Title XV: Of Judged Matter and of Restitution in Integrum

A judged matter is had:

1° By a double conforming sentence.

2° By a sentence not appealed within the useful time; or one which, although appealed before the judge from whom appeal is taken, was deserted before the judge to whom appeal is made.

3° By a single definitive sentence from which appeal is not given according to the norm of can. 1880.

Causes concerning the status of persons never pass into a judged matter; but from a double conforming sentence in these causes it follows that a further proposition must not be admitted unless new and likewise grave arguments or documents have been brought forth.

§ 1. A judged matter is held true and just by a presumption of law and by law, and cannot be impugned directly.

§ 2. It makes law between the parties and gives an exception for impeding the new introduction of the same cause.

§ 1. Against a sentence against which the ordinary remedy of appeal or complaint of nullity is not available, there is given the extraordinary remedy of restitution in integrum within the limits of can. 1687, 1688, provided that the evident injustice of the judged matter is manifestly established.

§ 2. But injustice is not considered manifestly established unless:

1° The sentence rests on documents which afterward were detected to be false.

2° Documents afterward were discovered which peremptorily prove new facts requiring a contrary decision.

3° The sentence was brought forth from the fraud of a party to the damage of the other.

4° A prescription of law was evidently neglected.

For granting restitution in integrum, the competent judge is the judge who rendered the sentence, unless it is petitioned because of a prescription of law neglected by the judge; in that case the tribunal of appeal grants it.

§ 1. A petition for restitution in integrum suspends the execution of a sentence not yet begun.

§ 2. If, however, there is a suspicion from probable indications that the petition was made to weave delays for execution, the judge can decree that the sentence be committed to execution, yet with a suitable caution assigned to the one petitioning restitution so that, if he is restored in integrum, he may be made indemnified.