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35 Tul. L. Rev. 531 (1960-1961)
Concursus: Interpleader in Louisiana

handle is hein.journals/tulr35 and id is 567 raw text is: CONCURSUS: INTERPLEADER IN LOUISIANA
LEON SARPY*
Concursus, the counterpart of the interpleader proceeding in
Louisiana, is now contained in the new Code of Civil Procedure,'
comprising articles 4651 through 4662. The subject was properly
included in order to conform with the Louisiana State Law In-
stitute's policy demanding a comprehensive procedural code. The
reporters considered substituting the well-known name inter-
pleader, but because of its civil law genesis and background,
coupled with its use in Louisiana for over a century and a half,
decided to retain the term concursus. The expression is unique
in the great body of American Jurisprudence. It is not to be found
in Anglo-Saxon law and is used only in Louisiana among the United
States.
I. GENESIS
Concursus is taken from the French concours and ultimately
from the Latin concurrere, meaning literally to run together. It
implies a flocking together, a confluence, an assemblage, in its
broadest sense.2 Its legal import is a competition between various
parties for a certain thing, as will be pointed out later.
According to Professor Henry George McMahon, although con-
cursus is a creature of jurisprudence in Louisiana, the remedy
traces its legitimate descent from the proceeding of the same name
in Romano-Canonical law.3 This view finds ample support as far
back as one thousand years when the term was employed in Canon
law to signify a special competitive examination for aspirants
to certain ecclesiastical offices.4 Between 1198 and 1216, Pope
Innocent III inaugurated separate examinations for such appli-
cants, and between 1545 and 1563 the Council of Trent provided
for competitive examinations for candidates seeking pastorships
of Canonical parishes.5
Whether in Roman, French or Spanish jurisprudence, the term
in its legal import was later to be applied to a competitive strife
between contestants in a judicial struggle to gain possession of
*Member of the New Orleans Bar, Lecturer on Louisiana Practice at Loyola
University, New Orleans, and one of the'three Reporters of the Louisiana
State Law Institute on the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure of 1960.
'Adopted as La. Act 15 of 1960, as the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure
of 1960.
2Webster, New International Unabridged Dictionary (1948), verbo con-
course.
82 McMahon, Louisiana Practice 1747 n. 3 (1938).
44 Catholic Encyclopedia 208 (1913).
51., verbo Council of Trent (Sess. XXIV, Ch. XVIII).

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