Art. 927.Objections Raised By Peremptory Exception

The peremptory exception is Louisiana's sharpest procedural tool: it argues the plaintiff's claim doesn't exist, or that the law now bars it, and asks the court to dismiss the case for good. Article 927 lists the grounds — prescription, peremption, res judicata, nonjoinder of a necessary party, no cause of action, no right of action (including no interest in the plaintiff to bring the suit), discharge in bankruptcy, and the court's lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter itself.

Prescription is Louisiana's own name for what most states call a statute of limitations — the deadline after which the law no longer lets a plaintiff enforce a claim. Peremption looks similar but cuts deeper: where prescription can sometimes be interrupted or suspended by later events, a peremptive period extinguishes the underlying right once it runs, with no room for exceptions. No cause of action and no right of action sound alike but ask different questions. No cause of action means the facts alleged, even if true, don't add up to a legal claim — Louisiana's closest relative to failure to state a claim. No right of action asks whether this particular plaintiff is the person the law lets bring this particular claim.

Paragraph B splits these objections into two groups. Prescription stands alone: the court can't raise it on its own initiative, no matter how obvious it looks from the petition — the defendant has to plead it specially. Every other objection on the list — nonjoinder, peremption, res judicata, discharge in bankruptcy, no cause or right of action, and lack of subject-matter jurisdiction — can be noticed by the trial or appellate court on its own motion, without any party raising it. And once a question about the court's own subject-matter jurisdiction comes up, whether a party raised it or the court noticed it, the court has to resolve that question before ruling on anything else in the case.

If an appellate court decides to raise one of these objections on its own, Paragraph B doesn't let it act unilaterally. The parties get a chance to brief the issue and request oral argument before the appellate court adjudicates it.