Short answer. No. Article 1685 protects a tenant who farms land on shares: he cannot be ejected except in the cases specified by law. The landowner's mere wish to remove him is not enough. Ejectment must rest on a ground the law recognizes, not on the owner's will alone.
What the law says
The tenant on shares cannot be ejected except in cases specified by law.
Civil Code, Article 1685 — Ejectment of a Share Tenant. Read the full provision →
A share tenant is not a tenant at will
A tenant on shares works another's land and divides the harvest with the owner, and the law does not leave that arrangement at the owner's whim. Article 1685 provides that the tenant on shares cannot be ejected except in cases specified by law. This means the relationship carries a measure of security: the owner cannot simply decide, without more, that he no longer wants the tenant on the land. The tenant's continued possession is protected unless a legally recognised ground for removing him exists.
Ejectment needs a legal ground
The heart of the rule is that removal must be justified by law, not by preference. An owner who wants to eject a share tenant has to point to a ground the law actually allows, and to establish it. A bare desire to take the land back, to install a different tenant, or to end the arrangement for no permitted reason does not qualify. This shifts the question from what the owner wants to what the law permits, and puts on the owner the burden of showing that a lawful cause for ejectment is present.
Part of a broader security of tenure
Article 1685 reflects a wider policy that agricultural tenants should enjoy security of tenure rather than hold at the landowner's pleasure. Over time, agrarian reform and tenancy legislation have reinforced and expanded that protection for farmers who till the land, spelling out the limited grounds and procedures for dispossession. The Civil Code rule is an early expression of the same idea: those who work the land on shares are not to be turned out arbitrarily, but only for causes the law defines.
What this means on the ground
For a share tenant, the practical reassurance is that he cannot be lawfully driven off simply because the owner changed his mind. For a landowner, it is a caution that ending the arrangement requires a legal basis and, usually, the proper process, not a unilateral eviction. Where a dispute arises, the decisive question is whether the ground relied on is one the law specifies, because only such a ground can support the ejectment of a tenant on shares.