Chapter VI: Of Possessory Actions or Remedies

One who is fortified by a legitimate title for obtaining possession of some thing, or for obtaining the exercise of some right, can petition that he be placed into possession of the thing or into the exercise of the right.

Not only possession, but also simple detention, furnishes, according to the norm of the canons which follow, a possessory action or exception.

§ 1. One who has remained for a full year in possession of a thing or in quasi-possession of a right, if he suffers disturbance preventing him from retaining his possession or quasi-possession, has an action for retaining possession.

§ 2. This action is not admitted except within a year from the disturbance inflicted, against the author of the disturbance, so that he may desist from the disturbances.

§ 1. Even one who possesses by force, secretly, or by sufferance can use an action for retaining possession against any disturber whatever, but not against the person from whom he himself seized the thing by force or secretly, or received it by sufferance.

§ 2. In causes which regard the public good, the promoter of justice has the right of opposing the defect of possession against one who possesses by force, secretly, or by sufferance.

§ 1. If a controversy arises between two persons as to which of them possesses, he is to be preferred in possession who within the year exercised more frequent and stronger acts of possession.

§ 2. In doubt, the judge is to attribute possession pro indiviso to each party.

§ 3. If the nature of the thing or right, or the danger of contentions and quarrels, does not permit possession meanwhile to be attributed pro indiviso to the litigants, the judge is to order the thing to be deposited with a sequester, or the quasi-possession of the right to be suspended, until the outcome of the petitory judgment.

§ 1. One who has been cast out by force or secretly in any way from possession of a thing or quasi-possession of a right has, against any author of spoliation or detainer of the thing, an action for recovering possession or concerning spoliation, and an exception of spoliation.

§ 2. This action is not admitted after a year has passed from when the one suffering spoliation had notice of the thing; the exception, on the contrary, is perpetual.

§ 1. One despoiled, excepting against the spoiler and proving the spoliation, is not bound to respond unless he has first been restored into his possession.

§ 2. In order that the despoiled one be restored into possession, he must prove nothing else except the spoliation itself.

§ 3. But if in the restitution of the thing or of the exercise of the right some danger occurs, for example of cruelties, when a husband seeks the restoration of conjugal companionship against his wife, the judge, at the instance of a party or of the promoter of justice, according to the diverse circumstances of persons and causes, is to decree either that the restitution be suspended, or that the thing or person be guarded with a sequester, until the cause is defined by a petitory judgment.

Possessory judgments are to be completed with only the adverse party cited in judgments of retaining or recovering possession; but with all those whose interest it is cited in judgments of acquiring possession.