Terrebonne Parish School Board v. Columbia Gulf Transmission Co.

U.S. Court of Appeals5/10/2002

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

__________________________

No. 01-30131
__________________________

TERREBONNE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

COLUMBIA GULF TRANSMISSION CO. and
KOCH GATEWAY PIPELINE CO.,

Defendants-Appellees.

___________________________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
___________________________________________________

May 10, 2002

Before DUHÉ, WIENER, and BARKSDALE, Circuit Judges.

WIENER, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellant the Terrebonne Parish School Board (the

“Board”), as owner of a servient estate, appeals from the district

court’s summary judgment that the Board’s causes of action against

the two owners of separate dominant estates —— Defendants-Appellees

Koch Gateway Pipeline Company (“Koch”) and Columbia Gulf

Transmission Company (“Columbia”) —— have prescribed. Concluding

that genuine issues of material fact exist with regard to

prescription of the Board’s possible causes of action under

Louisiana’s law of delict (tort) and contract, we reverse the

district court’s grant of summary judgment and remand.
I.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Shortly after Louisiana gained statehood, Congress extended to

Louisiana a policy of reserving, from among the public lands in

newly created states, the sixteenth section of every township for

the support of education.1 This policy created a patchwork of

reserved section sixteen lands (“sections sixteen”) throughout each

such state, as a result of uniform surveying according to the

township-and-range system. (A township is six miles square and

contains thirty-six sections, which are one mile square; thus each

section sixteen is five miles distant from the nearest other

sections sixteen, one in each of the four contiguous townships.)

Title to sections sixteen in Terrebonne Parish passed from the

United States to the Board sometime during the nineteenth century.2

The Board-owned section sixteen that is located in Township 18

South, Range 13 East, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, and which

contains about 641 acres, is the subject of this case and is

hereafter referred to as “Section 16 (18-13).”

1
See Act of April 21, 1806, 2 Stat. 391, 394 (reserving
sections sixteen in the western district of the territory of
Orleans); Act of Feb. 15, 1811, 2 Stat. 617, 618–19 (extending the
same policy to the eastern district of the territory of Orleans);
Act of March 26, 1804, 2 Stat. 283, 283 (defining the “territory of
Orleans” to be that portion of the Louisiana Purchase lying below
the thirty-third parallel).
2
See, e.g., Act of Feb. 15, 1843, 5 Stat. 600 (authorizing the
Louisiana state legislature to convey in fee simple lands in the
state reserved by Congress for the use of schools).

2
Before the events at issue here, much of Terrebonne Parish,

including Section 16 (18-13), consisted of floating freshwater

marsh. Typically, this kind of marsh comprises “marsh mats” that

are as much as a foot thick and literally float several feet above

the silt and clay bottom, unattached by roots.

Section 16 (18-13) is now traversed by two pipelines that

exist pursuant to conventional (contractual) servitude agreements

granted by the Board. The first was constructed pursuant to a

“standard form” agreement executed by the Board in 1957 in favor of

Koch’s ancestor in interest. This servitude agreement (the “Koch

Agreement”) reads in part as follows:

That for and in consideration of THREE HUNDRED SIXTY SIX
AND 60/100 ($366.60) Dollars . . . Grantor does hereby
Grant and Convey unto United Gas Pipeline Company . . .
a right of way and easement one hundred feet in width to
construct, maintain, operate, repair, replace, change the
size of and remove pipe lines and appurtenances thereto,
including the right at its election to lay such pipe line
or lines in open ditches or canals not to exceed forty
feet in width, which may be filled in or left open at the
option of Grantee . . . .
. . .
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD unto Grantee, its successors and
assigns, so long as the rights and easements herein
granted, or any of them, shall be used by, or useful to
Grantee for the purposes herein granted, with ingress to
and egress from the premises, . . . for the purposes of
construction, inspecting, repairing and replacing the
property of Grantee herein described . . . .
. . .
[S]aid Grantor shall not obstruct or permit to be
constructed any house, structures or obstructions, on or
over, or that will interfere with the maintenance or
operation of, any pipe line or appurtenances constructed
hereunder, and will not change the grade over such pipe
line.

Koch’s pipeline canal was dredged and its pipeline built in 1958.

3
In 1964, Columbia entered into negotiations with the Board to

build the second pipeline across Section 16 (18-13). During

negotiations, however, Columbia built its pipeline. When, in 1965,

this trespass was discovered by the Board, it and Columbia

negotiated a servitude agreement using a somewhat different

standard form (the “Columbia Agreement”). In return for $685.20,

the Board granted Columbia

a servitude, right of way and easement to construct, lay,
maintain, operate, alter, repair, remove, change the size
of, and replace a pipe line and appurtenances thereto,
including but not limited to fittings, tie-overs, valves,
corrosion control equipment and other apparatus . . . .
. . .
[S]aid Grantors shall not construct nor permit to be
constructed any house, structures, or obstructions and
shall not plant nor permit to be planted trees on or
over, or that will interfere with the construction,
maintenance or operation of any pipe line or
appurtenances constructed hereunder, and will not change
the grade over such pipe line.
The right of way granted herein shall be 100 feet
wide . . . . It is understood and agreed that Grantee
shall not be required to backfill the open flotation
ditch excavated during construction.
It is hereby understood that the Grantee, its
successors and assigns, shall not be obligated to pay
Grantors or any subsequent owner of [Section 16 (18-13)]
any damages resulting from the construction of the
[pipeline], such damages having been anticipated and paid
in advance at the time of execution of this instrument.

Koch and Columbia have continuously maintained the pipelines,

often using the canals to do so. Both concede, however, that they

have not maintained the canals or their banks.

The Board contends that, at least partly as a result of the

servitude holders’ failure to maintain the canals or their banks,

the canals have widened and their banks have been breached. The

4
Board asserts that the Koch canal has widened to an average width

of 70 feet, almost double the 40-foot limit specified in the Koch

Agreement; and that the Columbia canal has widened beyond the

specified 100-foot right of way, to an average width of 135 feet.

Koch and Columbia (collectively, “the defendants”) object that

there is no record evidence for these statistics, but a scaled

satellite photo tends to support the Board’s assertion. There is

also causation evidence suggesting that breaches in the canals’

banks have exposed the floating marsh to tidal surges, which have

washed away, and continue to wash away, the light organic soil

necessary for the marsh mats to cohere. The record suggests that

this erosion may occur slowly —— and vertically —— from the water

bottom up, causing the marsh mats to thin out and eventually

disappear. Now, argues the Board, where there was once healthy

marsh, there is open water.

The Board sued several entities that operated on its sections

sixteen, filing the instant action in state court in October 1999

against Columbia and Koch jointly, and seeking either the physical

restoration of Section 16 (18-13) or compensatory damages. The

Board’s petition contains explicit tort and contract claims, the

latter including an innominate property argument.3 The defendants

3
The sum of the petition’s property argument is this:
“Defendants had a duty to use only so much of the School Board
property as necessary to conduct operations,” and they “breached
their duty as reasonably prudent operators to cause the least
possible damage” to Board property, and, in their failure to
restore the property, they “unreasonabl[y] exercise[d their] rights

5
removed to the Eastern District of Louisiana and later moved for

summary judgment.

The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants.

It held, in contract, that the servitude agreements did not require

Columbia and Koch to continue to maintain the canals’ banks;

therefore any contractual claim had prescribed. In tort, the

district court reasoned that failure to maintain a canal is not

conduct that can support a claim under a continuing tort theory.

