The workmen's compensation framework comprehends a more flexible attitude toward recovery for injuries than ordinary tort law, and recovery-oriented decisions in workmen's compensation cases, though consistent with the overall approach in that area, are not necessarily indicative of a court's attitude in ordinary personal injury cases. For an indication of the Louisiana courts' attitude toward estoppel to assert prescription in non-workmen's compensation cases we need look no further than three recent decisions cited by appellees: Perrodin v. Clement, 254 So.2d 704 (La.Ct.App. 1971); Gaspard v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 243 So.2d 839 (La.Ct.App. 1971); Dagenhart v. Robertson Truck Lines, Inc., 230 So.2d 916 (La.Ct.App. 1970). All three decisions indicate that contra non valentem continues to flourish in Louisiana law, but nothing in them signals any recent flowering of the doctrine beyond its pruned and cropped appearance in Staples.
See also In re Andrus, 221 La. 996, 60 So.2d 899 (1952); Roach v. Roach, 213 La. 746, 35 So.2d 597 (1948); Draper v. Van Leer, 197 La. 259, 1 So.2d 513 (1941). Prescription begins to run against an action to reduce an excessive donation on the date that the testament is filed for probate. Draper v. Van Leer, supra; Succession of Dancie, 191 La. 518, 186 So. 14 (1939); Perrodin v. Clement, 254 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3 Cir. 1971), writ denied, 256 So.2d 642 (La. 1972). It is our opinion that the trial court incorrectly characterized plaintiff's action as one for an entire succession.
Prescription on an action to annual a testament begins to run on the date the will was probated. Perrodin v. Clement [La.App.], ( 254 So.2d 704).. Prescription normally would be interrupted by the filing of a suit, L.S.A. C.C. Art. 3518, but the plaintiff's motion to dismiss his suit of February, 1967, had the effect to treating the interruption as having never happened. L.S.A. C.C. Art. 3519.