RTV REAL ESTATE HOLDING LLC v. TITLE DEPOT OF LOUISIANA INC TITLE DEPOT AND ANDREW JOFFEE (2026)

This matter is before the Court on remand from the Louisiana Supreme Court. In RTV Real Estate. Holding, LLC v. Title Depot of Louisiana, Inc., 2025-01478 (La. 1/28/26), 427 So.3d 698, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed our ruling in RTV Real Estate Holding, LLC v. Title Depot of Louisiana, Inc., 2024-0811 (La. App. 4 Cir. 9/9/25), 421 So.3d 250, and ordered this Court to consider the plaintiff's, Appellant RTV Real Estate Holding, LLC (“RTV”), assignments of error. In compliance with the Louisiana Supreme Court's order and for the reasons assigned below, we affirm the trial court's August 16, 2024 grant of the Appellee's, Title Depot of Louisiana, Inc. (“Title Depot”), exception of prescription.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This Court has previously set forth the facts and procedural history of the matter sub judice:

In September 2014, RTV purchased commercial immovable property from Patrick Place East, LLC (“Patrick Place”). Title Depot, the closing agent for the transaction, sold title insurance to RTV. Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company (“Commonwealth”) issued the title insurance policy to RTV. After purchasing the property from Patrick Place, RTV sought financing from First National Bank of Commerce (“FNBC”) to develop the property. RTV was unable to obtain financing for improvements on the property after FNBC questioned whether there was clear title to the property. On March 18, 2015, after failing to obtain financing from FNBC, RTV made a claim with Commonwealth on the title insurance policy alleging a title defect. Commonwealth's policy gave it the right to either pay the policy amount of $200,000 to RTV, or resolve the title dispute through litigation against RTV for denial of coverage. Commonwealth chose the latter and on July 23, 2015, Commonwealth filed a quiet title action. On May 26, 2017, Commonwealth obtained a judgment quieting title on behalf of RTV.

RTV filed a petition for damages against Title Depot on September 30, 2016, alleging that Title Depot failed to discover or disclose the alleged title defect. RTV also filed a motion for partial summary judgment on liability against Title Depot on March 20, 2019. On August 21, 2019, RTV's motion for partial summary judgment was granted. Title Depot filed a motion for new trial on August 29, 2019, and the trial court denied this motion on September 12, 2019. Title Depot timely filed their supervisory writ with this Court, seeking review of the trial court's judgment denying the motion for new trial. On November 4, 2019, this Court denied Title Depot's writ application.

Soon after, Covid-19 impacted court proceedings and multiple continuances were made. On March 27, 2024, Title Depot with new counsel, filed an exception of prescription. Title Depot argued that RTV knew of the alleged title defect on or before March 18, 2015, and its claims were perempted on September 30, 2016. The exception of prescription was granted on August 23, 2024, and signed on August 27, 2024. RTV timely filed a notice of appeal.

Id. at pp. 1-2, 421 So.3d at 252. This Court vacated the trial court's judgment granting Title Depot's peremptory exception of prescription and remanded for further proceedings based on the following reasoning:

The partial summary judgment was granted pursuant to La. C.C.P. art. 966(E). Further, the trial court did not designate the partial summary judgment as a final judgment because it did not include an express determination that the judgment was a final appealable judgment and that there was no just cause for delay.[1] As such, the trial court's summary judgment on liability is an interlocutory judgment.

Although Title Depot could not raise the issue of exception of prescription on appeal, it could have been raised it as a supervisory writ. According to Rule 4-3 of the Uniform Rules, Courts of Appeal, Title Depot would have had to file its supervisory writ application within 30 days of the notice of signing of judgment. Accordingly, Title Depot needed to file its writ application on or before September 20, 2019, to be able to raise the exception of prescription with this Court.

Id. at p. 7, 421 So.3d at 255. The Louisiana Supreme Court, in granting a writ of certiorari, stated in pertinent part:

The exception of prescription was filed prior to the submission of the case for a decision pursuant to Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 928A. The partial summary judgment on liability, which was not designated as a final judgment under applicable law, is an interlocutory ruling that does not bar the filing of a peremptory exception in the trial court. See La. Code Civ. Pro. Arts. 928A, 966E, and 1915A(3). The court of appeal judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for consideration of plaintiff's assignments of error.

