Incapacity is the inability to manage your own financial, legal, or medical decisions. It can be temporary — a hospitalization, a treatable illness — or permanent, like advanced dementia or a severe brain injury.

Louisiana courts look at whether the person can understand and communicate decisions about a specific matter at a specific time. It’s not about a label or a diagnosis.

It’s putting documents in place — while you still can — that name the people who will step in if you can’t act for yourself. The goal is straightforward: keep these decisions in the hands of people you choose, instead of in court.

A power of attorney lets one person act on behalf of another. In Louisiana law, it’s technically called a mandate or procuration (La. Civ. Code arts. 2989–3034). The person granting authority is the principal; the person receiving it is the agent.

How much authority the agent has depends on how the document is drafted. A general mandate can cover financial accounts, real estate, taxes, and signing documents. A limited mandate covers only what’s spelled out.

A durable power of attorney stays in effect after the principal loses capacity. A non-durable one ends the moment incapacity occurs — exactly when you need it most.

For incapacity planning, durability is non-negotiable. We make every financial mandate durable unless there’s a specific reason not to.

A healthcare power of attorney lets you name someone to make medical decisions for you when you can’t. They can talk to doctors, review treatment options, and decide based on what you’ve told them.

Without one, Louisiana law gives the authority to a default list of family members — spouse first, then adult children, then parents, then siblings. That works fine when the family agrees. It can stall everything when they don’t.

A living will — formally a declaration concerning life-sustaining procedures under Louisiana’s Natural Death Act — tells your doctors and your healthcare agent what you want at the end of life when you can’t speak for yourself. It typically addresses life support, artificial nutrition and hydration, and similar interventions.

It works alongside the healthcare power of attorney: the agent makes the decisions, and the living will tells them — and the doctors — what you would have decided.

Interdiction is the Louisiana court process for taking decision-making authority away from an adult who can no longer handle their own affairs and giving it to someone the court appoints. It’s what families fall back on when there’s no incapacity plan.

It’s expensive, public, and slow. Court oversight continues after the appointment, including annual accountings.

Yes. Louisiana recognizes two:

• Full interdiction (La. Civ. Code art. 389) removes essentially all decision-making authority from the person.
• Limited interdiction (La. Civ. Code art. 390) lets the court tailor the order — taking authority over specific things the person can’t handle, while leaving the rest of their autonomy intact.

We push for limited interdiction whenever it fits. Losing autonomy you don’t need to lose isn’t the goal.

A curator is the person appointed by a court in an interdiction to manage the interdicted person’s affairs (La. Civ. Code art. 392). The role looks similar to an agent under a power of attorney, but with important differences: the curator answers to the court, files annual reports, and often needs court permission for major decisions. The agent under a private mandate doesn’t.

Avoiding the need for a curator is one of the main reasons to plan ahead.

Capacity is the ability to understand and make a particular decision at the time you’re making it. The standard depends on what you’re trying to do — Louisiana applies different tests for signing a will, signing a contract, getting married, and being interdicted. The donation capacity standard, for example, requires the person to comprehend generally the nature and consequences of what they’re signing (La. Civ. Code art. 1477).

Capacity isn’t binary, and it isn’t tied to a diagnosis. Plenty of people in early dementia have it. Plenty of people without a diagnosis don’t.

Now. Capacity disappears in two ways: slowly, through age or illness, or instantly, through an accident or stroke. Both are unpredictable. The documents only work if they were signed before the moment they’re needed.

Your family ends up in court — usually filing for interdiction. Until that’s resolved, no one can sign for you, manage your accounts, or make medical decisions outside the statutory default list. Bills go unpaid. Treatment gets delayed. Decisions get made by people you might not have chosen.

It’s avoidable.