## Facts

- A common owner held two contiguous New Orleans lots (Lot A and Lot B).
- The owner sold Lot A; the conveyance (and an immediate subsequent conveyance to Morris Burgas) granted Lot A a right of passage over a driveway located on Lot B, for the benefit of the purchasers of Lot A and their “successors and assigns.”
- The right-of-passage clause was recorded in the public conveyance records.
- Burgas acquired Lot A and used the driveway across Lot B for access.
- Lot B was later sold through a chain of title to Henry Stoutz after the recordation of the deeds granting the driveway right.
- Stoutz announced an intent to fence Lot B in a manner that would block the driveway.
- Burgas sued to enjoin obstruction, claiming an enforceable servitude of passage over Lot B.

## Issues

1. Whether the deed clauses granting driveway access over Lot B created a real (predial) servitude benefiting Lot A rather than a merely personal right.
2. Whether a subsequent purchaser of the servient estate (Lot B) is bound by the recorded servitude, regardless of actual knowledge.
3. Whether the recorded description of the right of passage and identification of the affected estates was sufficient to give notice and permit enforcement.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the judgment recognizing Burgas’s right of passage and enjoining Stoutz from interfering.
- The Court held the driveway right was a predial servitude because it assured a real advantage to Lot A (ingress and egress).
- The Court held recordation prior to Stoutz’s purchase charged him with constructive notice and bound him to take Lot B subject to the servitude.
- The Court rejected objections that the servitude was unenforceable due to inadequate description or notice where the recorded instrument identified the dominant and servient estates and specified the driveway passage.

## Legal Principles

- A right granted that assures a real advantage to an estate is presumed to be a real (predial) servitude, even if not expressly labeled as such.
- Deed language extending a right to a purchaser’s “successors and assigns” supports construing the right as attached to the estate and running with the land.
- Under Louisiana registry rules, a properly recorded instrument affecting immovables provides constructive notice to subsequent purchasers from the time it is deposited in the public records.
- A subsequent purchaser of the servient estate takes subject to a recorded predial servitude, irrespective of actual knowledge.
- Injunctive relief is an appropriate remedy to prevent obstruction of an established servitude of passage.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a recorded driveway right as a predial servitude benefiting the dominant lot and enforced it by injunction against a later purchaser of the servient lot, who was bound by constructive notice arising from recordation.


Burgas v. Stoutz, 174 La. 586, 141 So. 67 (La. 1932)