# Wilty v. Jefferson Parish Democratic Executive Committee

> Supreme Court of Louisiana · December 10, 1963 · 245 La. 145

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9688861

## Case

- **Full name:** Vernon J. WILTY, Jr. v. JEFFERSON PARISH DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE and Mrs. Laura Verret Wilty (Qualification in the Name of Mrs. Vernon J. Wilty, Jr.)
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Louisiana
- **Decided:** December 10, 1963
- **Citations:** 245 La. 145; 157 So. 2d 718
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Sanders
- **Judges:** Hamlin, McCaleb, Sanders, Summers, Hawthorne
- **Cited by:** 13 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9688861

## Opinion text

SANDERS, Justice
(concurring).
In my opinion, the result reached in the instant case is correct.
Although unnecessary for the decision, the majority cites, with apparent approval, the' rule that by marriage a woman loses her maiden surname and takes her husband’s surname as hef legal name. I am unable to agree that marriage has this-effect under the law of Louisiana.
The common law fiction of merger between husband and wife, from which a change of the wife’s legal name arises, has never obtained in Louisiana. Rather, this state has followed the civil law doctrine. After marriage, the legal name of a woman continues tó' be her maiden name, or patronym. The surname of the husband is used only as a matter of custom to indicate the marital status of the wife. See Succession of Kneipp, 172 La. 411 , 134 So. 376 ; 1 McMahon Louisiana Practice p. 147; 1 Planiol, Traite Eléméntaire De Droit Civil (An English Translation by the Louisiana State Law Institute) No. 390.
Accordingly, I concur in the decree.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9688861. Public record. Not legal advice.