Art. 684.Interdict

Interdiction is Louisiana's civil-law process for judicially declaring that a person cannot manage some or all of their own affairs because of a mental or physical condition. A full interdiction covers the person's affairs broadly; a limited interdiction covers only specific matters the court identifies, which may or may not include the capacity to sue. Article 684 addresses both: a person under full interdiction, or a person under limited interdiction whose court order specifically restricts their capacity to sue, cannot bring a lawsuit on their own.

In that situation, the curator is the proper plaintiff. A curator is the person a Louisiana court appoints to manage an interdict's affairs and represent their interests — the civil-law counterpart to a guardian or conservator elsewhere, but tied to Louisiana's interdiction proceeding rather than a general incompetency finding. The curator steps into the interdict's shoes for purposes of bringing suit, subject to a handful of exceptions elsewhere in the procedural articles for particular kinds of proceedings.

Not every person with a diagnosis or a disability falls under Article 684 — only someone who has gone through interdiction, and whose interdiction reaches procedural capacity, loses the ability to sue on their own.