The district court also held that the Board’s “failure to hire an

expert or investigate the erosion at the time it became aware of

the damage does not prevent prescription from commencing.”

Apparently viewing the defendants’ liability as arising out of

discontinuous violations, the court held that prescription of the

Board’s delictual (tort) claims began to run when it learned of the

damage to various of its sections sixteen. As the Board “was aware

of the erosion of Section 16 in or before 1985,” the district court

reasoned, it cannot now maintain an action with respect to Section

16 (18-13). This timely appeal followed.

II.

ANALYSIS

Even though the district court approached this case as largely

implicating tort claims, it actually involves equal or greater

questions of contract and property rights. To review the district

without regard to those of plaintiff.”

6
court’s ruling, we must consider procedural and delictual issues,

but the Louisiana law that governs this case is chiefly the civil

law of servitudes —— a mixture of contract interpretation and

suppletive (gap-filling) rules of property law.

A. Standard of Review

The Board appeals from summary judgment, which the district

court characterized as turning on prescription. We review a grant

of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as the

district court.4 A motion for summary judgment is properly granted

only if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the

moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.5 An

issue is material if its resolution could affect the outcome of the

action.6 In deciding whether a fact issue has been created, the

inferences to be drawn from the evidence must be viewed in the

light most favorable to the nonmoving party.7

B. Procedure

Initially, we must address one challenge that the Board raises

to the procedural propriety of summary judgment in the district

4
Morris v. Covan World Wide Moving, Inc., 144 F.3d 377, 380
(5th Cir. 1998).
5
FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317,
322 (1986).
6
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
7
See United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655 (1962);
Olabisiomotosho v. City of Houston, 185 F.3d 521, 525 (5th Cir.
1999).

7
court. The Board urges that summary judgment for Columbia was

improper because it did not seek summary judgment on the basis of

prescription. Rather, notes the Board, the district court sua

sponte rendered summary judgment based on prescription of the

Board’s claims against Columbia; and, in so doing, the court failed

to give the Board ten days’ notice, which this Circuit requires.8

We review the failure to furnish such notice for harmless error.9

Columbia counters that error, if any, was harmless, stating

accurately that (1) Columbia pleaded prescription as an affirmative

defense; (2) Koch moved for summary judgment on the basis of

prescription; and (3) the Board filed a lengthy answer that

responded to Koch’s prescription argument. Furthermore, Columbia

did move for judgment on the pleadings, or in the alternative for

partial summary judgment, with respect to the tort claims, even

though this motion did not address prescription. In addition, the

district court granted summary judgment only five days before the

bench trial was scheduled to begin, and the Board has not

identified material evidence that it was unable to present to the

8
See Judwin Properties, Inc. v. United States Fire Ins. Co.,
973 F.2d 432, 436–37 (5th Cir. 1992) (noting that a district court
may grant summary judgment sua sponte, but that it must give the
nonmovant ten days’ notice; and finding error because even if
summary judgment is proper on the merits, the nonmovant is entitled
to an opportunity to defend against it).
9
Washington v. Resolution Trust Corp., 68 F.3d 935, 939–40
(5th Cir. 1995) (citing Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics
Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 28 F.3d 1388, 1398 (5th Cir.
1994)).

8
district court because of the lack of notice. Lastly, the legal

theories and facts that the Board marshals against each defendant

are quite similar. In light of the foregoing, we conclude that the

Board had ample opportunity to defend, so any procedural error in

entering summary judgment for Columbia without ten days’ advance

notice was indeed harmless. We therefore turn to the merits.

C. Substance

Substantive analysis of this case requires first that we touch

on the distinction between contract and delict (or tort) under

Louisiana law.10 To paraphrase Planiol, contractual fault consists

of violating a contractual obligation; delictual fault is an act

between juridical strangers that violates some duty imposed by law,

not by contract, and that requires reparation.11 The parties here

are juridical acquaintances. The Board, Columbia, and Koch’s

predecessor decided to burden one estate for the benefit of two

others. These decisions created conventional predial servitudes

that the parties memorialized in servitude agreements.12 The proper

place to begin analyzing this case is thus the servitude agreements

themselves. Then we shall turn to obligations supplied or imposed

10
See, e.g., Davis v. Le Blanc, 149 So. 2d 252, 254 (La. App.
3 Cir. 1963).
11
See State ex rel Guste v. Simoni, Heck & Associates, 331 So.
2d 478, 490 (La. 1976) (Summers, J., dissenting) (quoting 2 M.
PLANIOL, TREATISE ON THE CIVIL LAW, Nos. 873–74 at 485–86 (11th ed. La.
State. L. Inst. trans. 1939)).
12
See LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 646 (West 1980) (defining “predial
servitude”).

9
by the Civil Code.

1. Contract

When there is a contract, it is law between the parties and

must be performed in good faith and enforced according to its

terms.13 When, as here, the contract creates a conventional predial

servitude, the mode of use of the servitude is regulated by the

contract.14 If, however, the contract is silent on a non-essential

question, like the mode of use, Louisiana’s law of conventional

obligations in general and predial servitudes in particular

supplies the answer, filling in the blanks.15

The parties dispute two aspects of their contractual

relationship: (1) whether the Board released Koch and Columbia from

liability for marsh erosion; and (2) whether the contract imposes

any duties to maintain the canal or its banks —— stated

differently, any duties to protect the servient estate against

damage resulting from use of the servitude.

a. Release

Koch and Columbia contend that even if they (1) owed a duty,

under any of the Board’s theories, to prevent the canals from

widening and their banks from being breached, (2) violated that

13
See LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 1983 (West 1987).
14
See Ogden v. Bankston, 398 So. 2d 1037, 1040 (La. 1981).
15
See LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 697 (West 1980) (“The use and
extent of such servitudes are regulated by the title by which they
are created, and, in the absence of such regulation, by the
following rules.”).

10
duty, and (3) are liable on a cause of action that has not

prescribed, Koch and Columbia were released by the Board. When the

Board executed the servitude agreements, it also executed standard-

form releases. The release obtained from the Board by Koch’s

ancestor in title provided:

This will acknowledge receipt of the sum of Fourteen
Hundred Sixty-six & 40/100 ($1466.40) DOLLARS . . . paid
by UNITED GAS PIPE LINE COMPANY in full and complete
settlement and satisfaction in advance for all damages
caused to crops, timber, fences, lands or other
improvements owned or leased by the undersigned along and
in the vicinity of the [pipeline across Section 16
(18-13)], which said damages may be caused by reason of
the construction of said line or operations in connection
with the construction thereof.
[The Board] hereby acknowledges and declares that
the above mentioned payment is made in full consideration
of all damages which may be occasioned as above set forth
by either United Gas Pipe Line Company or Contractor
engaged in the building and construction of said pipe
line.

It is clear that this agreement, by its express terms, released

United Gas (and thus Koch) only from claims for damage resulting

from the pipeline’s construction. The damages bargained for are

those that “may be caused by reason of the construction” of the

pipeline “or operations in connection with” its construction, “by

either United Gas Pipe Line Company or Contractor engaged in the

building and construction.” Only the phrase “in advance” has any

potential for ambiguity in this regard, and even that is easily

explained. Use of this phrase merely acknowledged the simple fact

that the pipeline had yet to be built; it did not address the fact

that the damages released might actually result from a released

11
party’s act or omission decades after the pipeline’s construction.

