The Civil Code Illustrated

A Free Educational Coloring Book

The Civil Code Illustrated

A Louisiana Law Coloring Book

The law you are coloring is older than the country it belongs to.

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69 pages · 26 doctrines · US-Letter, print-at-home · Free

What it is

A coloring book that takes the law seriously and assumes you can too. Each of its twenty-six doctrines gets a single two-page spread: one page to read, one page to color. Nothing is dumbed down. A child finds a good drawing; a lawyer finds the doctrine they half-remember from a 1L exam, and the case that settled it.

Book I: Of Persons

Putative Marriage

putativus: reputed, supposed; from Latin putare, to reckon

La. Civ. Code art. 96

Civilian Commentary

A marriage can be null from the very first day and still leave real consequences behind it. Louisiana, ever practical, lets a spouse who honestly believed the marriage was valid keep its civil effects (legitimacy, property, support) for as long as the belief was held in good faith. The law declines to punish sincerity for the failures of form.

The Case

Succession of Burns, 2022-C-00263 (La. 12/9/22), 354 So. 3d 1197. The decedent’s purported divorce from his first wife had been invalid, leaving him at his death with one legal spouse and one good-faith putative spouse. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the putative spouse, having married in good faith, owned an undivided one-half interest in the putative community; the decedent’s children inherited his half subject to her usufruct. The doctrine survives most cleanly where good faith (not legal validity) does its work.

Coloring-book line drawing for the doctrine of putative marriage, the right-hand illustration page of the sample spread.
A wedding that wasn’t, treated as though it almost was.

Left page: the concept, its Latin or French roots, the Civil Code citation, a short Civilian Commentary, and a real Louisiana case. Right page: a full-page line drawing to color, with one caption underneath written so a child and a lawyer each get something from it.

The four Books

The book is organized like the Civil Code itself (four Books, in order) and walks through twenty-six doctrines that together sketch the civilian tradition Louisiana kept when every other state let it go.

  1. Book I

    Of Persons

    Who the law recognizes, and on what terms: marriage and its near-misses, what spouses come to own together and what one is owed when the other dies, and the people the law speaks for when they cannot speak for themselves.

    Putative marriage · tutorship · marital portion · community property

  2. Book II

    Of Things

    Ownership and all the ways it can be carved up, shared, lent, and quietly enlarged by a moving river. The civilian law of property, where a thing can have a naked owner and a usufructuary at the same time and nobody is confused.

    Corporeal vs. incorporeal things · movables vs. immovables · civil vs. natural fruits · usufruct · naked ownership · predial servitudes · accession (alluvion) · possession (bona fide / mala fide) · acquisitive prescription · liberative prescription

  3. Book III

    Of Obligations

    The bonds people tie themselves into: by contract, by accident, by the simple fact of being neighbors. Why a promise binds, when a bad bargain can be undone, and how a hidden defect can unwind a sale.

    Stipulation pour autrui · negotiorum gestio · solidary obligations · lesion beyond moiety · redhibition · mandate · cause

  4. Book IV

    Of Successions & Donations

    How things pass at death and by gift, including forced heirship, the rule that tells Louisiana parents they cannot simply disinherit their children, and the old prohibition on tying property up for generations after you are gone.

    Forced heirship / légitime · commorientes · donations inter vivos · donations mortis causa · substitution / fideicommissum

Twenty-six doctrines in all, from alluvion to fideicommissum, each with its own spread.

Download the free PDF

Both versions are free and laid out on US-Letter pages, ready to print at home. If you mean to print and color it (and you should), start with the print-ready edition.

Recommended for printing

Print-ready edition

Paginated for double-sided home printing, so every two-page spread lands on facing sheets: the explanation and the drawing it belongs to, together. Print it, staple it, color it.

PDF · 72 pages · US-Letter · ≈ 5 MB

Download print-ready PDF

As composed

Original edition

The book exactly as it was set, page for page, ideal for reading on screen, or for printing single-sided. Same twenty-six doctrines, same drawings.

PDF · 69 pages · US-Letter · ≈ 5 MB

Download original PDF

No sign-up, no email, no cost. Color it, photocopy it for a classroom, hand it to a first-year law student. That is the point.

About Logical Appeals, LLC

Logical Appeals is an appellate practice. Appeals are where the quiet machinery beneath a case finally gets named out loud: the doctrine that was doing the real work all along, once the witnesses have gone home and only the principle is left to argue.

This book is that same care with the briefs set aside and the crayons out. Same care for the rule beneath the result; fewer footnotes. We made it free because the civilian tradition Louisiana kept is worth knowing, whether you argue it for a living or are simply coloring inside its lines for the first time.

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