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Ask a Lawyer -- Power of Attorney
Power of Atorney Question 27
Question: Does Louisiana have a durable power of attorney law?
Response: All states except Louisiana derive their laws from the British common law system. Louisiana, on the other hand, built its legal system upon the Napoleonic code from France.
The only statute I could locate specifically referencing a "power of attorney" in the Louisiana Code was Civil Code (Title 9) Section 3887 entitled, "Acceptance of military power of attorney". It states:
No state bank, trust company, national bank, savings bank, federal mutual savings bank, savings and loan association, federal savings and loan association, federal mutual savings and loan association, credit union or federal credit union or branch of a foreign banking corporation, or any other supervised financial organization or licensed lender as provided in R.S. 9:3516, each of the foregoing referred to in this Section as "banking institution", located in this state shall refuse to honor a military power of attorney properly executed in accordance with R.S. 9:3862 or a
military power of attorney as defined in 10 U.S.C. 1044b. Link.
Thus, you're covered in Louisana if an active member of the military, but what about the rest of us? Louisiana Civil Code (Title 9) Section 2989 allows for a contractual relationship resembling a power of attorney that the statute calls a "mandate": "A mandate is a contract by which a person, the principal, confers authority on another person, the mandatary, to transact one or more affairs for the principal." As to the form of this contract, Section 2993 provides: "The contract of mandate is not required to be in any particular form. Nevertheless, when the law prescribes a certain form for an act, a mandate authorizing the act must be in that form." The significance of this provision is that if, for instance, real estate deeds in Louisiana were required by law to be notarized, then a mandate authorized an agent to execute a real estate deed for the principle would also have to be notarized. As to whether the Louisiana mandatory contract is durable (i.e., survives the incapacitation of the principle) Section 3026 states: "In the absence of contrary agreement, neither the contract nor the authority of the mandatary is terminated by the principal's incapacity, disability, or other condition that makes an express revocation of the mandate impossible or impractical."
Bottom line: yes, I think Louisiana has a durable power of attorney statute; however, it's provisions use different nomenclature from other states.
Response: 4-22-2006; JJR
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