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SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
No. 96-C-0949 SUCCESSION OF JAMES A. GILBERT

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL, FIFTH CIRCUIT, PARISH OF JEFFERSON

LEMMON, Justice* This is an action by two forced heirs, who are the decedent's daughters of his first marriage, against the decedent's surviving spouse for reduction of the decedent's mortis causa and inter vivos donations to the surviving spouse that are alleged to be in excess of the disposable portion. The principal issue is whether the decedent's two sets of inter vivos donations to his daughters, each set made in equal amounts in the same calendar year, must be added back fictitiously into La. Civ. Code art. 1505's compilation of the mass estate for the purpose of calculating the legitime, or whether the donations fall within the exemption of La. Civ. Code art. 1502, which at the time of the filing of the action for reduction provided in pertinent part: Any donation inter vivos, from the donor to his descendants, exceeding the quantum of which a person may legally dispose to the prejudice of forced heirs, is not reducible to that quantum if each such forced heir and the root represented by each forced heir receives the same value of property by donation inter vivos during the calendar year. Such donation inter vivos shall not be included in the calculation of the disposable portion as set forth in Article 1234 nor as set forth in Article 1505.

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*Watson, J., not on panel. Rule IV, Part II,

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