanings control except where the context clearly indicates otherwise, so the definitions are a strong default, not an absolute rule that overrides every possible use of the words.

Several definitions deserve particular attention because of how often they surface elsewhere. "Absentee" is broader than its plain-English sense might suggest: it covers a nonresident, a Louisiana domiciliary who has left the state without appointing an agent for service of process, someone whose whereabouts are unknown or who cannot be found after diligent effort even if still in the state, and even a person who may have died without that death being confirmed and whose heirs are unknown. This definition has powered the appointment of attorneys to represent unrepresented defendants elsewhere in this Book, and it recurs throughout succession and tutorship proceedings whenever a party's location or existence cannot be confirmed.

"Legal representative" and "succession representative" are related umbrella terms doing overlapping but distinct work. Legal representative is the wider of the two, sweeping in an administrator, provisional administrator, administrator of a vacant succession, executor, dative testamentary executor, tutor, administrator of a minor's estate, curator, receiver, liquidator, trustee, and any court-appointed officer administering an estate under judicial supervision. Succession representative is narrower, limited to an executor, independent executor, administrator, independent administrator, provisional administrator, and their successors, with a pointed clarification that including independent executors and administrators in the definition does not subject them to the court's ordinary probate supervision beyond what is expressly provided elsewhere in the Code. Anyone who has followed this site's coverage of executors, administrators, tutors, and curators across the succession and tutorship Books has already been dealing with the specific offices this article now gathers under two general labels.

"Person" is defined generously: an individual, a partnership, an unincorporated association of individuals, a joint stock company, a corporation, or a limited liability company. "Nonresident" picks up the flip side, covering an individual not domiciled in Louisiana, a foreign corporation not licensed to do business here, an out-of-state partnership or unincorporated association, and an out-of-state limited liability company not licensed here. "Corporation" and "foreign corporation" fill out the entity vocabulary, the former reaching private, public, and, unless context says otherwise, insurance corporations, the latter limited to a corporation organized under the laws of another state, a United States possession, or a foreign country. "Competent court" ties jurisdiction and venue together into a single phrase, meaning a court with both subject-matter jurisdiction and proper venue over the matter, and "city court" is confirmed to reach a municipal court with civil jurisdiction. "Property" is defined broadly enough to cover every classification of property Louisiana law recognizes: movable or immovable, corporeal or incorporeal, a definition that ties directly back to the movable and immovable distinction running through this site's civil-law commentary all the way back to the first Book.

The remaining definitions round out the glossary with equal precision: "agent for the service of process" names the person a party or the law designates to receive service in Louisiana courts; "insurance policy" and "insurer" incorporate the definitions found in Louisiana's insurance statutes, extending to fraternal benefit society policies as well; and "law," when used in the Code's own recurring phrases about what is otherwise provided or required, means an applicable provision of the constitution, a code, or a Louisiana statute. Taken together, these fourteen entries are less a footnote than a foundation, quietly underwriting the vocabulary this entire site has used to describe Louisiana civil procedure from Book I through this final article of Book IX.