In releasing Columbia, the Board acknowledged that it was paid

$7,879.80

in full payment and settlement for all damages of every
kind and character (contractual, negligence or otherwise)
caused to [the Board’s] interest(s) as owner(s) by the
construction, operation, [and] maintenance of a pipe line
and appurtenances across [Section 16 (18-13)], in the
place and manner such pipe line and appurtenances have
been constructed and laid, and we release and discharge
[Columbia] from all liability therefor.

At the time of this release, Columbia had already built its

pipeline across Section 16 (18-13), albeit as a trespasser.

Consequently, the release’s verbs are in the past tense: “caused”

and “in the manner such pipe line and appurtenances have been

constructed and laid” entail no futurity. Our interpretation ——

that this release did not, and was not intended to, cover damages

that might be caused by acts or omissions decades later —— is

confirmed by the servitude agreement itself, which states that

[i]t is hereby understood that the Grantee, its
successors and assigns, shall not be obligated to pay
Grantors or any subsequent owner . . . any damages
resulting from the construction of the first pipe line
authorized hereunder, such damages having been
anticipated and paid in advance at the time of execution
of this instrument.

Once again, the language focuses on damages resulting from

construction of, not from continued use of or failure to maintain,

the pipeline and canal.

Koch and Columbia nevertheless argue that to the extent the

Board’s causation theory is correct, the marsh erosion does result

12
(eventually) from “construction” of the pipeline. We disagree.

This remote causation proposition may sound reasonable in

hindsight, but nothing in the record supports the view that in

signing these agreements and releases, the parties had any

contemplation that erosion would occur. The agreements and

releases are at best ambiguous as to whether the parties

anticipated marsh erosion and intended to include marsh erosion

damages caused decades later in their bargain.16 One Louisiana

court, in construing a similar release from claims arising from

pipeline construction, held that the release applied only to claims

existing when the release was executed, because the release was a

standard form and was ambiguous with respect to the claims at

issue.17 We cannot read the ambiguous standard-form language here

as encompassing the erosion damages of which the Board complains.

b. Continuing Contractual Duty to Maintain

The parties also debate whether the servitude agreements

require Columbia and Koch to maintain the banks of the canals so as

to prevent widening and breach. Although the district court stated

that it granted the motion for summary judgment “only as to

prescription of the claims,” this characterization overlooks its

own explicit ruling that the servitude agreements did not impose a

16
Compare the explicit letter of agreement in Ryan v. Southern
Natural Gas Co., 879 F.2d 162 (5th Cir. 1989), which we discuss
below.
17
Vizinat v. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp., 552 So. 2d
1237, 1238–39 (La. App. 3 Cir. 1989).

13
continuing duty to maintain the canals. This ruling flowed in turn

from the court’s understanding of St. Martin v. Mobil,18 in which

we affirmed a trial court’s conclusion that such a duty existed.

In that case, the servitude agreement provided that

Grantor does hereby convey to [Grantee], its successors
and assigns, the right and servitude to dredge,
construct, maintain and use a canal having a width of 65
feet. . . . Grantee is also given the right to deposit
spoils within a distance of 150 feet on each side of the
banks of the canal, but shall do so in such manner as to
cause as little interference as possible to drainage.19

Despite the implication from this language that the canal was

meant to drain, we held that the agreement imposed a duty on

Grantee to maintain the banks of the canal so as to prevent further

marsh erosion.20 We also concluded, from the agreement’s statement

that the rights it created would exist until leases expired, that

the ten-year prescriptive period in contract did not apply, and

that the landowner’s right to enforce the canal owner’s duty to

maintain the canal lasted for the length of the servitude.21

In the instant case, the district court distinguished St.

Martin on the ground that here “[t]here is no language regarding

the continuing obligations of the defendants in either of the

contracts.” Therefore, reasoned the court, St. Martin v. Mobil did

18
St. Martin v. Mobil Exploration & Producing U.S. Inc., 224
F.3d 402 (5th Cir. 2000).
19
Id. at 414 (Barksdale, J., dissenting).
20
Id. at 408–10 (majority).
21
Id. at 409 n.9.

14
not apply, and the Board lacked a viable claim in contract. We

agree with this distinction only in part, disagreeing in part as

well.

One basis for this distinction, advanced on appeal by Koch and

Columbia, is that the agreement in St. Martin v. Mobil was a canal

servitude, unlike these agreements, which specify pipelines, not

canals. This argument is an oversimplification. Each agreement at

issue here grants a right of way and easement for a “pipe line and

appurtenances thereto.” The Koch Agreement specifically states

that this grant “includ[es]” the right to lay the pipeline in “open

ditches or canals.” The Columbia Agreement specifically states

that the “Grantee shall not be required to backfill the open

flotation ditch excavated during construction.” Both agreements

provide that the Board “will not change the grade over such pipe

line,” so that the right to change the grade along the pipeline

rests with Koch and Columbia, not the Board.

Both Koch and Columbia concede that they continue to use the

canals to inspect and maintain the pipelines. We harbor no doubt,

then, that if the Board were to try to fill in the canals, Koch and

Columbia would cry foul, and rightly so. We therefore view the

canals not merely as vestiges of the pipelines’ original

construction that have no relevance to the parties’ continuing

relationship, but rather as “appurtenances”22 to the pipelines and

22
Webster’s defines “appurtenance” as:
1: an incidental property right or privilege . . .

15
essentials to their use. The canals are part and parcel of these

conventional predial servitudes.

The more meaningful distinction between this case and St.

Martin v. Mobil is found in the answer to the question whether the

servitude agreements require that the canals be maintained. We

agree with the district court that the language in these agreements

is much less explicit and more ambiguous than the language in the

St. Martin v. Mobil agreement. As a matter of contract

interpretation alone, the mere grant of a right to maintain a canal

does not necessarily impose the duty to maintain it or to take

other steps to prevent the canals from widening and the surrounding

marsh mat from eroding. But neither do the agreements clearly

belonging to a principal right . . . 2: a subordinate
part, adjunct, or accessory . . . 3 appurtenances pl:
accessory objects used in any function: apparatus, gear.
WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 107 (1986). American Heritage
gives the following:
1. Something added to another, more important thing; an
appendage. . . . 2. appurtenances. Equipment, such as
clothing, tools, or instruments, used for a specific
purpose or task; gear. 3. Law. A right, privilege, or
property considered incident to the principal property
for passage of title, conveyance, or inheritance.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 91 (3d ed. 1992). The
O.E.D. is similar:
1. Law and gen. A thing that belongs to another, a
‘belonging’; a minor property, right, or privilege,
belonging to another more important, and passing in
possession with it; an appendage.
2. A thing which naturally and fitly forms a
subordinate part of, or belongs to, a whole system; a
contributory adjunct, an accessory.
3. esp. in pl. The mechanical accessories employed
in any function or complex scheme; apparatus, gear.
1 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 589–90 (2d ed. 1989).

16
contemplate that the canals will widen; nor do they either

explicitly or implicitly permit Koch and Columbia simply to stand

by and let this happen while continuing to use the canals in

connection with their use of the pipeline servitudes.

