5.3.4 Unworthiness to Inherit

Unworthiness is an involuntary termination of inheritance rights that must be declared by the court.1   When declared unworthy, an heir is deprived of the right to inherit among other consequences.2 The grounds for a successor to be declared unworthy are (1) conviction of a crime involving the intentional killing, or attempted killing, of the decedent; or (2) judicial determination of participation in the intentional, unjustified killing, or attempted killing, of the decedent.3 Reconciliation or forgiveness will cure the grounds of unworthiness.4

An action to declare a successor unworthy may be brought only by a person who would succeed in place of or in concurrence with the successor to be declared unworthy or by one who claims through such a person.5 When a person who may bring the action is a minor or an interdict, the court may appoint an attorney to represent the minor or interdict for purposes of investigating and pursuing an action to declare a successor unworthy.6 An action to declare a successor unworthy is subject to a liberative prescription of five years from the death of the decedent as to intestate successors and five years from the probate of the will as to testate successors.7

If the decedent died intestate and the successor is declared unworthy, the successor’s rights devolve as if the unworthy had predeceased the decedent. However, if the decedent died testate, then the succession rights devolve under the provisions for testamentary accretion as if the unworthy successor had predeceased the testator.8  When the succession rights devolve upon a child of a successor who is declared unworthy, the unworthy successor and the other parent of the child cannot claim a legal usufruct over the property inherited by their child.9

• 1La. C.C. art. 941.
• 2La. C.C. art. 945.
• 3La. C.C. art. 941.
• 4La. C.C. art. 943.
• 5La. C.C. art. 942(A).
• 6La. C.C. art. 942(B).
• 7La. C.C. art. 944.
• 8La. C.C. art. 946(A).
• 9La. C.C. art. 946(B).