## Facts

- Ellis purchased a rural tract from Hutchings.
- While owning the tract, Hutchings physically possessed part of it by living there, erecting improvements, and cultivating a portion.
- After the sale, Ellis did not reside on the property, did not personally take physical possession, and did not maintain Hutchings’s improvements; his possession was civil (possession by intent under title).
- Mrs. Prevost and her family long occupied and enclosed a different, small portion within the larger tract and claimed use and cultivation of other parts.
- Ellis filed a possessory action seeking recognition and maintenance of his possession and removal of the Prevost family from the area they occupied.
- The district court initially ruled for the Prevost family; the case returned to the supreme court after further proceedings, with defendants arguing Ellis lacked a right of action because he held only civil possession.

## Issues

1. Whether a purchaser who holds only civil possession, derived from title and preceded by the vendor’s corporeal possession, has “real and actual possession” sufficient to bring a possessory action under Article 49 of the Louisiana Code of Practice.
2. Whether defendants may defeat a possessory action by showing the plaintiff did not personally exercise physical occupancy of the disputed land.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that Ellis had capacity and a right of action to prosecute the possessory suit.
- The Court rejected the argument that civil possession is categorically insufficient under Article 49.
- The Court ruled that civil possession can satisfy the “real and actual possession” requirement when it continues a prior corporeal possession exercised by the plaintiff’s author in title (here, the vendor).

## Legal Principles

- For a possessory action, “real and actual possession” is not limited to the plaintiff’s current physical occupancy.
- Civil possession (possession by intention under a valid title) is actionable when it is the legal continuation of earlier corporeal possession by the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s author in title.
- Possession may be transmitted from vendor to vendee with the sale, allowing the vendee to protect the transmitted possession even without personal entry.

## Conclusion

The court recognized that a purchaser’s civil possession, when grounded in the vendor’s prior corporeal possession, meets the statutory possession requirement for a possessory action and supports the purchaser’s right to complain of an adverse possessory judgment.


Ellis v. Prevost, 19 La. 251 (La. 1841)