Also known as: autre-droit · right of another
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A Law French phrase denoting action or holding in the right of another. It identifies the capacity in which a fiduciary such as a trustee or executor asserts or defends property rights on behalf of a beneficiary or estate.
Evelyn, as executor of her uncle's estate, learns that HarborPoint accepted and appraised rare coins removed from the estate safe. She sues HarborPoint asserting the estate's ownership rights. Evelyn proceeds in autre droit because the coins belong to the estate she represents.
Daniel stored jet skis at Harbor View Marina. The marina sold them outright to Coastal Rides without authority. Daniel sues the marina for conversion. He asserts his own ownership rights directly rather than in autre droit.
Children of a prior marriage sue in a territorial court to recover real estate. They assert title through their mother who held rights under an earlier marriage. The claim proceeds in autre droit because the children stand in their mother's position.
Henry Clyde Stokes died on June 22, 1967, from injuries received the previous day during the course of his employment in Louisiana. At the time of his death Stokes resided and maintained a household with Willie Mae Weber, to whom he was not married. Living in the household were four legitimate minor children born of the marriage between Stokes and Adlay Jones Stokes, who was at the time committed to a mental hospital. Also living in the home was one unacknowledged illegitimate child born of the relationship between Stokes and Willie Mae Weber, and a second illegitimate child of Stokes and Weber was born posthumously. On June 29, 1967, Stokes' four legitimate children, through their maternal grandmother as guardian, filed a claim for their father's death under Louisiana's workmen's compensation law. The defendant employer and its insurer impleaded Willie Mae Weber, who appeared and claimed compensation benefits for the two illegitimate children. Meanwhile the four legitimate children had brought another suit for their father's death against a third-party tortfeasor, which was settled for an amount in excess of the maximum benefits allowable under workmen's compensation. The illegitimate children did not share in this settlement. Subsequently the employer in the initial action requested the extinguishment of all parties' workmen's compensation claims by reason of the tort settlement. The trial judge awarded the four legitimate children the maximum allowable amount of compensation and declared their entitlement had been satisfied from the tort suit settlement, so the four legitimate children dismissed their workmen's compensation claim. Judgment was also awarded to Stokes' two illegitimate offspring to the extent that maximum compensation benefits were not exhausted by the four legitimate children. Since such benefits had been entirely exhausted by the amount of the tort settlement in which only the four dependent legitimate offspring participated, the two dependent illegitimate children received nothing. Both the Louisiana Court of Appeal and a divided Louisiana Supreme Court sustained the statutes over constitutional objections. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseA plaintiff sues in autre droit when acting as a fiduciary such as an executor or trustee to enforce rights belonging to the estate or beneficiary. The capacity determines whose ownership interest is asserted and whose control was interfered with.
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No. The elements remain the same. The defendant is still liable for intentional dominion that seriously interferes with the right of the person or entity whose interest the fiduciary represents.
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No. Good faith does not defeat liability. Receiving and using property from someone lacking authority to transfer it still constitutes the required dominion over the true owner's chattel.
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…of our basic tort law. The former alleviated the harsh common-law rule under which “no person could inherit the personal right of another to recover for tortious injuries to his body”; the latter removed difficult obstacles to recovery in work-related injuries by offering a more certain, though generally less…