Definition
A compte arreté (French: "closed account" or "settled account") is an account stated in writing and acknowledged as correct on its face by the party against whom it is rendered. The acknowledgment by the debtor party is the operative act — it transforms a mere accounting record into a binding statement of obligation. The doctrine is rooted in French civil law and retains its primary significance in Louisiana, where civilian legal tradition governs commercial and private obligations.
The concept functions similarly to the common law "account stated" but carries the additional formality of written acknowledgment. Once a compte arreté is established, the party who acknowledged it is generally precluded from disputing the underlying calculations without showing fraud, error, or other grounds sufficient to reopen a settled account.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Louisiana legal history will encounter this term in commercial dispute records, succession proceedings, and merchant account litigation, particularly from the antebellum and early post-Civil War periods. It appears with higher frequency in Louisiana reports than in any other American jurisdiction, reflecting the state's civilian heritage.
The critical research trap: do not treat compte arreté and the common law "account stated" as interchangeable when working with Louisiana sources. While they overlap in outcome — creating a binding obligation — their doctrinal foundations differ. Louisiana courts in the nineteenth century sometimes reasoned from civilian principles about acknowledgment and proof that have no direct common law analogue. A researcher importing common law authority on account stated into a Louisiana compte arreté dispute will be working across a doctrinal seam.
The Paschal v. Union Bank of Louisiana citation (9 La. Ann. 484) cited in Black's 2nd edition is the anchor case referenced across all three source dictionaries. Researchers should treat this as the primary judicial authority for the term's American legal definition and locate the full opinion for doctrinal depth — the dictionary entries reproduce only the definitional holding.
For corpus searches, search both the French form ("compte arreté" or "compte arrete") and English glosses ("account stated," "account settled," "account acknowledged"). Historical Louisiana records may use the French form in documents drafted in that language, with English translations in subsequent pleadings or opinions.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — Bouvier's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Black's 2nd edition — offer substantively identical definitions, suggesting that all three drew from the same Louisiana judicial source rather than independently analyzing the term. The Paschal citation appears explicitly in Black's and implicitly (same volume and page) in Bouvier's and Rapalje. This convergence tells researchers that the historical dictionary record adds little doctrinal texture beyond what the case itself provides.
What the dictionaries do not address: the procedural effect of a compte arreté in Louisiana litigation — specifically, the burden that shifts to the acknowledging party to overcome the account's presumed correctness. For that dimension, practitioners of the period would have looked to Louisiana civil law treatises and civilian commentary rather than English-language law dictionaries.
None of the three dictionaries address what formalities constitute a sufficient written acknowledgment, leaving that question to case law development.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is essentially confined to Louisiana law. It has no recognized application in common law jurisdictions, where the doctrine of account stated performs a comparable but doctrinally distinct function. Researchers encountering the term outside Louisiana sources should treat the appearance as either a direct reference to Louisiana law or a civil law-influenced transaction.