RTV Real Est. Holding, LLC, 2025-01478, p. 1, 427 So.3d at 699.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

Though RTV raised multiple assignments of error on appeal, the issue of prescription is dispositive. Therefore, we will only consider whether the trial court erred in finding that RTV's claims against Title Depot had prescribed, i.e., that RTV did not timely file suit within one year and that the three-year peremptive timeframe did not serve to extend the otherwise lapsed prescriptive period.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

“When prescription is raised by peremptory exception, with evidence being introduced at the hearing on the exception, the trial court's findings of fact on the issue of prescription are subject to the manifest error-clearly wrong standard of review.” Hosp. Mgmt. Servs., LLC v. Axis Surplus Ins. Co., 2024-0137, p. 3 (La. App. 4 Cir. 9/16/24), 400 So.3d 236, 239 (quoting Barkerding v. Whittaker, 2018-0415, pp. 13-14 (La. App. 4 Cir. 12/28/18), 263 So.3d 1170, 1180). Here, the transcript of the hearing on the prescription exception reveals that Title Depot admitted two exhibits into evidence: Exhibit A, the cash sale, and Exhibit B, an affidavit from Stacy M. Young (Vice President for Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company), attesting that Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company's “business records reflect that on or about March 18, 2015, [RTV] submitted a title claim” under its policy. Accordingly, the manifest error standard of review applies.

DISCUSSION

Louisiana Revised Statutes 9:5606, entitled Actions for Professional Insurance Agent Liability, sets forth the following prescriptive and peremptive periods:

A. No action for damages against any insurance agent, broker, solicitor, or other similar licensee under this state, whether based upon tort, or breach of contract, or otherwise, arising out of an engagement to provide insurance services shall be brought unless filed in a court of competent jurisdiction and proper venue within one year from the date of the alleged act, omission, or neglect, or within one year from the date that the alleged act, omission, or neglect is discovered or should have been discovered. However, even as to actions filed within one year from the date of such discovery, in all events such actions shall be filed at the latest within three years from the date of the alleged act, omission, or neglect.

Per La. R.S. 9:5606, plaintiff must bring suit within one year of when the act, omission, or neglect occurred (or from when they discovered or should have discovered it), with a limit of three years from the date of the act, omission, or neglect.

“Ordinarily, the exceptor bears the burden of proof at the trial of the peremptory exception․ But, if prescription is evident on the face of the pleadings, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show the action has not prescribed.” Lomont v. Bennett, 2014-2483, p. 7 (La. 6/30/15), 172 So.3d 620, 627 (citing Rando v. Anco Insulations, Inc., 2008-1163, 1169, p. 20 (La. 5/22/09), 16 So.3d 1065, 1082). In the hearing on the exception, the trial court reasoned that prescription was not evident on the face of the pleadings because RTV's petition did not state the specific date that plaintiff was denied financing or discovered the alleged title defect. As such, the burden of proof remained on Title Depot to prove that prescription had run.

Title Depot admitted, into evidence without objection, an affidavit showing that RTV made a claim with Commonwealth on the title insurance policy alleging a title defect on March 18, 2015. This demonstrates that RTV must have known of the act, omission, or neglect on March 18, 2015. Prescription would have begun to run on that day at the latest, meaning RTV had until March 18, 2016 to bring an action for damages under La. R.S. 9:5606. However, RTV did not file a petition for damages against Title Depot until September 30, 2016, after the prescriptive period had lapsed. RTV offered no evidence to rebut this argument.

RTV strenuously argues that it timely filed its lawsuit because of the three-year peremptive period delineated in La. R.S. 9:5606. However, this preemptive period cannot revive RTV's prescribed action. This period merely serves as the cutoff, after which a party can no longer bring an action for damages following discovery of an act, omission, or neglect under La. R.S. 9:5606. This does not mean a party has three years to bring its action after discovering the act, omission, or neglect. The three-year cutoff became irrelevant once RTV took action indicating it knew of the act, omission, or neglect, as it did on March 18, 2015, by making a claim with Commonwealth on the title insurance policy alleging a title defect. At that point, the one-year prescriptive period began to run. RTV's dispositive assignments of error are without merit.

Since RTV did not timely file its action under La. R.S. 9:5606 within one year of when it knew of the alleged act, omission, or neglect of Title Depot, and because the statute's three-year peremptive timeframe does not serve to extend the otherwise lapsed prescriptive period, we find that the trial court did not manifestly err in granting Title Depot's exception of prescription.

DECREE

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court's grant of Title Depot's exception of prescription.

AFFIRMED

FOOTNOTES

1.   On August 1, 2025, an updated version of La. C.C.P. art. 1915 became effective, eliminating the requirement that a partial judgment or partial summary judgment must be explicitly designated as a final judgment in order to constitute a final judgment. However, the case sub judice implicates the older version of La. C.C.P. art. 1915(B), which stated:B. (1) When a court renders a partial judgment or partial summary judgment or sustains an exception in part, as to one or more but less than all of the claims, demands, issues, or theories against a party, whether in an original demand, reconventional demand, cross-claim, third-party claim, or intervention, the judgment shall not constitute a final judgment unless it is designated as a final judgment by the court after an express determination that there is no just reason for delay.(2) In the absence of such a determination and designation, any such order or decision shall not constitute a final judgment for the purpose of an immediate appeal and may be revised at any time prior to rendition of the judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties.

Judge Rachael D. Johnson