IN RE: LAJAUNIE FAMILY IRREVOCABLE TRUST (2025)

On July 31, 2025, Defendant-Appellee, Christopher Joseph LaJaunie, filed a Motion to Dismiss the current unlodged appeal. For the reasons discussed herein, we deny the motion to dismiss.

Plaintiff-Appellant, Angie LaJaunie Guillory, and her brother, Appellee, were named principal beneficiaries and co-trustees in an irrevocable trust executed in 2017. Their parents, Chester Joseph LaJaunie and Kim Kiyoko Kwak LaJaunie (Kim), were listed as income beneficiaries therein. Appellee also had power of attorney over their mother, Kim, who had Alzheimer's disease. When their father, Chester, passed, a life insurance policy on him that was to benefit the trust was diverted by Appellee to cover his mother's, Kim's, expensive medical care. Specifically, $286,772.90 was diverted from the trust to the mother's account to pay for around-the-clock home health care during the covid period, until Kim passed. The siblings were the sole beneficiaries of both the trust and both their parents’ estates.

After their mother died, Appellant questioned the use of the funds from their father's life insurance policy and requested an accounting from Appellee. Appellant eventually filed a “Motion to Compel the Return of Trust funds and to Remove Trustee,” seeking to remove Appellee from the trust. Appellee countered with a “Motion for Reimbursement, Termination of Trust, and Disbursement of Assets.” After an initial, contested hearing on the matter, the trial court ordered Appellee to make an accounting for the trust. At a second hearing, the trial court specifically found that Appellee was “credible in the accounting provided.” In a May 5, 2025 judgment, the trial court found that Appellant had already recovered $128,774.00 of her share of the life insurance proceeds that went to take care of her mother. The trial court further ordered Appellee, through his mother's estate, to pay Appellant $14,561.00, in order to bring her up to her one-half share of what the life insurance proceeds would have been, had the policy gone directly into the trust. After also awarding Appellee $34,000.00 from the trust in reimbursement for fixing the parents’ house, a trust asset, and Appellant $4,347.00 from the trust for other reimbursements, the trial court ordered the remaining funds of the trust be distributed equally between the children. The trial court then ordered the trust to be terminated. From that decision, Appellant initially sought supervisory writs. On June 12, 2025, this court ruled (emphasis ours):

The judgment at issue in the instant writ application resolves the substantive rights of the parties involved and, therefore, determines the merits of the litigation as a whole. Accordingly, it is a final, appealable judgment, rather than interlocutory. La.Code Civ.P. art. 1841. Thus, it is unfit for supervisory review. However, in keeping with the intent of Armstrong v. Stein, 94-97 (La. 3/18/94), 634 So.2d 845, we hereby consider Angie LaJaunie Guillory's notice of intent to seek supervisory writs as a timely filed motion for appeal. Angie LaJaunie Guillory must now comply with the other rules governing appeal from a final judgment; i.e. she must obtain a return date, pay all appropriate fees associated with the preparation of the record in this case, and pay the filing fees of the appellate court, in addition to any other statutory provisions regarding appeals from rulings of this nature. Accordingly, we hereby remand this matter to the trial court for Angie LaJaunie Guillory to comply with the other mandates of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure and the Louisiana Revised Statutes governing appeals.

The day after this court's ruling, Appellant filed a motion to set return date and to have the trial court fix a bond amount so she could secure the current suspensive appeal. An order setting bond at $286,772.90 was signed on June 17, 2025. Six days later, on June 23, 2025, Appellant filed an affidavit of surety, followed by her Applicant Affidavit on July 10, 2025. The Appellee then filed the current motion to dismiss the suspensive appeal, asserting that the security was untimely. We disagree.

“An appeal shall not be dismissed because of any other irregularity, error or defect unless it is imputable to the appellant.” La.Code Civ.P. art. 2161. When a motion for appeal has been timely filed, the appeal may still be perfected if the tardy filing of the security is imputable to the court system rather than the appellant. Blue, Williams & Buckley v. Brian Investments, Ltd., 96-1451 (La.App. 1 Cir. 6/20/97), 706 So.2d 999, writ denied, 97-2192 (La. 11/21/97), 703 So.2d 1311; Transamerica Life Ins. Co. v. Fusulier, 22-548 (La.App. 5 Cir. 12/16/22), 2022 WL 17726621(unpublished opinion). There is no irregularity here which lies at the feet of the Appellant.

Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Article 2124 sets forth the law regarding security to be furnished for appeals. That article differentiates between judgments for a sum of money and those judgments which are not money judgments. For purposes of La.Code Civ.P. art. 2124, a “judgment for a sum of money” is “a judgment condemning [one party] to pay a specific sum of money” to another. Pan-Am. Bank & Trust Co. v. Ransom, 150 La. 142, 143, 90 So. 548, 548 (1921); see also Magner v. Deas, 25-302 (La.App. 4 Cir. 5/16/25), ––– So.3d ––––(unpublished opinion). The judgment appealed is not a judgment for a sum of money under La.Code Civ. P. art. 2124(B)(1).¹ In judgments other than those for a sum of money, “security shall be fixed by the trial court at an amount sufficient to assure the satisfaction of the judgment, together with damages for the delay resulting from the suspension of the execution.” La.Code Civ.P. art. 2124(B)(3) (emphasis added). Appellant could in no way begin to secure bond or surety to perfect her appeal until that amount was determined by the trial court.

Here, this court returned this matter to the trial court on June 12, 2025, so that Appellant could obtain a return date and comply with all relevant mandates of the Code of Civil Procedure governing appeals. That decision also noted that Appellee had timely filed her writ application, and our decision unmistakenly treated that application as a timely filed motion for appeal. On June 13, 2025, the very next day, Appellant filed her motion to set return date and to have the trial court fix a bond amount. An order setting bond at $286,772.90 was signed on June 17, 2025. Again, Appellant could not obtain security until the amount was determined by the trial court, and the Appellant moved quickly to secure the bond once the amount was set. On June 23, 2025, six days after the bond was set, Appellant filed an affidavit of surety, followed by her Applicant Affidavit on July 10, 2025, both within thirty days of this court's order and the amount of bond being determined by the trial court, and therefore, timely.  ²

Moreover, under La.Code Civ.P. art. 2088(A)(5), the trial court retains jurisdiction after the taking of an appeal to “[t]est the solvency of the surety on the appeal bond as of the date of its filing or subsequently, consider objections to the form, substance, and sufficiency of the appeal bond, and permit the curing thereof, as provided in Articles 5123, 5124, and 5126.” If Appellee has issue with the form or amount of the surety, the trial court, not this court, is the proper place to lodge those complaints. This motion is devoid of merit. Accordingly, we deny the motion to dismiss.

MOTION TO DISMISS SUSPENSIVE APPEAL DENIED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   If the judgment appealed were a judgment for a sum of money, the bond set by the trial court would be exceedingly high, as La.Code Civ.P. art. 2124(B)(1) sets those bonds at the amount of judgment plus interest. The judgment appealed does not indicate that Appellant owes any sum to either the Appellee, the estate, or the trust. Thus, if the judgment was a money judgment, Appellant would have a bond of zero. However, bond was set at $286,672.90, the amount that was transferred to Kim from the trust, and the amount which was to be returned to the trust from her estate, not from the Appellant.

2.   The cases cited by Appellee in support of its motion are distinguishable from the facts of the case here. In those cases, the appellant had failed altogether to file a timely motion for devolutive appeal within 60 days of the expiration of the delay for applying for a new trial (Guillory v. Hartford Ins. Co., 383 So.2d 144 (La. App. 3 Cir. 1980)), or failed to obtain security within ninety-day requirement of the prior La.Code Civ.P. art. 2087 (Hawkins v. Shropshire, 275 So.2d 821, 822 (La. App. 4 Cir. 1973)). As noted above, our prior ruling plainly stated that the timely filed application for writs was considered to be a timely filed motion for appeal and the Appellant filed her security within the time allowed once it was set by the trial court. Moreover, the time to file a supervisory writ and to request a suspensive appeal are both thirty days, indicating that the application for supervisory writs would have been a timely filed motion for suspensive appeal.

Ortego, Judge.