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La. Civ. Code art. 256

This is the official text of La. Civ. Code art. 256, part of Louisiana’s Civil Code — louisiana's civil law tradition codifies persons, property, obligations, and family relations here rather than in a separate statutory code.

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Children born outside of marriage

Official statutory text

A. The mother is of right the tutrix of her child born outside of marriage not acknowledged by the father, or acknowledged by him without her concurrence.

B. After the death of the mother, if the father had not acknowledged the child prior to the mother's death, the court shall give first consideration to appointment as tutor either of her parents or siblings who survive her and accept the appointment, and secondly, the father, always taking into consideration the best interests of the child.

C. If both parents have acknowledged their child born outside of marriage, the judge shall appoint as tutor the one by whose care the best interests of the child will be served. However, if the parents are awarded joint custody of such acknowledged child born outside of marriage, then the cotutorship of such child shall belong of right to both parents, with equal authority to act alone, on behalf of the child, and with equal privileges and responsibilities, unless modified by order of the court or by an agreement of the parents, approved by the court awarding joint custody.

Acts 1983, No. 215, §1, eff. Sept. 1, 1983; Acts 2016, No. 210, §1; Acts 2022, No. 121, §1, eff. May 25, 2022.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.