## Facts

- Eagle Pipe & Supply, Inc. bought immovable property in Orleans Parish in the 1980s from individual sellers (former owners).
- The property allegedly had been used as a pipe yard where oil-field pipes were stored and cleaned during the former owners’ possession.
- Eagle Pipe alleged that various oil companies’ pipes deposited radioactive scale, contaminating the soil with naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) before Eagle Pipe’s purchase.
- Eagle Pipe alleged it discovered the contamination only after an environmental investigation roughly twenty years after the purchase.
- Eagle Pipe sued the former owners (including sale/redhibition theories) and sued the oil-company defendants in tort and related theories (including negligence, strict liability, fraud, and conspiracy) for the contamination.
- The oil-company defendants filed an exception of no right of action, asserting Eagle Pipe could not sue them for damage to the property that occurred before it acquired ownership absent an assignment or subrogation of the prior owners’ rights.

## Issues

1. Whether a subsequent purchaser of immovable property has a right of action against third-party tortfeasors for non-apparent property damage inflicted before the sale, absent an express assignment or subrogation from the former owner.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court held that a subsequent purchaser does not have a right of action against third-party tortfeasors for pre-purchase, non-apparent damage to immovable property without an explicit assignment or subrogation of the prior owner’s claim.
- The court reversed the court of appeal’s rehearing decision that had recognized Eagle Pipe’s right of action.
- The court reinstated the trial court’s judgment sustaining the exception of no right of action in favor of the oil-company defendants.
- Eagle Pipe’s tort-style damage claims against the oil-company defendants for pre-purchase contamination were dismissed for lack of a right of action.

## Legal Principles

- Louisiana law distinguishes real rights in a thing (which transfer with ownership) from personal rights against persons (which do not transfer unless assigned or subrogated).
- A claim to recover damages for injury to property is a personal right that vests in the owner at the time the damage occurs.
- A subsequent purchaser acquires the immovable in its existing condition and does not automatically acquire the prior owner’s personal right to sue third parties for earlier damage.
- Absent express assignment or subrogation, a subsequent purchaser cannot recover from third parties for property damage inflicted before the purchaser acquired ownership.
- A subsequent purchaser’s ordinary remedies for undisclosed, non-apparent conditions existing at the time of sale lie against the seller under sales law (including redhibition), not in tort against third parties for pre-sale injury.

## Conclusion

The court reaffirmed that pre-sale damage to immovable property creates a personal claim held by the owner at the time of injury, and that later purchasers cannot pursue third-party tort claims for such damage unless the claim was expressly transferred by assignment or subrogation.


Eagle Pipe & Supply, Inc. v. Amerada Hess Corp., 79 So. 3d 246 (La. 2011)