Indeed, on this point each agreement contains an internal

contradiction: Each specifically allows the grantee to keep the

canals open and bars the Board from regrading; but the Koch

Agreement gives the grantee the right to dig a canal “not to exceed

forty feet in width,” and the entire width of each servitude is

only one hundred feet. The parties variously contend that these

provisions resolve the marsh-erosion question one way or the other,

but in light of what the summary-judgment evidence tells us about

the delicate hydrology of floating marshes, we view these

provisions as being in internal conflict, to whatever extent they

bear on the question. This conflict suggests that the parties

either did not anticipate erosion damage in drafting and signing

the agreements or did not intend the explicit language of the

agreements to resolve the liability question one way or the other.

This case, therefore, does not at all resemble Ryan v.

Southern Natural Gas Co.,23 on which Columbia relies heavily. As

here, the landowner in Ryan sued the pipeline servitude owner for

damages caused by the erosion of marshland and the widening of a

23
Ryan v. Southern Natural Gas Co., 879 F.2d 162 (5th Cir.
1989).

17
pipeline canal.24 We held that language of the servitude agreement

governed the parties’ relationship, “reliev[ing the pipeline owner]

of any duty to dam the canal,” and therefore the landowner could

not recover either in tort or in contract, at least on the

servitude agreement itself.25 The best factual support for our Ryan

holding was not the servitude agreement’s provision (as in the Koch

Agreement here) that the pipeline canal could be left “open,”26 but

rather, as the district court noted, the pipeline owner’s signature

on and the landowner’s acceptance of a “letter agreement” that

bound the former to pay the latter $400 per acre of land encroached

on by the canal in the event that it widened.27 The intent of the

Ryan parties, as evidenced by this letter agreement, precluded

recovery by the Ryan plaintiffs on the servitude agreement,

irrespective of the underlying legal theory advanced. Ryan is

therefore clearly distinguishable from the instant case, as there

is no provision in either the Koch Agreement or the Columbia

Agreement —— or any side agreement —— that demonstrates how the

parties intended to treat claims of marsh erosion.

As we do not understand the pertinent kind of erosion to have

been within the parties’ contemplation for release purposes, it

24
Id. at 163.
25
Id. at 165.
26
Id. at 164.
27
Ryan v. Southern Natural Gas Co., 1987 WL 19044, *2 (E.D.
La.).

18
should come as no surprise that we do not interpret the servitude

agreements themselves as determining whether Koch and Columbia have

a continuing duty to prevent marsh-erosion damage. Therefore,

under Louisiana law, our task shifts from plain-wording contract

interpretation to application of the Louisiana Civil Code’s

suppletive rules for immovable property, which —— together with

relevant case law —— come into play when issues are not explicitly

disposed of in the writings of the parties.28

c. Louisiana’s Suppletive Law —— Conventional
Servitudes

Civil Code article 697 establishes that when the parties

creating a conventional servitude do not specify the use and extent

of that servitude, Louisiana’s suppletive rules of property law

apply.29 Because the district court did not apply any of them, we

shall address them only to the extent necessary to determine

whether the district court correctly granted Koch and Columbia

summary judgment on the basis of prescription.

One principle of servitude jurisprudence is that ambiguity in

a servitude agreement must be construed in favor of the servient

28
Given our uncertainty as to whether the Board had notice of
erosion in Section 16 (18-13), which we discuss below, we do not
accept, for summary-judgment purposes, Koch’s and Columbia’s
arguments that the Board acquiesced in a course of performance that
evinces the intention of the parties with respect to marsh erosion.
29
LA. CIV. CODE ANN art. 697.

19
estate30 —— here, the interests of the Board. As the Louisiana

Supreme Court has reasoned:

Predial servitudes are in derogation of public policy
because they form restraints on the free disposal and use
of property. Therefore, servitudes are not entitled to
be viewed with favor by the law and can never be
sustained by implication. Any doubt as to the existence,
extent or manner of exercise of a predial servitude must
be resolved in favor of the servient estate.31

This principle militates in favor of our interpretation of the

servitude agreements and suggests that they do not govern marsh-

erosion claims.

Another well-established rule of servitude law is that the

dominant estate owner —— here, each defendant —— must not

“aggravate” the condition of the servient estate.32 As Professor

30
LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 730 (West 1980) (“Doubt as to the
existence, extent, or manner of exercise of a predial servitude
shall be resolved in favor of the servient estate.”); McGuire v.
Central Louisiana Electric Co., 337 So. 2d 1070, 1072 (La. 1976).
31
Palomeque v. Prudhomme, 95-0725, 7 (La. 11/27/1995), 664 So.
2d 88, 93 (citations omitted).
32
See LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 743 (West 1980) (“Rights that are
necessary for the use of a servitude are acquired at the time the
servitude is established. They are to be exercised in a way least
inconvenient for the servient estate.”); LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 745
(West 1980) (“The owner of the dominant estate . . . may deposit
materials to be used for the works and the debris that may result,
under the obligation of causing the least possible damage.”); Duet
v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 169 F. Supp. 184, 186 (D. La.
1958):
It is settled in Louisiana . . . that one having an
easement or servitude on another’s land is bound to use
that easement or servitude in such manner as not
unreasonably to injure the right of the owner of the
servient estate, and that if the owner of the easement or
servitude uses it in a negligent, unauthorized, or
unreasonable manner, the owner of the servient estate may

20
A.N. Yiannopoulos has observed, the duty not to aggravate the

condition of the servient estate, “correlative of the real right of

servitude, is not grounded on negligence”; and, absent an express

contractual exoneration for marsh erosion damages, “to the extent

that the damage to the servient estate was caused by abuse of

right, the damage should be compensable.”33

Furthermore, the duty not to aggravate the servient estate is

a continuing duty. This is the lesson of Lewis v. Sohio Petroleum

Co.,34 in which the Louisiana Supreme Court evidently found merit

in a claim similar to the one advanced by the Board, tersely

reversing a summary judgment that the plaintiff’s causes of action

had prescribed.35 Lewis involved a canal servitude agreement that

provided that the canal “shall not be more than sixty-five feet

maintain an action for damages resulting from such use.
See also Stephens v. Int’l Paper Co., 542 So. 2d 35, 39 (La. App.
2 Cir. 1989); Board of Commissioners v. Ill. Cent. Gulf R.R. Co.,
379 So. 2d 838, 841 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1980); A.N. YIANNOPOULOS, 4
LOUISIANA CIVIL LAW TREATISE: PREDIAL SERVITUDES § 156 (West 1997) (“The
owner of the dominant estate may not make a use of the servitude
that aggravates the condition of the servient estate.”); id. § 152
(“The propositions that the owner of the dominant estate may only
use the servitude within the limits established by title or
possession and that he cannot make changes in the manner of use of
the servitude that aggravate the condition of the servient estate
are self-evident and do not require legislative affirmation.”).
33
YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL SERVITUDES, supra, § 156.
34
Lewis v. Sohio Petroleum Co., 532 So. 2d 754 (La. 1988).
35
Id.

21
wide.”36 In 1957, the canal exceeded its permissible width by

thirty feet.37 When the landowner sued, in 1985, the intermediate

appellate court affirmed summary judgment on the ground that the

plaintiff’s claims had prescribed.38 The Louisiana Supreme Court,

however, granted certiorari, reversed the summary judgment, and

remanded the case to the district court with instructions to refer

the exception of prescription to the merits.39 From this result,

we conclude that the life of the duty of a servitude owner not to

aggravate the condition of the servient estate by allowing a canal

to widen is coextensive with the life of the servitude. When such

a duty exists, it is continuous.

