## Facts

- Henry Roeland “Professor Longhair” Byrd, a New Orleans musician, recorded master tapes in the early 1970s.
- Byrd’s representatives sent the master tapes to Bearsville Records so Bearsville could evaluate them for a possible recording deal; ownership was not transferred.
- In 1975, Byrd’s attorney sent letters requesting return of the master tapes; Bearsville did not return them.
- Byrd died in 1980.
- In 1987, Bearsville licensed recordings from the masters to third parties, which released albums using the recordings.
- Songbyrd, Inc., formed in 1993 as successor to Byrd’s estate/heirs, sued in Louisiana state court in 1995 seeking recognition of ownership, return of the masters, and damages.
- Bearsville removed on diversity and obtained summary judgment in federal district court on the ground that the claims were prescribed (time-barred) under Louisiana law.

## Issues

1. Whether the claim seeking recognition of ownership and return of the master tapes is a Louisiana real action in revendication (imprescriptible as to ownership) or a personal action subject to prescription.
2. Whether Bearsville, as an initial precarious possessor, proved it gave Byrd’s successors actual notice of an adverse intent sufficient to begin acquisitive prescription of the tapes.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held that the demand for recognition of ownership and return of the master tapes is a Louisiana real action in revendication, which is imprescriptible as to the ownership/return claim.
- The court held Bearsville did not establish, on summary judgment, that it provided the actual notice required to convert precarious possession into adverse possession capable of supporting acquisitive prescription.

## Legal Principles

- Under Louisiana law, an action in revendication to recover a specific corporeal movable is a real action; the ownership/return claim is generally imprescriptible.
- A party who initially holds property as a precarious possessor cannot begin acquisitive prescription without clearly repudiating that status and giving the owner (or successors) actual notice of the intent to possess for itself.
- Silence in response to demands and unilateral exploitation inconsistent with permission do not, without proof of actual notice to the owner, establish the adverse intent needed to start acquisitive prescription on summary judgment.
- Summary judgment on prescription is improper where the movant fails to show the absence of a genuine factual dispute on the notice required to support acquisitive prescription.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit treated the suit for return of the master tapes as an imprescriptible Louisiana revendicatory real action and held that Bearsville failed to prove, as a matter of law, that it gave the actual notice necessary to transform its precarious possession into adverse possession supporting acquisitive prescription.


Songbyrd, Inc. v. Bearsville Recs., Inc., 104 F.3d 773 (5th Cir. 1997)