Art. 74.1.Action to Establish Or Disavow Filiation

"Filiation" is Louisiana's civil-law term for the legal parent-child relationship — establishing filiation is the equivalent of what other states call establishing paternity or parentage. Article 74.1 gives a plaintiff bringing an action to establish filiation and child support a choice among five parishes: the domicile of the child, the parish where conception occurred, the parish where either parent resided at the time of conception, the parish where an act acknowledging the child took place, or the parish where the child was born.

An action to disavow filiation — a legal proceeding to deny a presumed parental relationship — follows a narrower rule. It may be brought only in the parish of the child's birth or in the parish where either parent resided at the time of that birth. The narrower list reflects the different nature of a disavowal action, which looks back to the circumstances at birth rather than to the child's current domicile or later events.