GUIDRY, Justice.

We accepted the certified question presented to this court by the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, in MCI Communications Services, Inc. v. Hagan, 641 F.3d 112 (5th Cir.2011).1 The question is this: "Is the proposed jury instruction in this case, which states that `[a] Defendant may be held liable for an inadvertent trespass resulting from an intentional act,' a correct statement of Louisiana law when the trespass at issue is the severing of an underground cable located on property owned by one of the alleged trespass[e]rs, and the property is not subject to a servitude by the owners of the underground cable but only to the contractual right to keep it, as an existing cable, underneath the property?" For the reasons that follow, we answer this question in the negative.

FACTS and PROCEDURAL HISTORY

We decide this certified question on the facts as presented to us by the Court of Appeals. This case arose out of an incident in which an underground cable owned by MCI Communications Services, Inc. (hereinafter, "MCI"), was allegedly severed. MCI filed suit against Wayne Hagan and James Joubert alleging theories of negligence and trespass. MCI alleged that Joubert was negligently excavating with a backhoe in violation of the Louisiana Damage Prevention Act (Louisiana Underground Utilities and Facilities Damage Prevention Law), La.Rev.Stat. 40:1749.11 et seq.2 MCI alleged Hagan was vicariously liable because Joubert was acting as his agent at the time.3 The underground cable at issue was buried in part under land owned by Hagan. After a trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the jury found for Hagan and Joubert. The district court awarded attorneys' fees to Hagan and Joubert under La.Rev.Stat. 40:1749.14(F) of the Damage Prevention Act. MCI appealed to the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, asserting four separate grounds, only one of which is relevant to our decision today: MCI contended the district court erred when it refused to give the jury MCI's proposed instruction on trespass.

According to the Court of Appeals, on January 20, 2006, defendant Joubert allegedly severed MCI's underground fiber-optic cable while using a backhoe on defendant Hagan's property. MCI contended at trial that the backhoe was being used to install a concrete boat ramp. Hagan and Joubert contended that in the week prior, the two friends decided to go duck hunting on property owned by Hagan. When hunting together, they typically launched an airboat from a boat ramp into a canal on the property. Joubert alleged that he went to Hagan's property on January 20, 2006, to see if Hagan had cleared driftwood from the canal, which needed to be done before they could launch the airboat. Joubert contended that he then drove Hagan's backhoe onto a concrete boat ramp to clear the driftwood before leaving the property. The defendants returned the next day to hunt and found MCI contractors on the property working on repairing the severed cable.

Hagan had acquired the property in 2004 from Illinois Central Gulf Railroad (hereinafter, "Illinois Central"). MCI alleges that in 1984, its predecessor entered into an agreement with Illinois Central to install and operate a telecommunication system on Illinois Central's property, and that the property in question was added to the agreement in 1985. MCI contends that in Hagan's purchase agreement with Illinois Central, Hagan agreed not to interfere with any previously bargained for rights to continue operating all existing utilities.

As evidence of Hagan's negligence, MCI asserted Hagan had violated the requirements of the Damage Prevention Act. Hagan asserted a counterclaim against MCI for trespass on his property. The district court ruled that MCI had failed to establish that it had a servitude over Hagan's property, but that MCI did have a right to keep its existing cable on Hagan's property due to the contents of the Act of Sale between Hagan and Illinois Central. The district court dismissed Hagan's counterclaim on these grounds. Hagan did not appeal from that ruling. The case was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict finding that Joubert and Hagan were not negligent. No other findings were made, according to the Court of Appeals, because the remaining jury questions submitted were all contingent on a finding of negligence on the part of at least one of the two defendants. The district court awarded attorneys' fees to Hagan and Joubert under the provision in the Damage Prevention Act that allows for such fees if the "excavators" prevail in a suit to enforce the act. La.Rev.Stat. 40:1749.14(F).

