State, Department of Transportation & Development v. Berry

MARVIN, Chief Judge.

In these consolidated appeals arising out of the State’s expropriation for highway purposes in 1983 of an 18-acre strip of land which had been abandoned as a railroad right-of-way, the private litigants dispute between themselves who is entitled to the compensation owed by the State DOTD for the taking.

We apply the law in effect in 1933 and determine that a contract between the ancestors of the litigants in that year was not “a mandate coupled with an interest” that survived the death of the mandatary in 1950. CC Art. 3027.

We reverse and render judgment for the heirs of…