## Facts

- The Terrebonne Parish School Board owned a 641-acre tract of Section 16 school lands in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, consisting largely of floating freshwater marsh.
- The Board granted pipeline servitudes/right-of-way across the tract through standard-form agreements.
- Under a 1957 agreement, Koch’s predecessor received an easement to construct and maintain pipelines in “open ditches or canals not to exceed forty feet in width,” and dredged a canal and installed a pipeline in 1958.
- Under a 1965 agreement, Columbia received a servitude/right-of-way described as 100 feet wide, with broad rights to construct, maintain, alter, repair, and replace a pipeline and appurtenances.
- The Board alleged the companies used the canals for access and maintenance but failed to maintain canal banks, allowing widening, breaches, and water exchange that accelerated marsh erosion and land loss.
- By 1999, the Board alleged Koch’s canal had widened to about 70 feet and Columbia’s to about 135 feet, exceeding asserted contractual limits and damaging the servient estate.
- The Board sued in 1999 asserting Louisiana delictual (tort) and contractual claims for property damage.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding the claims were prescribed (time-barred) under Louisiana law.
- The Board appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board’s delictual claims were prescribed under Louisiana’s one-year period, or whether disputes over when the Board knew or should have known of the damage and its cause precluded summary judgment.
2. Whether the Board’s contractual claims were prescribed under Louisiana’s ten-year period, including whether alleged canal widening and erosion reflected continuing or recurring breaches producing timely damages.
3. Whether the servitude agreements could reasonably be read to constrain canal width or impose obligations that, if violated over time, affect the prescription analysis.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held that genuine issues of material fact existed on prescription for both the tort and contract theories.
- The court did not determine liability on the merits; it held only that dismissal on prescription grounds was improper on the summary judgment record.

## Legal Principles

- In diversity cases, federal summary judgment standards apply; all reasonable inferences are drawn in favor of the nonmovant when assessing whether a limitations defense is established as a matter of law.
- Under Louisiana law, delictual actions generally prescribe in one year, and personal actions on contracts generally prescribe in ten years, but the start of prescription can depend on fact-intensive questions.
- For tort claims, prescription may be deferred under Louisiana’s discovery-based doctrine (contra non valentem) until the plaintiff knew or should have known of the injury and its cause; disputes on knowledge and causation timing can defeat summary judgment.
- For contract claims involving alleged continuing duties or recurring breaches, prescription may turn on whether later conduct and later increments of damage are actionable within the prescriptive period.
- In interpreting servitude/right-of-way grants, the scope of permissible use and whether conduct exceeds contractual limits or unduly burdens the servient estate can present mixed questions of contract interpretation and fact relevant to prescription.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit reinstated the Board’s tort and contract claims because the timing and character of the alleged canal widening and marsh erosion, the Board’s discovery of the injury and cause, and the existence of continuing or recurring contractual breaches presented genuine factual disputes that could not be resolved on summary judgment under Louisiana prescription law.


Terrebonne Parish Sch. Bd. v. Columbia Gulf Transmission Co., 290 F.3d 303 (5th Cir. 2002)