During the trial, MCI objected to the district court's refusal to submit to the jury MCI's proposed instruction regarding trespass to the cable. The district court judge responded that he felt "that it's a part of the negligence aspect of the case" and that because MCI did not have a servitude, he thought it was not "an appropriate charge." MCI's requested instruction on trespass reads in relevant part:

According to the Court of Appeals, the evidence presented at trial would, in its view, be sufficient to support a finding that the MCI cable was struck and damaged by movement of the backhoe intentionally made by Joubert as he operated it with Hagan's permission, and on his behalf, although Joubert and Hagan did not intend for the backhoe to strike the underground cable, which they did not see and the precise location of which they did not know. MCI contended the district court erred when it refused to submit to the jury its proposed instruction on trespass and the requisite intent therefor. MCI's view was that Louisiana law defines trespass as an unlawful physical invasion of property in the possession of another, and the only intent required is the trespasser's intent to perform the act which constitutes the trespass.

Because the district court ruled before trial that MCI did not have a servitude, the Court of Appeals found MCI was not entitled to recover for a trespass to land. However, though MCI apparently did not assert as much, the Court of Appeals opined that MCI may be entitled to have the jury instructed on a claim of trespass to chattels, which that court described as a claim for damages to personal property of the plaintiff—the personal property in this case being MCI's underground cable. Because it believed that Louisiana courts have not considered the intent standard applicable to claims of trespass to underground cables, and because it found no clear consensus either within the Fifth Circuit or across all jurisdictions as to whether strict liability in a trespass action is an appropriate standard for damage to underground utilities by excavators, the Court of Appeals declined to determine whether MCI's proposed jury instruction was an accurate statement of Louisiana trespass law as it pertains to damage to underground utilities.

In deciding to invoke the certification privilege granted by Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XII, the Court of Appeals reasoned that, if MCI's requested jury instruction was a substantially correct statement of Louisiana law, then it was reversible error for the trial court not to have given that instruction, and MCI would be entitled to a new trial on the theory of trespass. Otherwise, if the requested jury instruction is not a substantially correct statement of Louisiana law, a new trial on the merits would not be required.

DISCUSSION

Inherent in the Fifth Circuit's question is whether Louisiana law provides for a distinct tort of trespass to movables akin to that of the common law claim of trespass to chattels. As the Fifth Circuit noted, MCI did not cite, nor does it do so in this court, to any Louisiana court cases that deal specifically with the intent standard for trespass to chattels. More pertinently, however, MCI has not cited to any Louisiana case recognizing a tort of trespass to chattels, much less one in the form of a trespass to underground cable, which the Fifth Circuit understandably presumed was a chattel, or a movable under Louisiana law, rather than immovable property. It is this latter issue on which our decision today turns.

In its presentation to this court, MCI makes two arguments. MCI first argues that it has some possessory interest in Mr. Hagan's immovable property by virtue of either the agreement among MCI's and Mr. Hagan's predecessors, which agreement was perpetuated in the Act of Cash Sale, or, as MCI stressed in oral argument, simply because of its cable's physical proximity to and direct contact with the dirt underlying Mr. Hagan's property.4 MCI thus argues that Hagan and Joubert committed a trespass by unlawfully and physically invading upon MCI's possessory interest in immovable property when the backhoe they were intentionally operating inadvertently came in contact with the cable and the dirt surrounding it. We dispose of this first argument by noting the federal district court already determined that MCI had no servitude over Mr. Hagan's land, and thus, under Louisiana law, MCI had no possessory interest in Mr. Hagan's land.5 The Court of Appeals accepted the district court's finding; thus, the federal courts have previously found that MCI had merely a contractual right to leave its cable on Mr. Hagan's land at the time of the incident involving the backhoe.6 Indeed, the Court of Appeals repeatedly pointed out in its opinion that MCI did not have a servitude over Mr. Hagan's property. Consequently, we decline to decide anew or otherwise review a factual and legal determination that was settled in the federal courts.

