Devolutive Appeal in Louisiana: 60-Day Deadline and No Bond

A devolutive appeal in Louisiana lets you challenge a trial court’s judgment without stopping the winning party from enforcing it while your appeal is pending. That single feature is what defines it. You get appellate review without posting a bond, but the other side can collect on the judgment, seize property, or otherwise act on the ruling during the months or years the appeal takes.¹

The 60-Day Deadline

You have 60 days to file. The clock starts on one of two dates: the day after the deadline to request a new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict expires (if you didn’t file one), or the date the court mails notice denying your timely request for a new trial or similar relief.² Miss those 60 days and the right to a devolutive appeal is gone.

A few complications can shift the count. If more than one party files a new-trial motion, no one’s 60-day period begins until the court disposes of the last pending motion. An order of appeal granted before all new-trial motions are decided is premature, but it becomes effective once those motions are denied. And if the case is removed to federal court and later remanded, the 60-day period is interrupted and restarts on remand.²

One deadline detail catches people off guard. If you file a devolutive appeal on time and the other side then decides it wants the judgment changed too, it can file its own devolutive appeal within the original 60-day window or within 10 days of getting notice of your appeal, whichever is later.²

What Judgments Qualify

A devolutive appeal is available from any final judgment where the law allows an appeal. A final judgment is one that decides the merits or dismisses the case.³

Interlocutory judgments, the procedural rulings that come up along the way, are a different story. You can only appeal an interlocutory ruling when a specific statute says so.³ If no statute authorizes an appeal from the particular ruling you want to challenge, the appellate route is closed and your only option is to apply for supervisory writs, which is a separate procedure.

How to File

Filing begins in the trial court that rendered the judgment. You ask that court for an order of appeal, and the request can be made by oral motion in open court, by written motion, or by petition. The order itself must fix the return day for the appeal in the appellate court.⁴

Once the order is granted, you have to pay the estimated costs of preparing the appellate record. That record covers the documents, evidence, and transcripts from the trial proceedings. The return day, meaning the deadline for lodging the record in the appellate court, is 30 days from the date you pay the estimated costs if no testimony needs to be transcribed, and 45 days if it does. The trial judge can set a shorter period.⁵

Pay the estimated costs on time. The trial court keeps the power to impose penalties or dismiss the appeal outright when a party fails to pay.¹ Civil appeal filing fees are set separately by each circuit court of appeal, so the exact figure depends on where your case sits.

No Bond, But the Judgment Stays Enforceable

A devolutive appeal requires no security bond. That is its central advantage. A suspensive appeal, the alternative that freezes enforcement, typically requires a bond equal to the judgment amount, and the trial court can set that bond as high as 150% of the judgment on a money award.⁶ For a large judgment, that bond alone can put suspensive appeal out of reach.

The tradeoff is direct. You don’t have to put up money, and in exchange the judgment stays enforceable while the appeal is pending. The winning party can collect on a money judgment, seize property, or take any enforcement step the judgment authorizes.¹

Once the order of appeal is granted, the appellate court takes jurisdiction over the issues being reviewed. The trial court loses the power to modify or reconsider those issues but keeps authority over housekeeping matters: allowing depositions, extending the return day, correcting errors in the record, testing surety solvency, granting appeals to other parties, and enforcing the judgment itself.¹

If the other side collects on the judgment and you later win on appeal, the money doesn’t come back automatically. You have to seek restitution, and that means additional proceedings.

Devolutive vs. Suspensive: Which One You File

The choice comes down to whether you can afford to post a bond and whether you can afford to leave the judgment enforceable.

Enforcement: a devolutive appeal leaves the judgment enforceable during the appeal; a suspensive appeal stops enforcement until the appellate court rules.⁷
Bond: none required for a devolutive appeal; a suspensive appeal generally requires a bond equal to the judgment and can run up to 150% on money awards.⁶
Deadline: 60 days for devolutive, 30 days for suspensive.²
Fallback: if you miss the 30-day suspensive deadline, you can still file a devolutive appeal within the 60-day window. You lose the ability to halt enforcement, but you keep the right to appellate review.

The size of the judgment usually drives the decision. On a $500,000 money judgment, posting a bond of the same amount or more may not be possible, and a devolutive appeal keeps appellate review available. If the other side has the means and motivation to collect immediately, that exposure is real and worth weighing against the value of an appeal that doesn’t stop enforcement.

What the Appellate Court Will Review

Louisiana appellate courts don’t retry the case. They work from the record and apply different standards depending on whether the question is factual or legal.

Factual findings get “manifest error” review, sometimes called “clearly wrong.” The appellate court won’t disturb the trial court’s factual conclusions unless there is no reasonable basis for them in the record. It’s a high bar. Even where the appellate judges might have weighed the evidence differently, they defer to the trial judge or jury who saw the witnesses.

Legal rulings are reviewed de novo. The appellate court decides for itself whether the trial court got the law right, and it has authority to render whatever judgment is just, legal, and proper on the record, including reversing, modifying, or affirming.⁸

One warning. An appeal that lacks any legitimate basis in the law or the record can lead to sanctions. Louisiana appellate courts can award damages, including attorney fees, against a party who files a frivolous appeal, and can reallocate costs from the trial and appellate proceedings.⁸ Courts don’t hand out those sanctions casually, but the risk is real enough to factor in before filing.

1
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2088
2
Justia Law. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2087
3
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2083
4
FindLaw. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2121
5
Justia Law. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2125
6
FindLaw. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2124
7
Supreme Court of Louisiana. Supreme Court of Louisiana Opinion 2018-C-0170
8
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2164