Whether and to what extent the defendants’ use of the canals

caused the deterioration of the Board’s property and aggravated the

servient estate are questions to be determined in the light of this

case’s particular circumstances.40 As the district court made no

factual findings on this point, even a de novo appellate review of

36
Lewis v. Sohio Petroleum Co., 528 So. 2d 1084, 1086 (La. App.
3 Cir. 1988).
37
Id. at 1087.
38
Id. at 1085, 1090.
39
Lewis, 532 So. 2d at 754 (La.).
40
YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL SERVITUDES, supra, § 156. See also Chevron
U.S.A., Inc. v. Common L.P., 1999 WL 1021831 (E.D. La.) (“[C]ourts
should take into account the situation of the estates, the
agreement of the parties, the needs of the dominant estate at the
time of the creation of the servitude, and the prejudice sustained
by the owner of the servient estate.”). This is a fact-intensive
inquiry best left to the district court or jury.

22
this issue would be improvident. It is enough for us to conclude

that it was improper for the district court to grant summary

judgment on the basis that, because the contracts did not expressly

impose a continuing duty, any contract claim had prescribed.

d. Damages Recoverable; Prescriptive Period

Even if the district court determines, on remand, that Koch

and Columbia are under a continuing duty not to aggravate the

servient estate, effectively rendering prescription irrelevant for

liability purposes, prescription may nevertheless matter when it

comes to damages.41 The prescriptive period governing a claim for

aggravation of a servient estate is not yet well established in

Louisiana.

When adjudicating a claim for which state law provides the

rule of decision, federal courts are bound to apply the law as

interpreted by the state's highest court; but if the state’s

highest court has not spoken on a particular issue, we must make an

“Erie guess” and determine as best we can what the highest court of

the state would be most likely to decide.42 The district court’s

task on remand will be to “attempt to predict state law, not to

41
See R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Hudson, 314 F.2d 776, 781
(5th Cir. 1963) (stating that where alleged offense was a
continuing tort, parties may recover for the damages sustained
within the applicable prescriptive period before suit was filed).
42
Barfield v. Madison County, Miss., 212 F.3d 269, 271–72 (5th
Cir. 2000).

23
create or modify it.”43 In making that attempt, a federal court

“may look to the decisions of intermediate state courts for

guidance.”44 Indeed, “a decision by an intermediate appellate state

court is a datum for ascertaining state law which is not to be

disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced by other

persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide

otherwise.”45

Only one intermediate appellate Louisiana court has ruled on

the length of the prescriptive period for a claim of aggravation to

the servient estate. In Stephens v. Int’l Paper Co.,46 the court

held that the duty not to aggravate the servient estate was a

“general duty rather than a specific contractual duty or obligation

assumed by the owner of the servitude,” making the action ex

delicto and thus prescriptable in one year, rather than ex

contractu and thus prescriptable in ten years.47 This distinction

—— between general legal duties and specific contractual ones —— is

43
United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Weben Industries, Inc., 794
F.2d 1005, 1008 (5th Cir. 1986).
44
Howe ex rel. Howe v. Scottsdale Ins. Co., 204 F.3d 624, 627
(5th Cir. 2000).
45
First Nat’l Bank of Durant v. Trans Terra Corp., 142 F.3d
802, 809 (5th Cir. 1998).
46
Stephens v. Int’l Paper Co., 542 So. 2d 35 (La. App. 2 Cir.
1989).
47
Stephens, 542 So. 2d at 39. This result has received some
criticism. See YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL SERVITUDES, supra, § 156
(discussing the prescription holding in Stephens) (“One may, of
course, be critical of this analysis.”).

24
foundational for the distinction in Louisiana between delictual and

contractual actions:

The classical distinction between “damages ex contractu”
and “damages ex delicto” is that the former flow from the
breach of a special obligation contractually assumed by
the obligor, whereas the latter flow from the violation
of a general duty owed to all persons.48

The Stephens court, however, may have misapplied this

fundamental principle, and the district court may be persuaded that

if the Louisiana Supreme Court were to consider this issue, it

would adopt the opposite rule. For even though the servitude

agreements here do not expressly impose on the grantees an

affirmative duty actively to prevent the canals from widening, the

duty to avoid aggravating a servient estate is not one that is owed

to all persons under the law, but is one that is owed only to the

servient estateholder by the grantee as a result of the

conventional (contractual) relationship of the parties. Here, the

parties are not neighbors, and the property interests involved here

are not two contiguous but separately owned estates that have

reciprocal obligations of vicinage. The fact that, as imposed

here, the duty to avoid aggravation is supplied by the Civil Code

and is also applicable to all servitudes may not mean that the

parties’ relationships and the duties they owe each other are

general. Rather, as we observed at the outset, this case arises

out of free choices to enter into conventional relationships.

48
Davis, 149 So. 2d at 254.

25
When faced with this issue, the Louisiana Supreme Court might

determine that ten years is the appropriate prescriptive period for

an action by the grantor of a servitude against the grantee for

aggravation of the servient estate. If it did so, that conclusion

would be bolstered by the fact that prescription of the servitude

itself for nonuse is a ten-year prescription49: A coextensive

prescription period for damage to the servient estate by the

neglect of the dominant estateholder would be logical. On remand,

the district court should address whether, for damages-calculation

purposes, the Board’s cause of action for aggravation of its

servient estate is governed by a prescriptive period of one year or

of ten years.

2. Delict (Tort)

The district court also granted summary judgment on the

determination that the Board’s delictual (tort) claims had

prescribed. Louisiana law permits a party to maintain actions in

tort as well as contract,50 and we have not resolved whether

aggravation of the servient estate occurred here. We must

therefore review this summary judgment under a tort analysis as

well as a contractual one.

49
LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 753 (West 1980).
50
Saul Litvinoff, Contract, Delict, Morals, and Law, 45 Loy.
L. Rev. 1, 28 (1999) (“Since an early time, Louisiana courts have
been aware that a particular wrongful act could be a breach of
contract and also a quasi-delict, and that such an act would prompt
the aggrieved party to seek a contractual remedy or a delictual
one.”).

26
Regarding tort, the parties differ as to (1) whether summary

judgment was proper in a case of prescription that turns on notice;

(2) whether general notice about erosion in some sections sixteen

started the running of prescription with respect to all such

sections owned by the Board; (3) whether the doctrine of contra non

valentem prevented the running of prescription from commencing; and

(4) whether there is any continuing tort.

a. Summary Judgment on Subjective Knowledge

The Board argues that summary judgment was improper on an

issue such as prescription that turns on subjective knowledge or

notice. Although federal courts often grant summary judgment

because a statute of limitations has expired, they

refuse to grant summary judgment for defendant if there
is an issue of fact as to when the limitations period
began, such as in products-liability actions in which the
statutory period begins to run when plaintiff knew or
should have known that the injury was caused by
defendant’s product.51

Endeavoring to establish such an issue, the Board points to the

opinion of its expert, Dr. Chabreck, that the causes of marshland

erosion vary and are specific to each individual plot of land.52

Therefore, the Board urges, knowledge or notice of erosion

51
10B CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER, & MARY KAY KANE, FEDERAL
PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2734 & nn.9, 21 (West 1998) (discussing
Reynolds, 314 F.3d at 776 (5th Cir.), at length).
52
Chabreck’s report states that “[J]ust because one piece of
property suffers from direct and indirect impacts due to one cause
or causes does not mean that another piece of land will suffer
direct and indirect impacts due to the same cause or causes.”

