On Friday, 6 November 2026, state appeals judges brought the long-running dispute to an end. They ruled that the 73-year-old landowner has the legal right to stop her neighbours from driving beyond the first 1,000 feet of the unpaved road. The dispute first went to the local courts in 2015.
The appeals court also confirmed her property rights and kept a permanent court order in place. Living beside a quiet country road in French Settlement, Louisiana, Mona Matherne spent more than ten years trying to stop her neighbours from using a private stretch of land that passes her home. Marshall and Mark Parker. The order prevents her neighbours from entering the private section of the road or harassing her in any way.
The Louisiana Court of Appeal for the First Circuit upheld an earlier decision in the case of Mona Matherne v.
Matherne bought her country home at 18400 Legion Road in French Settlement in 2007. Her property runs along the eastern side of the road, which connects directly to Louisiana Highway 16. In 2015, Matherne asked a court in Livingston Parish to stop them from using the road.
She also reported several incidents of threatening behaviour.
This meant driving past her home and crossing land that she said belonged entirely to her. The Parkers denied the accusations and said they had a legal right to use the road. They argued that Legion Road had become public through a legal process known as “tacit dedication”. They said parish officials had maintained the road several times over the years, which they believed had made the entire stretch a public road.
Her neighbours, Mark Parker and his relative Marshall Parker, own land further along the road. Mark owns land directly across from Matherne, while Marshall owns a nearby property. The disagreement started when Matherne noticed that the Parkers regularly used the full length of Legion Road to reach their properties. She argued that Legion Road was not public beyond its first section and accused the Parkers of trespassing on her land. She claimed that Mark Parker had repeatedly confronted and threatened her. She further accused him of displaying a firearm during separate incidents.