Art. 596.Prescription; Suspension

Louisiana law uses prescription where most American jurisdictions say statute of limitations — the time limit within which a claim must be asserted before it is lost. The specific kind at work here is liberative prescription, the type that extinguishes a right through the passage of time, as distinct from the acquisitive prescription Louisiana uses to describe gaining ownership of property through possession. Article 596 addresses what happens to liberative prescription on the underlying claims of everyone described in a class petition once that petition is filed.

The filing of a class petition suspends prescription for every member of the described class — not only the named representatives — the moment the petition reaches the court. That protection means an absent class member's individual claim does not keep running toward expiration while the class litigation over the same transactions or occurrences proceeds. But the suspension is not permanent, and Article 596 fixes exactly when the clock starts running again for different members in different situations: thirty days after a member submits an election form choosing to opt out; thirty days after notice that the class has been redefined to exclude a particular member; or, if the whole action falls apart — dismissed, its class demand stricken, certification denied, or a certification order vacated — thirty days after notice of that outcome reaches the class.

Paragraph B adds a timing wrinkle for the second and third triggers: the thirty-day period does not start until the delay for taking an appeal has run out without an appeal being filed, or, if an appeal is taken, until that appeal becomes final. And whatever notice tells class members that their prescription clock is about to restart has to spell out these delay periods, so a member is not left guessing how much time remains to file an individual suit.