27
occurring generally in some of its sections sixteen cannot suffice

to give either actual or constructive notice of the Board’s causes

of action against these defendants for erosion to Section 16

(18-13). Koch responds that it has introduced objective,

documentary evidence that the Board knew of erosion generally in

its sections sixteen in the early 1980s. This issue therefore

reduces to whether, on summary judgment, general knowledge of the

existence of erosion problems in sections sixteen —— none of which

is closer than five miles to another —— or specific knowledge of

erosion in one or more other sections sixteen, is sufficient to

charge the Board with notice of erosion in Section 16 (18-13) in

particular. To answer this question, we must examine delictual

prescription in some detail.

b. Prescription and Contra Non Valentem

Generally, a claim in tort arising out of damage to immovable

property is subject to a one-year period of liberative prescription

which, under article 3493 of the Civil Code, begins to run “from

the day the owner of the immovable acquired, or should have

acquired, knowledge of the damage.”53 Nothing in this code article

restricts its application to third parties not in privity with the

landowner, yet the district court inexplicably failed to cite this

article. Rather, the court relied on the preceding article, 3492,

for delictual prescription in general, which begins to run “from

53
LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 3493 (West 1994).

28
the day injury or damage is sustained.”54 There is a palpable

difference between these standards. In cases of damage to land,

the running of prescription commences when the owner gains either

actual or constructive knowledge, not when the damage occurs, a

rule essentially congruent with the doctrine of contra non

valentem.55

“[P]rescription statutes are to be strictly construed against

prescription and in favor of the claim that is said to be

extinguished. Of the two possible constructions, the one that

maintains enforcement of the claim or action, rather than the one

that bars enforcement, should be adopted.”56 The defendant has the

initial burden of proving that a tort claim has prescribed, but if

the defendant shows that one year has passed between the tortious

acts and the filing of the lawsuit, then the burden shifts to the

plaintiff to prove an exception to prescription.57

One such exception is found in the doctrine of contra non

valentem, which prevents the commencement of the running of

54
LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 3492 (West 1994).
55
Short for contra non valentem agere nulla currit
praescriptio: literally, “no prescription runs against one unable
to act.” See Cartwright v. Chrysler Corp., 232 So. 2d 285, 287
(La. 1970).
56
Louisiana Health Serv. & Indem. Co. v. Tarver, 93-2449,11–12
(La. 4/11/94); 635 So. 2d 1090, 1098.
57
See Miley v. Consolidated Gravity Drainage Dist. No. 1, 98-
1321, 4 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/12/1994), 642 So. 2d 693, 696 (involving
land erosion claims); Dixon v. Houck, 466 So. 2d 57, 59 (La. App.
2 Cir. 1985).

29
prescription “when the plaintiff does not know nor [sic] reasonably

should know of the cause of action.”58 The doctrine applies even

if the plaintiff’s ignorance is not induced by the defendant.59

Furthermore, the cause of action is defendant-specific: under

contra non valentem, prescription does not necessarily begin to run

at the first indication that the plaintiff may have suffered harm,

but rather . . . ‘when plaintiff has reasonable basis to pursue [a]

claim against [a] specific defendant.’”60 Once again, however,

because contra non valentem is a judicial exception to the

statutory rule of prescription, “Louisiana courts strictly construe

this doctrine and only extend its benefits up to ‘the time that the

plaintiff has actual or constructive knowledge of the tortious

act.’”61

It is not apparent from the district court’s opinion that the

58
Picard v. Vermilion Parish Sch. Bd., 2000-1222, 4 (La. App.
3 Cir. 4/4/2001), 783 So. 2d 590, 594.
59
Landreneau v. Fruge, 598 So. 2d 658, 662 (La. App. 3 Cir.
1992).
60
Picard, 2000-1222 at 5, 783 So. 2d at 595 (citing Jordan v.
Employee Transfer Corp., 509 So. 2d 420, 424 (La. 1987), where the
court stated that “prescription did not begin to run until [the
plaintiff] had a reasonable basis to pursue a claim against a
specific defendant”).
61
Eldredge v. Martin Marietta Corp., 207 F.3d 737, 743 (5th
Cir. 2000) (citing Bergeron v. Pan Am. Assurance Co., 98-2421, 9
(La. App. 4 Cir. 4/7/1999), 731 So. 2d 1037, 1042); Picard, 2000-
1222 at 4, 783 So. 2d at 594; Harsh v. Calogero, 615 So. 2d 420,
422 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1993) (“Contra non valentem is an exceptional
remedy . . . which is in direct contradistinction to articles in
our Civil Code. Therefore, it must be strictly construed.”).

30
court adverted to this law, or considered contra non valentem or

the effect of the idiosyncrasies of the township and range system

on this case.62 Without acknowledging the law noted above or

conducting a reasonableness analysis, the district court

nevertheless found that the Board “was aware of the erosion of

Section 16 in or before 1985,” which, as we shall describe, was a

questionable result in summary-judgment proceedings, even if by

“Section 16” the court meant Section 16 (18-13). The court did not

indicate which kind of notice —— actual or constructive —— that it

found the Board to have had; rather, the court simply stated that

the Board knew about “Section 16 land erosion.”

i. Actual Notice

Even though the record is replete with evidence that the Board

knew that marsh erosion in its sections sixteen generally was a

serious problem,63 no evidence in the summary-judgment record

62
The court stated that “the plaintiff was aware of the erosion
of Section 16,” described evidence of “the school board’s knowledge
of Section 16 land erosion,” and mentioned “the act/omissions of
the defendants on §16/T18/R13.” It is not clear from these
passages that the Board owns many sections sixteen in this vast
coastal parish, none closer to another than five miles, and many
separated by multiples of that distance.
63
According to a newspaper report, a Board member opposed
further dredging in 1981 because “it would make an already bad
erosion problem worse,” but nothing in the article indicates that
the section sixteen at issue was Section 16 (18-13). Various Board
minutes from the 1980s show that the Board was aware of erosion of
section sixteen lands. In 1982, the Board even commissioned a
study of erosion in five of its sections sixteen, but of these the
closest to Section 16 (18-13) was apparently fifteen miles distant.
As Columbia noted at oral argument, the Louisiana legislature has
enacted legislative responses to the problem of marshland erosion.

31
suggests that the Board actually knew that Section 16 (18-13) in

particular had suffered or was suffering erosion. This case is

thus distinguishable from Eldredge v. Martin Marietta Corp.64, in

which we held that contra non valentem did not apply because the

landowner personally had observed the actual damage to his property

caused by barge traffic.65

The parties have not pointed us to, nor have we located, a

case standing for the proposition that actual knowledge of damage

to one or more remote, noncontiguous tracts of land brings with it

actual knowledge of the same kind of damage to yet another

noncontiguous tract —— even a similar one —— lying miles away. We

are satisfied that actual notice must result from overt knowledge

of damage to the specific property at issue, particularly when, as

here, the plaintiff landowner has long held title to many remote

and scattered sections sixteen, only one of which is Section 16

(18-13), but many of which are located in the extensive, marshy,

southern part of this coastal parish. This observation is

bolstered by the recognition that the use and possession of these

largely inaccessible sections are generally exercised not directly

by the landowner but by licensees, invitees, or lessees. With

In 1996, a lawyer who owned land adjacent to another of the Board’s
sections sixteen made a presentation to the Board about widening of
pipeline canals.
64
Eldredge v. Martin Marietta Corp., 207 F.3d 737 (5th Cir.
2000).
65
Id. at 743.

