LSU Law: Digest of 1808

TITLE VIII – OF LETTING AND HIRING

CHAPTER I – OF THE SEVERAL SPECIES OF CONTRACTS FOR LETTING AND HIRING

Art. 1. There are two species of contract respecting the letting out of things, to wit: 1^st. The letting out of things; 2^d. The letting out of labour or industry.

Art. 2. The let a thing out is a contract by which one of the parties binds himself to grant to the other the enjoyment of a thing during a certain time for a certain stipulated rent or hire to be paid to him.

Art. [3]4. To let out labour or industry is a contract by which one of the parties binds himself to do something for the other in consideration of a certain price agreed on by them both.

Art. 4. The letting out of things may be thus distinguished,
1^st. Letting out houses, and moveables:
2^d. Letting out praedial or country estates.

Art. 5. There are likewise several modes by which labor or personal services may be let out as will appear in another chapter.

Art. 6. In letting out things the person who lets out the thing to another is called the proprietor or lesser, and the person who takes a thing or a lease is called the lessee.
In letting out houses the person who takes the house on a lease is called the tenant, and in letting out praedial estate the lessee is usually called the farmer.

CHAPTER II – OF THE CONTRACT FOR LETTING OUT THINGS

SECTION I – OF THE FORM AND DURATION OF LEASES

Art. 7. All things are susceptible of being let out, moveable as well as immoveable things, excepting those which cannot be used without being destroyed by that very use.

Art. 8. Leases may be made either by written or verbal contract. The manner of proving the validity of such contract is agreeably to the rules provided in the title of contracts and conventional obligations in general.

Art. 9. The lessee has a right to make a sublease and also to transfer his lease to another person, unless the contract stipulates that he shall not have the said right. It may be stipulated by contract that the lessee shall not let out any part of the thing, or that he shall only let a part of it. These conditions must always be strictly enforced.

Art. 10. The duration and the conditions of leases are generally regulated by contract or by mutual consent.

Art. 11. If in letting out a room or a house no time has been stipulated, the duration of said lease shall be at the will of either of the parties.
But it shall be the duty of the party who wishes to cancel the lease, to give notice of the same to the other party. That notice must be given a month before hand when the rent is payable quarterly and fifteen days only when the rent is payable by the month.

Art. 12. The lease of a praedial estate, when the time has not been specified, is presumed to be for one year, as that time is necessary in this territory to enable the farmer to make his crop and to gather in all the produce of the inheritance which he has rented.

Art. 13. A lease ceases ipso facto at the expiration of the time limited for its duration whether it be for a house or for a praedial estate.

Art. 14. If after the lease of a praedial estate has expired, the farmer should still continue to possess the same, without any step having been taken either by the lessor or by the new lessee to cause him to deliver up the possession of said estate, the former lease shall continue subject to the same clauses and conditions which it contained, but it shall continue only for the year following that of the expiration of the said lease.

Art. 15. If the tenant either of a house or of a room, should continue in possession after his lease has expired without any opposition being made thereto by the lessor, the lease shall be presumed to have been continued, and he cannot be compelled to deliver up said house or room, without having received the legal notice or warning directed by the 11^th article of the present chapter.

Art. 16. In the cases provided for in the two preceding articles, the security given for the payment of the rent, shall not extend to the obligations resulting from the lease being thus prolonged.

SECTION II – OF THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE LESSOR

Art. 17. The lessor is bound from the very nature of the contract and without any clause to that effect; 1^st, to deliver the thing leased to the lessee; 2^d, to maintain the thing in a condition such as to serve the use for which it was hired; 3^d, to cause the lessee to be in peaceable possession of the thing during the continuance of the lease.

Art. 18. The lessor is bound to deliver the thing in good condition and free from any repairs. He ought to make during the continuance of the lease, all the repairs which may accidentally become necessary, except those which the tenant is bound to make, as hereafter directed.

Art. 19. He guarantees the lessee against all the vices and defects of the thing which may prevent its being used, even in case it should appear that he knew nothing of the existence of said vices and defects at the time the lease was made; and if any loss should result to the lessee from said defect, the lessor shall be bound to indemnify him for the same.

Art. 20. If by any accident, the thing leased should be either totally or partly destroyed, the lessee may, according to the nature of the case, either claim a diminution of the rent or the cancelling of the lease, but he cannot claim to be indemnified.

Art. 21. The lessor has not the right to make any alteration in the thing, during the continuance of the lease.

Art. 22. If, during the continuance of the lease, the thing leased should be in want of repairs and if those repairs cannot be postponed until the expiration of the lease, the tenant must suffer such repairs to be made, whatever be the inconveniency he undergoes thereby, and though he be deprived either totally or in part of the use of the thing leased to him, during the making of said repairs.
But in case such repairs should continue for a longer time than one month, the price of the rent shall be lessened in proportion to the time during which said repairs have continued, and to the parts of the tenement of the use of which the lessee has thereby been deprived.
And the whole of the rent shall be remitted if the repairs have been of such nature as to oblige the tenant to leave the house or the room and to take another house while that which he had leased was repairing.

Art. 23. If in the lessee of a praedial estate, the premises have been stated to be of greater extent than they in reality are, the lessee may claim an abatement of the rent in the cases and subject to the provisions prescribed in the title of sale.

Art. 24. The lessor is not bound to guarantee to the lessee the possession of the thing against a third person who disturbs him in his possession, without claiming any right to the premises, but in that case the lessee has a right of action for damages sustained against the person occasioning such disturbance.

Art. 25. If the person by whom those acts of disturbance have been committed, pretends to have a right to the thing leased, or if the lessee is cited to appear before a court of justice to answer to the complaints of the persons thus claiming the whole or a part of the thing leased, or claiming some species of services on the same, he shall call the lessor in warranty and shall be dismissed, if he wishes it, by naming the person under whose right he possesses.

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