TITLE 42. PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES

CHAPTER 25. PUBLIC PROPERTY, DUTIES OF OFFICIALS, EMPLOYEES AND CUSTODIANS

42:1461    Public property; personal obligations of officials, employees, and custodians; actions; prescription

 A. Officials, whether elected or appointed and whether compensated or not, and employees of any "public entity", which, for purposes of this Section shall mean and include any department, division, office, board, agency, commission, or other organizational unit of any of the three branches of state government or of any parish, municipality, school board or district, court of limited jurisdiction, or other political subdivision or district, or the office of any sheriff, district attorney, coroner, or clerk of court, by the act of accepting such office or employment assume a personal obligation not to misappropriate, misapply, convert, misuse, or otherwise wrongfully take any funds, property, or other thing of value belonging to or under the custody or control of the public entity in which they hold office or are employed.

 B. When, pursuant to a statute, ordinance, resolution, or contract or other agreement, a public entity, as defined in Subsection A, entrusts to a contractor or to a quasipublic entity of any kind the care, administration, allocation, or disposition of funds, property, or other things of value belonging to it or under its custody or control, the contractor or the quasipublic entity, and the officers and employees thereof personally, shall be deemed to have undertaken the obligation of a fiduciary with respect to such funds, property, or other things of value of the public entity.

 C. The breach of an obligation established under this Section gives rise to an action in favor of the public entity for the recovery of any such funds, property, or other things of value and for any other damages resulting from the breach. This action is prescribed by ten years, reckoning from the date on which the breach occurred.

Added by Acts 1982, No. 786, §1.