## Facts

- A 1963 instrument granted International Paper Company an easement to construct and maintain a 12-foot “forest road” across a tract now owned by Jack Keith Harrison and Leisa Miller Harrison.
- The 1963 grant did not expressly identify a dominant estate benefiting from the right-of-way.
- In 1998, International Paper conveyed timberland (including land in Section 4) to Sustainable Forests, L.L.C., but the deed did not specifically describe or convey the 12-foot right-of-way.
- Sustainable used the road for timber-related access and leased hunting rights on its land to a hunting club whose members used the road to reach the lease area.
- The Harrisons objected to hunter traffic across their property and disputed Sustainable’s ability to enforce any servitude.

## Issues

1. Whether Sustainable had a right of action to enforce the alleged road servitude when its deed from International Paper did not specifically describe or convey the right-of-way.
2. Whether the 1963 “forest road” grant, as a matter of servitude law and interpretation, permitted non-forestry uses such as access by hunting-lessee members.

## Decision

- The court raised, on its own motion, the peremptory exception of no right of action that the trial court had denied.
- The court sustained the exception of no right of action because Sustainable failed to show that the 1998 transfer conveyed the disputed servitude to it.
- The court granted Sustainable leave to amend its pleadings to attempt to cure the right-of-action defect.
- Because the case was resolved on right-of-action grounds, the appellate court did not reach a final determination of the permissible scope of use of the road by hunting-club members.

## Legal Principles

- A peremptory exception of no right of action tests whether the plaintiff is among the persons to whom the law grants the remedy sought and may be noticed by the court on its own motion.
- A party seeking to enforce a real right such as a servitude must show it holds that right; an alleged servitude not described or conveyed in a transfer instrument may remain with the transferor.
- When a right-of-way servitude is established for a stated purpose (e.g., a “forest road”), interpretation tends toward the purpose reflected by the grant and surrounding circumstances rather than generalized access for unrelated activities.

## Conclusion

The appellate court sustained an exception of no right of action because Sustainable did not establish that it acquired the road servitude from its predecessor where the conveying deed omitted the right-of-way, and it remanded with leave to amend rather than resolving the dispute over hunter access on the merits.


Sustainable Forests, L.L.C. v. Harrison, 846 So. 2d 1283 (La. Ct. App. 2d Cir. 2003)