32
respect to actual notice, then, there was at least a genuine issue

of material fact sufficient to preclude summary judgment in favor

of Koch and Columbia grounded in prescription.

ii. Constructive Notice

The question of constructive notice is more complex.

Generally, knowledge is imputed only when the plaintiff has

“information sufficient to excite attention and to prompt further

inquiry.”66 This sufficiency standard asks what is it that would

excite the attention of or prompt action by a reasonable person.

Thus, “[t]he heart of the inquiry into constructive knowledge is

the reasonableness of plaintiff’s inaction.”67

Extension by analogy is needed to make that analysis here,

because the parties have not directed us to, nor have we found, any

contra non valentem case that is directly comparable to the instant

action. Applicable Louisiana jurisprudence suggests,

unsurprisingly, that reasonableness of inaction depends almost

entirely on the particular circumstances, requiring a case-by-case

analysis.68

66
Picard, 2000-1222 at 5, 783 So. 2d at 595.
67
Id. (emphasis of “inaction” added; emphasis of
“reasonableness” original).
68
For example, the seizure of a semisubmersible drilling rig
(evidenced by a posting thereon) was deemed sufficient to excite a
reasonable person’s attention and prompt inquiry into whether a
lawyer had committed malpractice by failing to file a preferred
ship’s mortgage for the rig. Carroll v. Wolfe, 98-1910, 6 (La.
App. 1 Cir. 9/24/1999), 754 So. 2d 1038, 1041 (holding that
observing U.S. Marshals’ signs on the rig gave plaintiffs notice).

33
When the alleged fault is not obvious, delay may not be

unreasonable. If, for example, a homeowner learned from an

engineer’s report that cracks in walls resulted from a contractor’s

failure to comply with city code provisions, only then did

prescription begin to run on the homeowner’s claim against the

city, not months earlier when a mason had generally advised the

homeowner that the cracks could indicate a structural problem.69

In medical tort and redhibition cases, Louisiana courts have

explicitly disowned an inquiry-notice rule in favor of the

reasonableness standard; constructive notice is thus acquired only

after the plaintiff learns of not only the tortious act and the

damage, but also “the causal relationship between the tortious act

and the damage.”70 Consequently, “[m]ere apprehension that

something might be wrong does not make delay in filing an action

unreasonable, nor does knowledge that one has a disease.”71 In a

Similarly, when the owner of a tractor knew immediately after
retrieving it from a repair shop that it was still malfunctioning,
the owner could not sue the repairer more than one year later: the
owner’s delay was not reasonable, amounting instead to willful
neglect, which in turn rendered contra non valentem unavailable.
K & M Enters. v. Richland Equip. Co., 96-2292 6–9 (La. App. 1 Cir.
9/19/1997), 700 So. 2d 921, 924–25.
69
Rihner v. Chevalier, 98-1032, 4–5 (La. App. 5 Cir.
3/30/1999), 731 So. 2d 429, 431–32.
70
Beth Israel v. Bartley, Inc., 579 So. 2d 1066, 1072 (La. App.
4 Cir. 1991).
71
Ducre v. Mine Safety Appliances, 963 F.2d 757, 760 (5th Cir.
1992) (citations and quotation marks omitted) (citing Griffin v.
Kinberger, 507 So. 2d 821, 823 (La. 1987) and Knaps v. B & B Chem.
Co., 828 F.2d 1138, 1139 (5th Cir. 1987)); see also Beth Israel,

34
medical case, for example, even the plaintiff’s awareness that he

“had sand in his lungs” and “had evidence of silicosis” did not

suffice to start the running of prescription when doctors told the

plaintiff that his medical condition had not yet deteriorated.72

And, in a redhibition case, a synagogue that had knowledge that its

roof was leaking need not have sued a contractor, architect, and

roofing manufacturer before learning that the leaking had been

caused by a faulty roofing system and not merely by inadequate

maintenance.73 Neither did the buyers of a house have constructive

knowledge of the causation element in their cause of action until

an engineer told them that an elevation differential might be the

cause of structural damage.74

Read together, these cases establish the proposition that when

damage is evident but causation is reasonably mysterious, Louisiana

courts sometime pretermit the running of prescription. It also

appears that an investigation into causation need not be made, and

constructive notice need not be imputed, until damage becomes

579 So. 2d at 1072.
72
Ducre, 963 F.2d at 760–62. We refused to charge the Ducre
plaintiff with knowledge of his cause of action before he learned
that his silicosis could have been caused by sand-blasting. Until
he did so learn, the question of his knowledge was one for the
jury. Id. at 761–62.
73
Beth Israel, 579 So. 2d at 1072–77.
74
Encalade v. Coast Quality Construction Corp., 2000-925 (La.
App. 5 Cir. 10/31/2000), 772 So. 2d 244, 247.

35
apparent.75 Because Columbia and Koch did not establish, on summary

judgment, that the Board had actual knowledge, it was thus legal

error for the district court to hold that the Board’s “failure to

hire an expert or investigate the erosion at the time it became

aware of the damage does not prevent prescription from commencing.”

In summary, viewing the summary-judgment evidence in the light

most favorable to the Board as non-movant, the district court

lacked any evidence of actual notice and failed to apply the

appropriate legal standard of reasonableness to the question of

constructive notice. The district court may also have missed the

importance of the township-and-range system, and the nature and

separation of the Board’s properties, in determining whether there

was a genuine issue of material fact. Summary judgment on the

basis that contra non valentem did not prevent prescription of the

Board’s claims was therefore error.

c. Continuing Tort

75
See South Cent. Bell Tel. Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 418 So. 2d
531, 532 (La. 1982) (“Generally, the prescriptive period for damage
to adjacent land commences when the damage becomes apparent and the
injured party discovers who or what caused it.”); Dean v. Hercules,
Inc., 328 So. 2d 69, 73 (La. 1976) (“[D]amages from industrial
emissions and the like may not become apparent until some years
after the occurrence. Additionally, it might be impossible for the
injured party to know what or who caused the damage, until an
investigation can be made after the damage in fact becomes
apparent. In such cases, the prescriptive period would run only
from the date the damage becomes apparent.”); YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL
SERVITUDES, supra, § 63 (discussing obligations of vicinage) (“In
accordance with Article 3493 of the Civil Code, prescription begins
to run from the day the injured party acquired, or should have
acquired, knowledge of the injury and other pertinent facts,
namely, from the day the damage becomes apparent.”).

36
The parties also disagree whether this case involves a

continuing tort. A continuing tort presents another exception to

Louisiana’s one-year prescriptive period for delicts, because “when

the tortious conduct and resulting damages continue, prescription

does not begin until the conduct causing the damage is abated.”76

As the Louisiana Supreme Court has stated, “the continuous nature

of the alleged conduct has the dual effect of rendering such

conduct tortious and of delaying the commencement of

prescription.”77 For a continuing tort to exist, however, there

must generally be continuing wrongful conduct, coupled with

continuing damage.78 Both continuing damage and continuing conduct

are at issue here.