MCI next argues that it can recover in trespass regardless of whether Hagan and Joubert were negligent so long as they intended to perform the act of operating the backhoe, which resulted in the trespass, i.e., contact with its cable or that portion of Mr. Hagan's land in which MCI had some possessory interest. However, the issue of whether MCI had some possessory interest in the property has already been resolved against MCI.7

Essentially, the Fifth Circuit's inquiry is whether Louisiana law recognizes a distinct tort of "trespass to chattels" and, if so, can a "trespass to chattels" be committed inadvertently if it results from an otherwise intentional act. No party has cited to any case or treatise discussing the common law claim of trespass to chattels. Black's Law Dictionary defines trespass to chattels as "[t]he act of committing without lawful justification, any act of direct physical interference with a chattel possessed by another. The act must amount to a direct forcible injury." Black's Law Dictionary, p. 1643 (9th ed.2009). Some Louisiana commentators have discussed the claim of trespass to chattels. "Trespass to chattels is the intentional intermeddling with a chattel (movable) in the possession of another that damages the chattel, reduces its value, or deprives the possessor of the use of the chattel for a significant period of time." Frank L. Maraist and Thomas C. Galligan, Jr., Louisiana Tort Law, § 2.06[8], p. 2-34 (2004) (emphasis supplied). These commentators note the tort of trespass to movables is generally treated as a conversion in Louisiana. Id., p. 2-35.8 See also 12 William E. Crawford, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise; Tort Law (2d ed. 2009) ("The taking or damage of movable property in the possession of another is regarded as a trespass. It happens often when repossession through self-help is exercised."). The Restatement (Second) of Torts explains that a trespass to chattel "may be committed by intentionally (a) dispossessing another of the chattel, or (b) using or intermeddling with a chattel in the possession of another." Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 217 (1965) (emphasis supplied).9 Thus, the common law claim of trespass to chattels appears to require intent to interfere with another's interest in movable property before an action for trespass to chattels may lie.10

At any rate, in Louisiana, the victim of an intentional intermeddling with a movable in the possession of another, or even accidental damage to a movable that belongs to another, which is the more apt description under the facts of this case, has an adequate remedy under the law of tort without recourse to the common law trespass to chattels. La. Civ.Code art. 2315(A) provides that "[e]very act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it." As we noted in Dual Drilling Co. v. Mills Equipment Investments, Inc., 98-0343 (La.12/1/98), 721 So.2d 853, 856, in rejecting the adoption of the strict liability remedy of the common law action of conversion, "[o]ur civilian remedies amply protect personal and real rights in movable property and should not be obscured by an application of common law . . . principles." Thus, MCI had available to it, as the owner of a movable allegedly damaged by the fault of another, the delictual action in tort.11 Moreover, the Louisiana legislature has created specific statutes regarding damage to underground cables in the above-described Damage Prevention Law, placing certain statutory duties upon the excavator. However, a violation of the statute does not result in either strict civil liability or negligence per se; instead, the failure of an excavator to detect the presence of an underground utility as required by statute subjects the excavator to delictual liability under the theory of negligence, and any statutory violation is considered in the traditional duty-risk analysis. See, e.g., Bellsouth Telecommunications, Inc. v. Eustis Engineering Co., Inc., 07-865 (La.App. 4 Cir. 12/9/07), 974 So.2d 749. Thus, the federal district court was correct in determining that MCI's "trespass" claim was "part of the negligence aspect of the case—or the claim of negligence."12

We therefore answer the question certified to us in the negative: The proposed jury instruction in this case, which states in part that "[a] Defendant may be held liable for an inadvertent trespass resulting from an intentional act," is not a correct statement of Louisiana law when the "trespass" at issue is the severing of an underground cable located on property owned by one of the alleged trespassers, and the property is not subject to a servitude by the owners of the underground cable but only to the contractual right to keep it, as an existing cable, underneath the property.

DECREE

We answer the certified question as set forth in this opinion. Pursuant to Rule XII, Supreme Court of Louisiana, the judgment rendered by this court upon the question certified shall be sent by the clerk of this court under its seal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and to the parties.

CERTIFIED QUESTION ANSWERED