The district court made no ruling with respect to continuing

damage: It discussed the distinction between continuous and

discontinuous damages, but it did not identify which, in its

opinion, was occurring here. On appeal, Koch and Columbia assert

that the Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision in Crump v. Sabine

76
South Cent. Bell, 418 So. 2d at 533 (“Where the cause of the
injury is a continuous one giving rise to successive damages,
prescription dates from cessation of the wrongful conduct causing
the damage.”); Estate of Patout v. City of New Iberia, 97-1097, 9
(La. App. 3 Cir. 3/6/1998), 708 So. 2d 526, 531 (citing South Cent.
Bell).
77
Bustamento v. Tucker, 607 So. 2d 532, 539 (La. 1992).
78
South Cent. Bell, 418 So. 2d at 533.

37
River Authority79 establishes that marsh erosion is discontinuous

damage. We disagree; in fact our precedent holds otherwise. In

Crump, the plaintiff alleged that excavation of a canal permanently

drained water from her property, depriving her of marine access to

a nearby lake.80 We have distinguished such water diversion,

however, from marsh erosion:

In [Crump], the continuing presence of a canal was not
sufficient to preclude prescription. However, the damage
alleged in this case is not the mere presence of the
canals or a static condition related to their existence
(e.g. diversion of water as part of their normal course
of operation), but an ongoing and cumulatively increasing
deterioration of plaintiffs’ property adjoining the
canals due to defendants’ continuing conduct in their
failure to maintain the canal banks.81

Crump itself distinguishes between continuous and discontinuous

damage as follows:

[A] distinction is made between continuous and
discontinuous causes of injury and resulting damage.
When the operating cause of the injury is ‘not a
continuous one of daily occurrence’, there is a
multiplicity of causes of action and of corresponding
prescriptive periods. Prescription is completed as to
each injury, and the action is barred upon the lapse of
one year from the date in which the plaintiff acquired,
or should have acquired, knowledge of the damage....
[This is to be distinguished from the situation where]
the ‘operating cause of the injury is a continuous one,

79
Crump v. Sabine River Auth., 98-2326 (La. 6/29/1999), 737 So.
2d 720.
80
Crump, 98-2326 at 1–3, 6–7 (La. 6/29/99); 737 So. 2d at 723,
726.
81
St. Martin v. Mobil, 224 F.3d at 409 n.8.

38
giving rise to successive damages from day to day....’82

In the latter case, the treatise quoted in Crump suggests, “it may

be that prescription does not begin to run from the date the injury

was first inflicted, but it ought to run at least from the date the

damage was completed and the injured party acquired knowledge of

it.”83 Here, erosion of the Board’s marsh allegedly continues even

unto this day. The damage is not yet “completed,” but rather

continues, albeit slowly and imperceptibly.

With respect to the continuing conduct prong of the continuing

tort doctrine, the district court held that “[f]ailure to maintain

a canal and its levees is not ‘conduct’ of the type necessary to

support a claim under the continuing tort theory,” citing St.

Martin v. Quintana Petroleum Corp.84 in support of this proposition.

We recently affirmed St. Martin v. Quintana in an unpublished, and

therefore nonprecedential,85 decision in which we said that Ryan

controlled.86 As we have stated above, however, Ryan is

82
Crump, 98-2326 at 7 (La. 6/29/99); 737 So. 2d at 726 (citing
YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL SERVITUDES, supra, § 63); see also Estate of Patout
v. City of New Iberia, 2001-0151, 4 (La. App. 3 Cir. 4/3/02), 2002
WL 535037, *4 (citing same).

83
YIANNOPOULOS, PREDIAL SERVITUDES, supra, § 63 (internal quotations
and footnotes omitted).
84
2001 WL 175226 (E.D. La).
85
See 5TH CIR. RULE 47.5.
86
St. Martin v. Quintana Petroleum Corp., No. 01-30315 (5th
Cir. Feb. 20, 2002).

39
distinguishable from the instant case, as here there are no side

agreements supplementing the servitude agreements at issue and

specifically providing for the contingency of marsh erosion.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has summarized the continuing tort

exception by explaining that a continuing tort “is occasioned by

continual unlawful acts and for there to be a continuing tort there

must be a continuing duty owed to the plaintiff and a continuing

breach of that duty by the defendant.”87 This formulation does not

exclude the possibility that “unlawful acts” may include omissions

that breach a duty. To the extent that aggravation of the servient

estate might be found to have occurred as a result of such

omissions or failures to act, a reasonable factfinder could

determine that Koch and Columbia, by using the canals but failing

to protect them against resulting breaches and widening, violated

a duty and thus “acted” unlawfully. Indeed, summary-judgment

evidence suggests that the defendants might be continuing to do so.

If so, such conduct could be wrongful for the purposes of a

continuing-tort analysis. These are additional genuine issues of

material fact that preclude summary judgment grounded in tort

prescription.

D. Poiencot Deposition

Lastly, as a collateral matter, the Board has moved to strike

Columbia’s appellate record excerpt number five and any references

87
Crump, 98-2326 at 10 (La. 6/29/99), 737 So. 2d at 728.

40
to it in Columbia’s brief. This excerpt is the deposition of

Malcolm Poiencot, which is in the record. The Board argues that

the deposition (1) was not considered on summary judgment by the

trial court because the Board’s motion in limine to exclude the

deposition was pending; (2) was given by a witness who would not

qualify as an expert; (3) is not newly discovered and previously

unknown evidence, as it was taken three weeks before the district

court rendered summary judgment; and (4) is untimely, because it

was not made part of the record within ten days of the summary

judgment motion, as required by Rule 56(c). Poiencot’s deposition

testimony, which focuses on the nutria,88 goes mostly to

proportional causation, which (as we understand contra non

valentem) is not an issue in this appeal of the trial court’s

summary judgment on prescription grounds. As the subject

deposition is therefore irrelevant to our disposition of this

appeal,89 we deny the motion as moot.

88
For anyone who might not be familiar with this exotic emigré
from South America that now is a ubiquitous resident of the marshes
of South Louisiana, nutria are large aquatic rodents that feast on
marsh grasses and roots.
89
The defendants assert that Poiencot’s statements that he
warned the Board that nutria were eating the marsh in Section 16
(18-13) are further evidence supporting the conclusion that the
Board had notice of marsh deterioration in the 1980s. Nutria
damage, however, is different from hydrological erosion, and
knowledge of the former does not give constructive notice of a
cause of action based on the latter. In fact, notice of nutria
damage may make the failure to investigate into possible
hydrological erosion more reasonable, not less. See our foregoing
discussion of Louisiana contra non valentem cases.

41
III.

CONCLUSION

We agree with the district court that the servitude agreements

here at issue do not expressly impose on Columbia and Koch the duty

to prevent the canals from widening and eroding adjoining

marshland. Whether, in the absence of an express contractual duty,

the suppletive law of Louisiana might here impose such a duty

remains to be resolved, as does the question whether such a duty

might in turn render the failure to maintain canal banks a

continuing tort. Because this case presents several genuine issues

of material fact —— not the least of which implicate actual or

constructive knowledge of damage and its causation —— with respect

to prescription as well as duty, in tort and in contract, summary

judgment was not providently granted. We remand this action for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED and REMANDED; MOTION DENIED.

42

Terrebonne Parish School Board v. Columbia Gulf Transmission Co.

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